PIONEER HUNTERS OF THE K.ANKAK.KE 



into this country for the sale of iurs amounts to 

 between sixty-five and seventy-five thousand 

 dallars every year, that the revenue for furs 

 alone from 1850 to 1900 amounts to over 

 three million dollars. Furs vary greatly in 

 price from one year to the next. But only dur- 

 ing the fifty years was there one good prime rat 

 hide brought in selling for thirty-three cents. In 

 those days a musk-rat hide would bring from 

 three to ten cents a hide. Father predicted that 

 the day would come when a good prime rat 

 shin would sell for a dollar. Fifty-two years 

 later in 1920 his prediction came true, when he 

 saw good prime rat skins sell for four dollars 

 and ten cents apiece. In those days it took a 

 rat skin to buy a common sewing needle. A 

 French fur trader by the name of Cuttauh from 

 Detroit, Michigan, used to buy furs in this re- 

 gion and he told the trappers' wives that they 

 had better buy in a good supply of needles, as 

 the needle-maker was dead and that they would 

 not get any more needles very soon. Upon the 



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