For four hundred years furs from Canada have been warming the flesh and enhancing the charms of feminine beauty. It is to-day the chief breeding place of animals valued for their skins, and it is likely to remain so for centuries to come.
When the settlement of North America was at its beginning, the French adventurers making fortunes in furs did their best to discourage the incoming colonists, for they knew that this meant the death of the wilderness. If they could have had their way, all that is now Canada would have been left to the Indian trappers and the white traders who relieved them of their annual catches. As it is, improved methods of transportation, trapping, and hunting are reducing the available supply, and the demand is such that the furriers have had to popularize skins formerly despised as too common, and many Canadians have gone into the business of breeding fur-bearing animals.
Winnipeg has long been an important city in the Canadian fur trade, and here the world’s greatest fur organization has its headquarters. I refer, of course, to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which for more than two hundred and fifty years has been bartering goods for the furs of British North America. It was founded when the British had scarcely a foothold in Canada, and its operations won for them their dominion over the northwestern part of our continent. In the beginning it was but one of many trading enterprises of the New World. To-day it has adapted itself to the tremendous changes in our civilization and it is bigger, stronger, and richer than ever.
Massachusetts Colony was not fifty years old when the Nonsuch, loaded to the waterline with the first cargo of furs, sailed for England from Hudson Bay. The success of the voyage led the dukes and lords who backed the venture to ask King Charles II for a charter. This was granted in 1670, and thus came into existence, so far as the word of a king could make it so, “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay,” exclusive lords and proprietors of a vast and but vaguely known region extending from Hudson Bay westward, with sole rights to fish, hunt, and trade therein.
It remained for the Company to make good the privileges conferred by the charter and maintain the profits, which at that period sometimes amounted to one hundred per cent. a year. For nearly a century the company’s ships and forts did battle with the armed forces of the French. For another long period its factors and traders had to meet the attacks of rival companies. At times the company was nearly wiped out by the heavy losses it sustained. For almost two centuries it furnished the only government of the Canadian Northwest, and without the use of a standing army it administered a vast region, out of which provinces and territories have since been carved.
The “Company of Adventurers” has now become a fifteen million dollar corporation, paying regularly five per cent. on ten million dollars’ worth of preferred stock. A fleet of river, lake, and ocean steamers has succeeded the Nonsuch. The early trading posts, stocked with crude tools, weapons, and ornaments for the Indians, have been supplemented by a chain of eleven department stores, extending from Winnipeg to Vancouver, and at the same time the number of trading posts exchanging goods for furs is greater than ever. There are about two hundred of these posts, eighteen of which are near or north of the arctic circle. The Company no longer actually governs any territory, and it is selling to settlers the remainder of the seven million acres in the fertile belt it has received from the Dominion since the surrender of its ancient rights in the Northwest.
The story of the Hudson’s Bay Company is a large part of the history of Canada. Many books have been written about it, and countless romances built upon the lives of its men stationed in the wilds. Here at Winnipeg the company has an historical exhibit where one may visualize the life of the trappers and the traders, and gain an idea of the adventures that are still commonplaces in their day’s work. The company museum contains specimen skins of every kind of Canadian fur-bearing animal. The life of the Indians and the Eskimos is reproduced through the exhibits of their tools, boats, weapons, and housekeeping equipment.
The success of the Hudson’s Bay Company has rested upon its relations with the Indians. The organization is proud of the fact that it has never engaged in wars with the tribes. The business has always been on a voluntary basis, and the Indians have to come to the Company posts of their own free will. At first the traders’ stocks were limited, but through centuries of contact with civilization the wants of the red man have increased and become more varied. They now include nearly everything that a white man would wish if he were living in the woods.
The first skins brought in from Hudson Bay were practically all beavers. This led to the exchange being based on the value of a single beaver skin, or “made beaver.” Sticks, quills, or brass tokens were used, each designating a “made beaver,” or a fraction thereof. The prices of a pound of powder, a gun, or a quart of glass beads were reckoned in “made beaver.”
Early in its history the Company decided that Scotchmen made the best traders and were most successful in dealing with the Indians. Young Scotchmen were usually apprenticed as clerks on five-year contracts, and if successful they might hope to become traders, chief traders, factors, and chief factors. Men in these grades were considered officers of the company and received commissions. Mechanics and men engaged in the transport service were known as “servants” of the company, and the distinction between “servants,” clerks, and officers was almost as marked as in the various military ranks of an army. To-day, Canada is divided into eleven districts, each of which is in charge of a manager, and the old titles are no longer used.
A trader had to be a diplomat to preserve friendly relations with the Indians, an administrator to manage the Company’s valuable properties in his charge, a shrewd bargainer to dispose of his stock on good terms, and at times soldier and explorer besides. The Company’s charter authorized it to apply the laws of England in the territories under its jurisdiction, and its agents frequently had to administer justice with a stern hand. It early became the inflexible policy to seek out a horse thief, incendiary, or murderer among the Indians and impose punishment, and it was the trader who had to catch his man and sometimes to execute him.
