692 
FOREST AND STREAM 
* A Side Issue 
The Effect of the War on the Indian Trapper of the North 
By R. J. Fraser. 
“War, war, and rumors of war” were slow to 
penetrate into the far away places of the earth. 
But their arrival, however long delayed, was 
none the less eventful. To the far scattered fur¬ 
trading posts about the ice-bound shores of Hud¬ 
son’s and James’ Bays the news of the European 
upheaval came as a bolt from the skies. The 
steamer “Adventure,” when she dropped her an¬ 
chor off the Strutton Islands in James’ Bay 
within a stone’s throw of the depot of the Revil- 
lon Freres, was the heralder of the tidings of 
war. For four weeks she had battered her way 
in through the northern ice packs, laden with the 
year’s supply of provisions and trade goods des¬ 
tined for the Indians of the bay country. For the 
whites also, exiles from the homeland in the 
south, the cargo of good things was intended. 
For days—ay, for weeks—anxious-eyed traders 
had watched the dim horizon for the vessel’s 
smoke, for the provision stock was low. Dis¬ 
turbing rumors of a season of terrible ice floes 
in the narrow straits of Hudson, the only gate¬ 
way through the North, had drifted south with 
an Eskimo band, and the companies’ men knew 
how many helpless natives had to be fed. But 
the “Adventure” was twice blest with good for¬ 
tune. She sailed away from St. Johns, New¬ 
foundland, three days ahead of the orders that 
were issued to detain her for transport service, 
and she rammed a passage through the barrier 
fields of ice that turned back other ships. With 
her precious cargo of foodstuffs she delivered the 
opening news of the war. Then with a prince’s 
ransom in silky pelts on board she steamed away 
for “the outside.” Some of the exiles were 
aboard, to their countries’ colors called, while 
those who remained traded wild conjectures, 
wondered, and thirsted for news. 
Several long weeks of anxious waiting passed 
till the mail packets arrived from “the line.” 
Daring canoemen ran the treacherous rapids of 
the northern streams, two hundred miles from 
the settlements and confirmed the disturbing 
rumors. Orders and counter-orders were carried 
to the managers of the trading posts. The bot¬ 
tom had fallen out of the fur market. The first 
blow was an eighty-two per cent, drop in the raw 
fur values—a black fox skin that was worth a 
thousand dollars could now fetch but one hundred 
and eighty; pelts that sold at a dollar were now 
worth but eighteen cents, and the rival compa¬ 
nies, strenuously competing through the whole 
winter past, had paid the Indians as high as four 
hundred dollars for silver greys. Now the pack¬ 
ets came weekly—sometimes two in a week. One 
daring Mattagami guide, on a few hours’ notice, 
left “the line” and, single handed, drove his frail 
canoe down the swift Abittibi with special com¬ 
mands for the Bay. “The war would last three 
years,” the Factor read. “Prevailing conditions 
the following summer might make it impossible 
for the company to send in a supply ship.” The 
orders were—“cut down rations at every post.” 
Halfbreed servants and their families, staunch 
retainers of the company, whose forefathers for 
generations had lived on the bounties of the 
traders were to be turned adrift, sent into the 
bush to hunt a livelihood—or starve. To the 
Indian trappers no more “debt” must be advanced 
except a small issue of powder, flour, and tea. 
Until the last war cloud had vanished from the 
horizon they must return to primeval conditions 
and live on the country, or die amidst the for¬ 
ests that covered the long dead and gone Indian 
tribes. 
At Moose Factory, the district headquarters 
for the great fur-trading corporations of the 
Northland—the Hudson Bay Company and 
Revillon Freres—councils of war were held. 
Fear was entertained that the erstwhile passive 
Crees would become again the savage red men 
of earlier days when the pinch of hunger and 
poverty drove them out of the bush and they 
clashed with the stern wills of the old Scotch 
factors. For the Woods Indian, since the ad¬ 
vent of the trader, has grown improvident and 
lazy. He has lost much of the ancient resource¬ 
fulness and craftmanship that at one time ena¬ 
bled him to live off the country alone. The 
trader’s luxuries had dulled his hunting instincts 
and the fur companies are his chief support. 
Over two hundred years ago the white man in- 
Down the Long, Cheerless, Indefinite Road. 
vaded his country, bringing into it a state of 
semi-civilization. Semi-civilization it is still, and 
as such easily acquired by Indian and breed. But 
it is such a state that the native can no longer 
exist without. He has become dependent on the 
white man’s food and the white man’s store, and 
were the latter to be suddenly swept out of ex¬ 
istence the Indian perforce must follow. 
None have studied more fully the unreliable 
nature of the Indian than the old canny Scotch 
factors who for two centuries have maintained 
the Hudson’s Bay Company’s dominance of the 
north. They have now sent urgent requests for 
military or police protection and the patrolling 
districts of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police 
are being enlarged to embrace those sections 
where insurrections are expected to occur. Al¬ 
though the Indian Department of the Federal 
Government, whose wards the Indians prima¬ 
rily are, have undertaken to furnish relief to the 
native trappers, it will be a difficult task to cover 
the immense wilderness that still remains the 
habitat of the Cree- 
Through the outlying parts but few have trav¬ 
elled, outside of the “Companies’ men,” and the 
aboriginal runners of its trails. 
One of the trading companies whose manufac¬ 
turing and distributing houses are located in 
Leipsic and Paris ordered its valuable shipment 
of fur which went out on the steamer in the fall 
to be cached at its most northernmost post in 
Ungava. Expert furriers were to be sent north 
to take charge of the pelts—worth, with a normal 
market, nearly half a million dollars. Here they 
were to be preserved and stored in safety until 
more peaceful conditions should prevail. 
NON-RESIDENT HUNTERS BEWARE MIN¬ 
NESOTA. 
Minneapolis, Nov. 17.—That Minnesota hunt¬ 
ers will have to limit their operations this sea¬ 
son to points within the state, if they wish to 
get their venison home, is made clear by the 
orders issued by the United States department 
of agriculture, which prohibits the shipment of 
ruminant animals from a number of states where 
the hoof and mouth disease is prevalent. The 
same order will prevent outsiders coming into 
Minnesota shipping their game home. 
There is a small ray of hope for the hunter, 
however. If he goes hunting for meat he can 
get his usual quota, but the valued trophy, the 
head and horns, will not grace his den as the 
result of this season’s hunt. While the Federal 
embargo on the shipment of livestock places Wis¬ 
consin and Minnesota in the quarantine area, 
and while it classes deer, moose and other big 
game with cattle, it allows interstate shipment 
if head, hoof and skin are removed. 
Many local hunters who had planned to shoot 
over the northern Wisconsin hunting grounds 
have altered their plans and will now do their 
shooting within the confines of this state. 
In order to be absolutely correct on the ques¬ 
tion, Franc B. Daniels, local manager of the 
American Express company, which handles a 
large number of game shipments every season, 
conferred with Samuel H. S. Ward, secretary of 
the state sanitary board, on the subject, and 
Mr. Ward gave the opinion that there was no 
doubt venison is included in the embargo. 
