OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 117 



of the fur trade : On the tributaries of the Saginaw 

 and the Grand, on the St. Joseph and the Kalamazoo, 

 and by the Lake Superior shore, while Mackinac and 

 the "Soo" were famous outfitting points and places 

 of concentration for the enormous traffic in peltries 

 throughout Michigan and the great Northwest. Some 

 interior points Avere designated by names of house- 

 hold familiarity among the pioneers of Michigan. 

 It was thus with Knagg's place and Williams' ex- 

 change in the Shiawassee Valley and Campau's post 

 on the Saginaw. Hither the trapper brought his 

 catch of beaver, so much an article of barter in the 

 fur country that it served as currency in lieu of coin. 

 The slaughter began with the Indians and the French 

 and has never ceased even to this hour. It brought 

 extermination to the buffalo, the elk, the moose, the 

 caribou, the panther and the wolverine, as also to 

 the passenger pigeon and the wild turkey.^ The State 

 Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner refers 

 to estimates by dealers in the 1920 fur trade, which 

 put the catch of furs in that year as selling from 

 three to six million dollars; and the Commissioner 

 estimates the normal annual output in Michigan as 

 worth two million dollars. - 



Beaver and other furs are still secured, but re- 

 course has recently been had to the creation of an 

 artificial supply through the propagation of highly 

 valuable species of foxes. In 1920 the Bureau of 



^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXIII, 358. 

 * Kept. Midi. State Came, Fish and Forest Fire Dept. of 

 the Public Domain Commission, 1919-1920, 8. 



