245 



FURS AND THE FUR-TRADE. 



FURS AND THE FUR-TRADE. 



240 



company takes its name. This association founded several establish- 

 ments, and has ever since prosecuted the trade under the direction of 

 a. governor, deputy-governor, and a committee of management chosen 

 from among the proprietors of the joint-stock, and resident in London. 

 The company's charter not being confirmed by act of parliament, it 

 was considered that all British subjects were entitled to engage in the 

 trade with those regions ; and, in conformity with this notion, a part- 

 nership was formed in 1783 under the name of the North-West Com- 

 pany, which proved a powerful competitor. This company consisted of 

 twenty-three shareholders or partners, comprising some of the most 

 wealthy and influential British settlers in Canada, and employed about 

 2000 persons as clerks, guides, interpreters, and boatmen or voyayciirs, 

 who were distributed over the face of the country. Such of the share- 

 holders as took an active part were called agents ; some of them resided 

 at the different ports established by the company in the Indian terri- 

 tory, and others at Quebec and Montreal, where each attended to the 

 affairs of the association. These active partner^ met once in every 

 year at Fort William, one of their stations near the Grand Portage on 

 Lake Superior, in order to discuss the affairs'of the company and agree 

 upon plans for the future. The young men who were employed as 

 clerks were, for the most part, the younger members of respectable 

 families in Scotland, who were willing to undergo the hardships and 

 privations accompanying a residence for some years in these countries, 

 that they might secure the advantage of succeeding in turn to a share 

 in the profits of the undertaking : the partners, as others died or 

 retired, being taken from among those who, as clerks, had acquired the 

 experience necessary for the management of the business. This com- 

 pany had a settlement, called Fort Chippewyan, so far west as the 

 Lake of the Hills, in 110 26' W. long. ; and some of the Indians who 

 traded with the persons stationed at this fort came from beyond the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



A great degree of jealousy and hostility arose between the respective 

 agents of the Hudson's Bay and North- West companies, which more or 

 less impeded the operations of both parties for several years, until in 

 1821 a junction of the two was effected, and the trade has since been 

 prosecuted peacefully and successfully. Their presumed exclusive right 

 of trading throughout the vast region which they have made the 

 scene of their operations, is still guarded with extreme jealousy, as we 

 shall see further on. All the furs collected by the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany are shipped to London, some from then- factories of York Fort 

 and Moose River, in Hudson's Bay ; other portions from Montreal ; 

 and the remainder from the Columbia Kiver. 



The fur-trade is prosecuted in the north-western territories of the 

 United States by an association called the North American Fur Com- 

 pany, the principal managers of which reside in New York. The 

 chief station of this company is Michilimackinac, to which are brought 

 all the peltries collected at the other ports on the Mississippi, Missouri, 

 and Yellowstone rivers, and through the great range of country ex- 

 tending thence to the Rocky Mountain'; This company employs 

 steam-boats for ascending the rivers, which penetrate with ease to 

 regions which could formerly be explored only through ihe most 

 painful exertions in keel-boats and barges, or by small parties on 

 horseback or on foot. 



We shall here notice a few of Ihe principal *ur-bearing animals, 

 referring the -eader to the NATURAL HISTORY DIVISION for more 

 specific information. 



The ermine, called by way of pre-eminence " the precious ermine," is 

 found almost exclusively in the cold regions of Europe and Asia. The 

 float, which in fact is identical with the ermine, but the fur of which 

 is greatly inferior to that of the European and Asiatic animal, is found 

 in Xnrth America. The fur of the ermine is of a pure whiteness 

 tlir in^hout, with the exception of the tip of the tail, which is black; 

 and the spotted appearance of ermine skins, by which they are pecu- 

 liarly known, is produced by fastening these black tips at intervals on 

 the skins. The animal is from 14 to 16 inches long from the nose to 

 the tip of the tail, the body being from 10 to 12 inches long. The 

 best fur is yielded by the oldest animals. They are taken by snares 

 and in traps, and are sometimes shot, while running, with blunt arrows. 

 The table is a native of Northern Europe and Siberia. The skins of 

 best quality are procured by the Samoids.and in Yakutsk, Kamtchatka, 

 and Russian Lapland : those of the darkest colour are the most 

 esteemed. The length of the sable is from 18 to 20 inches. It has 

 been considered by some naturalists a variety of the pine-marten. 

 Marleim are found in North America as well as in Northern Asia and 

 the moontailM of Kamtehatka: the American skins are generally the 

 Ita8t t valucd, but many among them are rich and of a beautiful dark- 

 lii-nwn olive colour. The /er>/ fox, so called from its brilliant red 

 colour, is taken near the north-eastern coast of Asia, and its fur is 

 much valued, both for its colour and fineness, in that quarter of the 

 world. AV/'<rio skins are obtained from South America, and the greater 

 importations in this country come from the states of the 

 Kio de la Plata. These skins are of comparatively recent introduction, 

 having first become an article of commerce in 1810 : the fur is chiefly 

 used by hat-manufacturers, as a substitute for beaver. Sea-Otter skins 

 were first sought for their fur in thy early part of the 18th century, 

 they were brought to Western Europe from the Aleutian and 

 i<ls ; where, as well as in Bearing's Island, Kamtehatka, and 

 the neighbouring American shores, sea-otters are found in great numbers. 



