Beaver 451 



1805-06 Portage la Prairie, 116; Dog Lake, 103; 

 Fort Wasp Mountain ( ?), 284; Grand 

 Forks, 342; Pembina River, 776 . . 1621 



1806-07 Portage la Prairie, 47; Middle Creek, 72; Sand- 

 hill River, Minn., 500 ; Pembina River, 565 1 1 84 



1807-08 Netley Creek, 54; Pembina Mountain, 53; 



Grand Forks, 150; Pembina River, 339 596 



An average of 1,587 a year for eight years from a region 

 that was probably about 40,000 square miles, or about i to each 

 25 square miles, which is very low, even though there were 

 several rival traders in the country collecting each an equal 

 amount of fur. Henry abandoned the region on August 8, 

 1808, giving as a reason "the country being almost destitute 

 of Beaver and other fur,"^ etc. 



In the early 8o's Professor Macoun found Beaver very 

 numerous in the Red Deer River country near Fort Pelly. 

 In 1883 I found a few in Duck Mountain; in 1886 they were 

 very scarce everywhere, even about such famous Beaver ranges 

 as Lake of the Woods and the northern country generally. In 

 the south-western parts of the Province they were unknown. 



At the present time, owing to good game laws, they are on 

 the increase. 



The average annual total of Beaver skins brought out by ^^ 

 the American fur companies and the Hudson's Bay Company 

 for the period between i860 and 1870, when the fur trade was 

 at its height, is, in round numbers, 153,000. But the natives 

 used as many good pelts as they sold and seldom saved the 

 skins of those taken in summer, though they killed for food the 

 whole year round. So that 500,000 per annum is more likely 

 to represent the aggregate destruction by man. This was at 

 least doubled by other agencies, and the total annual death 

 rate would reach not less than 1,000,000. 



This evidently was more than they could stand, for their 

 numbers steadily dwindled. A creature breeding as fast as a 



* Henry's Journal, p. 256. 



