602 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



in Quebec, and the skins sold in Paris at one pistole 

 apiece, which amounts in our money to a buying price 

 of 85c and a selling price of $4.00. 



A good trapper in a well-stocked country could 

 catch two to three hundred beavers in one season and 

 secure a good deal of other fur at the same time. 



Many Indians, becoming temporarily rich beyond 

 their dreams, invested their wealth in all kinds of silver 

 ornaments which they could wear on their persons. 

 Whole Indian villages went annually on a drunken 

 debauch when they had carried the product of their 

 winter's hun-t to the traders, for rum was one of the 

 great staples in the Indian trade. Its sale was im- 

 mensely profitable, and no one trader or company 

 could stop the unspeakable havoc it caused among the 

 Indians; for if one trader had no whisky, or refused 

 to sell it or give it away as presents, the Indians took 

 their peltries to one who would give them plenty of 

 the white man's milk. 



It is not surprising that an animal of such com- 

 mercial importance and remarkable habits as the 

 beaver aroused the interest of travelers and scien- 

 tists. But as most travelers had neither the time nor 

 the patience to make personal observations on an 

 animal so shy and wary and largely nocturnal in its 

 habits, many absurd stories of its life became current 

 and were accepted by credulous writers and a still 

 more credulous public. 



Some of the most interesting glimpses of life and 

 conditions in the beaver country during the height of 

 the fur trade may be gained from the narrative of 

 John Tanner, a white man, who, when a boy eleven 

 years old, was kidnapped by some Shawnee Indians 

 in Boone County, Kentucky. He was sold by his cap- 

 tors to Netnokwa, a Chippewa woman, who adopted 

 him as her own son. He lived amongst the Chippewa 

 from about 1780 to 1830, mostly in the regions now 

 embraced in Northern Minnesota, Ontario, Manitoba, 

 North Dakota and Assiniboia. 



Referring to a bear hunt which ended a period of 

 starvation, he relates the following : "The old woman 

 said, 'My son, look in that kettle and you will find a 

 mouthful of beaver which a man gave me since you left 

 us this morning. You must leave hal! of it for Wam- 

 egonabiew (her son) who has not yet returned from 

 hunting, and has eaten nothing today.' I accordingly 

 ate the beaver meat, and when I had finished it, observ- 

 ing an opportunity when she stood by herself, I step- 

 ped up to her and whispered in her ear, 'My mother, 

 I have killed a bear.' " 



From other remarks of John Tanner one may glean 

 the sad story of the degradation of the Indians as 

 well as the story of the rapid extermination of the 

 beaver. 



Netnokwa and her sons had visited an old friend. 



Peshauba, in the present province of Assiniboia. The 

 party started in canoes down a tributary of the As- 

 siniboin River with all the furs Peshauba had accumu- 

 lated during several years of hard labor. They in- 

 tended to return to their former home on Lake Huron. 

 Of this journey Tanner writes: 



"When we came from the Little Saskajawun into 

 the Assiniboin River, we came to the rapids, where 

 was a village of one hundred and fifty lodges of As- 

 siniboins and some Crees. We now began to feel the 

 want of fresh provisions, and determined to stop a day 

 or two to kill sturgeon at this place where we found 



a plenty of them In two days from these 



rapids we came to Mouse River where both the North- 

 west and the Hudson's Bay Company have trading- 

 houses. Here Peshauba and his friends began to 

 drink, and in a short time expended all the peltries 

 they had made in their long and successful hunt. We 

 sold one hundred beaver skins in one day for liquor. 

 The price was then six beaver skins for a quart of 

 rum, but they put a great deal of water with it. After 

 drinking here for some time, we began to make^birch 

 canoes, still intending to continue on our journey." 



The journey was never completed. After telling 

 of two years of toilsome wandering back and forth, 

 of hardships and misfortunes. Tanner agam strikes the 

 sad refrain which rings through all the stories of the un- 

 bounded forests of the Indian and the beaver : 



"The old woman, being much dissatisfied at the 

 misconduct of her son, the disappointment of her hopes 

 of returning to Lake Huron, and other misfortunes, 

 began to drink. In the course of a single day she sold 

 one hundred and twenty beaver skins with a large 

 quantity of buffalo robes, dressed and smoked skins 

 and other articles, for rum. It was her habit, when- 

 ever she drank, to make drunk all the Indians about 

 her, at least as far as her means would extend. Of all 

 our large load of peltries, the produce of so many 

 days of toil, of so many long and difficult journeys, 

 one blanket and three kegs of rum only remained, 

 besides the poor and almost worn-out clothing on 

 our bodies. I did not, on this or any other occasion, 

 witness the needless and wanton waste of our peltries 

 and other property, with that indifference which the 

 Indians seemed always to feel 



"We repaired to Rainy Lake trading house, where 

 we obtained a credit to the amount of one hundred 

 and twenty beaver skins, and thus furnished ourselves 

 with some blankets, clothing and other things neces- 

 sary for the winter." 



For about a hundred years, during the eighteenth 

 century, Canada practically lived on beaver furs. 

 Beaver skins paid for her imports from Europe; in 

 beaver furs the church received its tithes, and in 

 beaver furs the converted Indians paid for the mass 

 which the priest read for the souls of the departed 



