The Fur Trade of the North. 
For all of us romance and mystery surround 
the fur trade of the far north, though the re¬ 
views of early fur trading books that have fre- 
quently appeared in these columns have given 
to many a more or less clear idea of past con¬ 
ditions in the northland. What are the present 
conditions there was told by Mr. Harrison 
Young in an address given before the Canadian 
Club at Edmonton, Alberta, March 21. 
For thirty-six years Mr. Young has been a. 
resident of the Edmonton country, and he is an 
old employee of the Hudson’s Bay Co. Oyer 
him the wild country of the great north with 
its barrens, its woodlands and its lakes, has 
thrown its magic spell; life in it and travel 
through it have become so much a part of his 
nature, that it is no wonder that he speaks of 
it with enthusiasm. He said in part: 
“Edmonton owes its existence to the fur trade, 
and is now the base of supplies for the great 
fur country of the north. As the search for gold 
mines and other mineral wealth have in many 
countries led to the opening up of those lands 
where these minerals have been found, so the 
pursuit of furs has been in British North Amer¬ 
ica, the means of gradually opening up and 
civilizing the vast extent of country, now under 
the Government control of the Dominion of 
Canada. The fur traders have been the pioneers 
of this civilization. To-day there are no new 
lands for them to conquer, the limit to their 
operations has been set, and each year sees the 
area where fur bearing animals can exist un¬ 
disturbed, becoming more and more circum¬ 
scribed. This being the case, it would be natural 
to suppose that the output of furs must be grad¬ 
ually decreasing. On the contrary, the fur catch 
is larger that ever before, and the use of furs 
was never more universal or fashionable than it 
is to-day. 
“In former days the difficulties of transporta¬ 
tion placed a limit on the quantity of goods that 
could be taken into the fur bearing country for 
fur trade. It was no uncommon occurrence a 
few years ago for the Indians at the posts of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company on the McKenzie 
River to have more furs than they had goods 
to pay for them, and the trader became the 
debtor of the hunter until a fresh supply of 
goods was brought in. Stocks of goods could 
only be received once a year. To-day all this 
is changed, the railroad and steamboat have 
taken the place of the canoe, the York boat, 
the pack horse, and the old Red River cart. The 
picturesque figure of the old-time voyageur is 
fading away, and his place is being filled by the 
man in overalls. As a consequence of this 
change in conditions, the fur trader is brought 
much closer to his base of supplies. Profits are 
smaller and competition is keen, but his returns 
are quicker. Formerly the price of fur was a 
fixed one, never varying from year to year, the 
London market, which fixes the price of furs 
the world over, might vary as much as it 
pleased. The price of furs to an Indian was al¬ 
ways the same. Nowadays competition is so 
keen that prices fluctuate continually. The 
prices realized at the fur sales now in progress 
in London will fix the prices to be paid for 
furs in the north next winter. The purchasing 
power of a skin or any fur-bearing animal has 
greatly increased, both as to price paid for the 
skin and the price of goods for which it is sold. 
The Indian is far better off to-day than at any 
time in the history of the fur trade. A silver 
fox that a few years ago would have brought 
him about twelve dollars, he will now get one 
hundred and more for, and the same applies 
to all other furs. 
“The northland is a great fur preserve; few 
people realize just how large and great is the 
land between Edmonton and the Arctic Ocean 
and how sparsely settled. A man traveling in 
that country if he keeps off the usual hunting 
trails of the Indians could travel for a year and 
never see a living soul. The hunters must fol¬ 
low the caribou, or else keep close to the fish 
lakes. A white trapper can take a sack or two 
of flour, some beans and tobacco, and go in 
pursuit of fur wherever he wishes. An Indian 
with a family and his dogs requires a large food 
supply, and he must of necessity go where ex¬ 
perience has taught him he is sure to get it; 
he cannot afford to take any chances. A district 
may have plenty of small fur-bearing animals 
and not much large game. So there is a great 
extent of country where a trap is never set, or 
the animals disturbed, now that one can reach 
the fur country so quickly and easily, and sup¬ 
plies can be had on the ground. I look to see 
white trappers and people generally giving more 
attention to the north than has yet been the 
case. The great difficulty to get in a supply of 
food has kept this class of men out of the 
country. 
“There seems to me no danger of the sup¬ 
ply of furs under present conditions giving out 
with the exception of beaver. Without protec¬ 
tion the days of the beaver are numbered. I 
have seen them practically wiped out in parts 
of British Columbia, the Peace River and Al¬ 
berta. The same thing is going on in the north 
to-day. There is no use in locking the door 
after the horse is stolen. In Peace River the 
beaver is cleaned out or nearly so. thousands 
were formerly killed where now they are few 
and far between, the Indians who used to hunt 
them are dead, wiped out by scrofula and con¬ 
sumption, the old hunting grounds of these In¬ 
dians have not been hunted over, and yet the 
beavers do not increase. There is in the north 
unlimited scope for the beaver, lots of country 
that can never be fit for anything else. Why 
not keep the beaver in it when we have them 
there? Once gone they cannot be replaced. 
