NO. 1405. MAMMALS OF NORTHWEST TERRITORIES— MACFARLANE. 745 



that one or two of the compan3'\s ships faik^d in niakino- iho annual 

 round voyajre lietween London and Hudson Bay. 1 think it is a mat- 

 ter of regret that neither of the two recent historians of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, while throwino- nuich light on the earlier and some of 

 their later trade operations, have not also given us some definite state- 

 ments of their yearly fur shipments and sales, which would have been 

 generally appreciated. Mr. Beckles Willson has, however, given an 

 interesting account of the company's first London public sale, which 

 took place on January 24, 1672. On this occasion the o,<)0»> weight of 

 beaver were put ii}) in thirty lots, and fetched from 136 to .55 shillings 

 (a pound probably). The other furs and peltries, ))ear, luarten, and 

 otter, etc., were reserved for a separate and sub.sequent auction, while 

 previous receipts from the bay had been disposed of by pri\ate 

 treaty. 



This first official sale, as it subsequently proved, of a series of great transactions 

 which for upward of two centuries have made London the center of the world's fur 

 trade, excited the greatest interest, and both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, 

 besides Dryden, the poet, were among the many spectators. Previous to the advent 

 of Canadian traders from the east, the Indians of the surrounding counti-y were wont 

 to asseml)le in the spring at Lake \yinnipeg to the number of perhaps 1,500, where 

 also birch-bark canoes were built. Six hundred of these containing a thousand 

 hunters, exclusive of women, came down annually to York factory with furs to 

 trade. Beaver were very numerous in those days, and a great many were wasted in 

 various ways, often as clothing and bedding. Not a few were hung on trees as 

 native offerings upon the death of a child or near relation; occasionally the fur was 

 burned off, and the beaver roasted whole for food banquets among the Indians. 



He further states that in 1742, two large expeditions of natives from 

 the interior came down to York and Churchill (Fort Prince of Wales). 

 One of them had 2(»(> packs of 100 skins each (20,000 beaver, probal)ly 

 from Lake Winnipeg country), and the other 300 packs of loo each 

 (30,000 beaver and 9,000 martens). This made a total of 50,000 

 beaver received fi-om ))oth "'expeditions.''' I take it that these came 

 from the Chipewyan Indians of the distant Athabasca and intervening- 

 country, reaching Churchill by way of the English and Churchill 

 rivers. 



Doctor Br3'ce, in his concise history, writes that so eliective and 

 successful were the operations of the great Northwest Company of 

 Montreal, that toward the end of the eighteenth century, a single 

 year's trade produce was enormous, and comprised lo6,000 beaver, 

 32,000 martens, 11,800 minks, 17,000 musquash, and 17.000 skins of 

 other animals. Still, if we knew the total Hudson's Bay Company's 

 catch for that year, 1 doubt if both returns of ))eaver would much 

 exceed the total of 172,042 skins, given in the London fur sale state- 

 ment for 1867. From 1858 to 1884, the district of Athabasca con- 

 tributed 445,014, or an average of 17.11() a year to the company's 

 London sales. The average I'oi- the selfsame posts for the live outii's 



