1872.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
93 
Something alxmt Trapping and Furs. 
For the comfort we derive from our furs we 
are indebted to a class of people whom most 
persons know little about. Trappers are sup- 
Fig. 1.— A trapper's camp. 
posed to be men who live outside the bounds of 
civilization, and who pass their lives in a sort 
of semi-savage, solitary manner. This is true to 
a very great extent, although settlements are 
now made far in advance of many still prolific 
trapping grounds. These tracts, however, 
being situated in rocky parts of the country or 
in extensive swamps, will doubtless for some 
3'ears yet be permitted to remain in a state of 
nature, and still furnish employment for the 
trapper. The trapping grounds of the United 
States and Canada lie either north or west of 
the great lakes, and are solely peopled by In- 
dians and a few white trappers. The great 
hulk of furs are taken by Indians, but there are 
some white men engaged in the business whose 
camps are often passed by the engineers and sur- 
veyors who are the pioneers of settlement into 
the vast forests and prairies of the great North- 
west. Probably few others have an opportunity 
to visit the camps of the trappers, buried as they 
mostly are from twenty to a hundred miles 
away from a regular habitation. The trapper 
chooses a location for his camp, which is his 
base of operations, and from which he travels 
out in all directions, not so far, however, as to 
a less permanent one of poles which lean against 
a ridge-pole supported by forked stakes, and 
are covered with bark. The only furniture 
needed is the bed of hemlock brush, his ax, gun, 
traps, and cooking utensils, which consist 
mainly of a small tin ___= 
kettle and a tin plate. 
His provisions are 
pork, beans, hard- ; 
bread, sugar, and tea; 
the rest the woods 
provide for him, and 
his gun or traps se- 
cure. The camp is 
generally pitched on 
the edge of an ex- 
tensive beaver mead- 
ow, from which, and 
the banksof the stream 
passing through it, 
part of his game is 
gathered. This con- 
sists of beaver, otter, 
mink, muskrat, which are all taken near the 
water, and marten, fisher (which has nothing to 
do with fish, however), lynx, and fox, which in- 
habit the uplands. The traps are the New 
him $500, or, if fortunate, double that sum. 
These usually simple-minded and honest men 
are generally natives of the rougher portions of 
the New England States, as Vermont, Maine, 
parts of Connecticut or of Massachusetts. To 
Fig. 3. — MTNK TRAP. 
York steel-spring trap, and often a hundred of 
these are used by one trapper in a season. The 
old wooden trap or deadfall is fast going out of 
use. The steel trap is surer, and, saving time, 
enables the trapper to enlarge his opera- 
tions. Thus situated, the trapper passes from 
October to March, exposed to all the storms and 
Fig. 2.— MUSK.RAT HOUSES. 
rob each other's traps or. caches (hiding-places 
for their traps or furs) is considered too mean 
to be thought of, and is very rarely known to 
occur. The Indians, however, bring in most of 
the furs, and their grounds extend to the utmost 
limits of possible existence towards the North 
Pole. The Hudson's Bay Company, an English 
fur-trading company, procures its fura in this 
way, but a great number of Indians bring in 
furs to the towns and villages bordering on the 
unsettled country, and trade them for sugar, to- 
bacco, traps, and whisky with the various 
backwoods stores. The Canadian Government 
controls this trade by means of licenses given 
only to responsible parties, but our Indians are 
unmercifully fleeced by anybody who likes to 
undertake the rough life of an Indian trader. 
The Indians bring their furs from long distances 
in trains drawn by dogs. The trains are flat 
pieces of board split from a white-ash tree, and 
shaved down with great labor until no more 
than an inch thick. They are about 18 inches 
broad and six feet long, turned up in front as 
in figure 4, and are called by them " toba- 
gans." Four or five or more dogs are hitched 
by rawhide traces to the train, one before the 
Fig. 5.— INDIANS AFTER SELLING THEIR FURS. 
require him to be absent from liome more than 
a few days at a time. In the center of his game 
he pitches his camp, which is often, if game is 
plentiful, a log-hut roofed with bark, which he 
will occupy two or three successive seasons, or 
perils of a lonely life in the woods, and often 
without seeing a human face until he in the 
spring packs his furs to the nearest town or vil- 
lage for shipment to "York," when he may 
very probably have secured enough to return 
other ; a thong is fastened behind,which is held 
by the Indian, to hold back by when going down 
hill, and mounted on his snow-shoes the Indiaa 
starts on his long journey witli his packs of furs. 
Generally the party consists of four or five, who 