“Forest fires are the great destroyer of land 
furs. One fire will destroy more fur in a good 
fur-bearing country, in one day's run, than a 
tribe of Indians would kill in years of hunting. 
Only the advance of civilization and settlement 
of the country can reduce the present output of 
furs, and even when settlement has gone as far 
north as climatic conditions will permit, there 
will always remain a large extent of country 
where the fur trader will reign. 
“Edmonton cannot hope to always remain 
the fur market that it is to-day. As soon as 
the railroads are built beyond Edmonton, the 
fur market will begin to slip away. When a 
railroad is built to Peace River and the great 
navigable waterways of the north utilized, a 
town will rise on the banks of the Peace River, 
where the transhipment of goods from railroads 
to steamboats takes place, and there the fur 
buyer and fur trader will meet as they do in 
Edmonton to-day. 
“Winnipeg was once the great fur market, of 
the west, until Edmonton took a large portion 
of the trade away—Winnipeg wholesale mer¬ 
chants to-day cater to and supply the fur mer¬ 
chants of Edmonton who in turn supplythe traders 
of the north. This condition will repeat itself, 
I think, when a railroad reaches out on the 
Peace River. 
“The rapids in the Athabasca River form the 
great drawbacks to the present transport route 
to the north. If a winter road were cut out 
from Edmonton to Fort Murray, from the head 
of navigation to Fort Smith, it would greatly 
cheapen freight rates into the north. When a 
railroad is built to Athabasca Landing, and the 
building of a line is now only dependent on re¬ 
ceiving labor to build it. the army of freighters 
who now earn a living freighting to the Land¬ 
ing, will be out of employment. If the Gov 
ment would open a united route to McMui 
there men would find work, the transpor 
goods for the north could be more che 
carried on, and the trader being able to 
in during winter a supply of goods avai 
for early spring trade, could carry on his 1 
ness with less capital than required to-day, v 
large stocks must be carried to meet any ei 
ualities of the trade. The manner of conduc 
the actual trade between the Indian and tr 
is so well known that it require* but a 
mention. The old system of packing goods 
value of so many skins of water beaver, tilt 
and universal system of the Hudson’s 
Company, is gradually changing to a nr 
valuation in these districts where the an 
payment of treaty money by the agents oi 
Government has made the natives acquai 
with the cash value of goods. 
“Time does not permit me to go into this 
ject at any length of detail, or to deal with 
may be called the romance of the trade, 
gold mining, the life had great fascination- 
those engaged in it. The old race of trj 
and voyageurs are fast becoming but a men 
The men who are succeeding them conduc 
trade much as any other business is condw 
profits are smaller and competition is keen 
the furs reach a market sooner, and the 
over is made oftener than in bygone days, 
old-time fur trader relied greatly on havii 
good train of dogs and a good pair of leg: 
follow them with, and so get ahead of his r 
in trade; now more reliance is placed on a t 
stock and the price paid for furs. The Ir 
is clever enough to fully appreciate the ad 
tages of competition in trade, and sells his 
to the highest bidder.” 
The Hard Winter West. 
Flow intensely cold last winter was in \ 
of Montana is shown by the report that a 
Lubec the arctic or snowy owls were f< 
frozen to death. 
Along Milk River and to the south of th 
northern Montana antelope have been unus 
abundant, as is often the case in the bitt 
weather, when the cold and snow drive t 
south from the plains of Alberta, where s 
antelope are still found. 
On the Blackfoot Reservation the Indians 
winter have killed a good many antelope 
have drifted over the snow fences which s 
along the Canadian Pacific Railroad. 
On the Great Northern Railroad, near B 
ham’s station, a train ran down a herd of < 
lope, killing three and wounding several otl 
The animals gather on the bare places on 
track and thus expose themselves to dai 
Railroad men have reported that the ante 
are unusually tame and that it is nothin; 
see herds of twenty or more close to the tr 
of a morning, or watching the train speec 
from some prominence nearby. Between H 
and Great Falls several herds have been no 
early in the morning and the cold and deep s 
has made them unusually tame, ranchers 
porting that they have invaded the ranches 
yards in the vicinity of Harlem. 
Henry Clay Ewing. 
The Hon. H. Clay Ewing died at his h 
in Jefferson City, Mo., March 22, in his seve 
ninth year. Mr. Ewing was Attorney-Ger 
of Missouri in the early seventies and a la’ 
of great ability, but he was also a famous sp< 
man, fond of gun and rod, but with a dec 
leaning toward fox hunting. 