The fur of the young animal is of a beautiful brown colour, but when 

 older the colour becomes jet-black. The fur is exceedingly fine, soft, 

 and close, and bears a silky gloss. Towards the close of the 18th cen- 

 tury furs had become exceedingly scarce in Siberia, and it became 

 necessary to look to fresh sources for the supply of China and other 

 Asiatic countries. It was about the year 1780 that sea-otter skins 

 were first carried to China, where they realised such high prices as 

 greatly to stimulate the search for them. With this view several 

 expeditions were made from the United States and from England to 

 the northern islands of the Pacific and to Nootka Sound, as well as to 

 the north-west coast of America. The Russians then held and still 

 hold the tract of country most favourable for this purpose, but the 

 trading ships which frequent the coast are enabled to procure these 

 skins from the Indians. Fur-seals are found in great numbers in the 

 colder latitudes of the southern hemisphere. South Georgia, hi 55 

 S. lat., was explored by Captain Cook in 1771, and immediately there- 

 after was resorted to by the colonists of British America, who conveyed 

 great numbers of seal skins thence to China, where very high prices 

 were obtained. The South Shetland Islands, in 63 S. lat., were 

 greatly resorted to by seals, and soon after the discovery of these 

 islands in 1818, great numbers were taken : in 1821 and 1822 the 

 number of seal skins taken on these islands alone amounted to 320,000. 

 Owing to the system of extermination pursued by the hunters, these 

 animals are now almost extinct in all those islands, and the trade for 

 a time at least has ceased. The seal-fishery, or hunting, in the Lobos 

 Islands, is placed under restrictive regulations by the government of 

 Montevideo, and by this means the supply of animals upon them is 

 kept pretty regular. Bean of various kinds and colours, many 

 varieties of foxes, beavers, racoons, badijerg, minks, lijn.res, musk-nit*, 

 rabbits, hares, and squirrels, are procured in North America. Of all 

 the American varieties, the fur of the black fox, sometimes called 

 the silver fox, is the most valuable ; next to that in value is the 

 fur of the red fox, which is exported to China, where it is used for 

 trimmings, linings, and robes, which are ornamented in spots or 

 waves with the black fur of the paws of the same animal. The fur 

 of the silver fo.c is also highly esteemed. This is a scarce animal, 

 inhabiting the woody country below the falls of the Columbia river. 

 It has long thick fur of a deep lead colour, intermingled with long 

 hairs white at the top, forming a lustrous silver-gray, whence the 

 animal derives its name. The hides of bisons (improperly called buffa- 

 loes), of the iheep of the Rocky Mountains, and of various kinds of 

 deer, form part of the f ur-trade of North America ; and sometimes the 

 skin of the white Arctic fox and of the Polar bear are found in the 

 packs brought to the European traders by the most northern tribes of 

 Indians. There is but one species of fur which is peculiar to England, 

 the si/rer-tifijied rabbit of Lincolnshire. The colour of the fur is gray 

 of different shades, mixed with longer hairs tipped with white. This 

 fur is but little used in England, but meets a ready sale in Russia and 

 China ; the dark-coloured skins are preferred in the former country, 

 and the lighter-coloured in China. 



The fur-sales of the Hudson's Bay Company are held every year in 

 the month of March, and being of great magnitude, they attract many 

 foreign merchants to London. The purchases of these foreigners are 

 chiefly sent to the great fair at Leipsic, whence the furs are distributed 

 to all parts of the continent of Europe. 



Circumstances of a remarkable kind have recently given a new 

 interest to the American fur-trade, in relation to its political, pro- 

 prietary, and commercial aspects. In the articles HUDSON'S BAY 

 TERRITORIES, OREGON, and VANCOUVER, in the GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION 

 of this Cyclopaedia, an account is given of the mode in which the 

 Hudson's Bay Company's operations received an extension on the coast 

 of the Pacific. Since the period when those articles were published, 

 important events have occurred which call for some notice here, 

 seeing that they are likely to affect the future course of the fur-trade. 



In 1856 gold was discovered on the banks of Fraser River, within a 

 short distance of Vancouver Island, about 800 miles north of San 

 Francisco, in California; and in 1857 the discovery was amply con- 

 firmed. The region belonged to England, but had been only in- 

 teresting to Englishmen in so far as the Hudson's Bay Company had 

 established fur-hunting stations upon it. Now, however, a new order 

 of things eomtdenced. If the gold were at all plentiful, it was certain 

 to attract a large number of diggers from California, and adventurers 

 from other quarters, and to bring about a state of society with which 

 the company's servants would be incompetent to deal. The company 

 have uniformly discouraged trading and colonising by any free trading 

 community, in order to retain the monopoly of the fur-trade in 

 their own hands. When the island of Vancouver was leased to them 

 by the Crown, there was a virtual undertaking by them to colonise 

 it ; a condition which, though not actually evaded, has been but ill- 

 fulfilled. A town, called Victoria, was established on the island ; and 

 this became the head-quarters of the company's operations in that 

 region. The island is little more yet than an uncleared forest, with 

 20,000 aboriginal inhabitants and a small number of Europeans. 

 Victoria has many of the elements for a inagnificcut port ; it was a 

 mere hamlet of 400 souls when the gold discovery was made ; but it 

 was speedily overrun by 6000 or 8000 adventurers, who came to it from 

 all quarters as the nearest town to the gold-fields. Fortunately, Mr. 

 Douglas, the chief officer, was a man of tact and energy, and proved 