It was the activities of its rivals, and especially of the Northwest Company, that resulted in the establishment of the inland stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company. As long as it had a monopoly, the Company was content to set up posts at points convenient for itself, and let the Indians do all the travelling, sometimes making them go as much as one thousand miles to dispose of their furs. The opposition, however, carried goods to the Indians, and thus penetrated to the far Northwest and the Mackenzie River country. This competition compelled the older organization to extend its posts all over Canada, and finally, in 1821, led to its absorption of the Northwest Company. To-day the chief competitor of the Hudson’s Bay Company is the French firm of Revillon Frères.
The merger with the Northwest Company was preceded by years of violent struggle. The younger concern was the more aggressive. It tried to keep the Indians from selling furs to the Hudson’s Bay traders. Its men destroyed the traps and fish nets, and stole the weapons, ammunition, and furs of their rivals. Neither was above almost any method of tricking the other if thereby furs might be gained. Once some Hudson’s Bay men discovered the tracks of Indians returning from a hunt. They at once gave a great ball, inviting the men of the near by post of the rival company. While they plied their guests with all forms of entertainment, a small party packed four sledges with trade goods and stole off to the Indian camp. The next day the Northwest men heard of the arrival of the Indians and went to them to barter for furs, only to find that all had been sold to the Hudson’s Bay traders. At another time two rival groups of traders met en route to an Indian camp and decided to make a night of it. But the Northwest men kept sober, and, when the Hudson’s Bay men were full of liquor, tied them to their sleds and started their dog teams back on the trail over which they had come. The Northwest traders then went on to the Indians and secured all the furs.
The Hudson’s Bay Company sends all of its raw skins to London, where they are graded and prepared for the auction sales attended by fur buyers from all over the world. It does not sell any in Canada.
Nevertheless, the Dominion is an important fur-making centre. During a recent visit to Quebec, I spent a morning with the manager of a firm which handles millions of dollars’ worth of furs every year. It has its own workshops where the skins are cured and the furs dressed and made into garments. The name of this firm is Holt, Renfrew and Company. Let us go back to Quebec and pay it a visit.
Imagine a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of furs under one roof! Picture to your minds raw skins in bales, just as they were unloaded from an Indian canoe, and then look again and see wraps and coats made from them that would each bring five thousand dollars when sold on Fifth Avenue. If your imagination is vivid enough you may see the American beauties who will wear them and know how the furs will add to the sparkle of their eyes and at the same time lighten the purses of their sweethearts and husbands.
We shall first go to the cold storage rooms. Here are piles of sealskins from our Pribilof Islands. Put one of these furs against your cheek. It feels like velvet. In these rooms are beavers from Labrador, sables from Russia, and squirrels from Siberia. There are scores of fox skins—blue, silver, black, and white. Some of them come from the cold arctic regions and others from fox farms not twenty minutes distant by motor. Take a look at this cloak of silvery gray fur. A year ago the skins from which it was made were on the backs of hair seals swimming in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
As we go through the factory, some of the secrets of fur making are whispered to us. For example, this bale contains fifteen hundred skins of the muskrat. The animals which produced them will change their names after a trip to the dyers. They will go into the vats and when they come out they will be Hudson Bay seals, and eventually will find their way into a black coat with a wonderful sheen. Years ago the muskrat skin was despised. Now it is made into coats that, under the trade name of Hudson seal, bring nearly as much as those of real seal.
Here are two Russian sables, little fellows of beautiful fur, that together will form a single neck piece. The undressed skins are worth seven hundred dollars the pair. As we look, the manager shows us two native sables that seem to be quite as fine. He tells us they can be had for eighty-five dollars each, or less than a quarter of the price of the Russian.
The most valuable fur in the world to-day is the sea otter, of which this firm gets only three or four skins in a year. But, in contrast, over there is a whole heap of Labrador otters, beautiful furs, which will wear almost for ever and will look almost as well as the sea otter itself. But you can have your choice of these at forty dollars apiece. They are cheap chiefly because the Labrador skin is not in fashion with women. Fashion in furs is constantly changing. Not many years ago a black fox skin often brought as much as fifteen hundred dollars. To-day, so many are coming from the fur farms that the price has fallen to one hundred and fifty dollars. Scarcity is one of the chief considerations in determining the value of furs, and fashion always counts more than utility. The rich, like the kings of old, demand something that the poor cannot have, and lose their interest in the genuine furs when their imitations have become common and cheap.
The dyer and his art have greatly changed the fur trade. It is he who enables the salesgirl to wear furs that look like those of her customers. For example, here is a coat made of the best beaver. Its price is four hundred dollars, and beside it is another made of dyed rabbit fur, marked one hundred and fifty dollars. It is hard for a novice to tell which is the better. All sorts of new names have been devised by the furriers to popularize dyed skins of humble animals, from house cats to skunks, in order to increase the supply of good-looking and durable furs. Reliable dealers will tell you just what their garments are made of, but the unscrupulous pass off the imitations as the genuine article.
The business of dyeing furs was developed first in Germany, when that country led the world in making dyes. Now that New York is competing with London as a great fur market many of the best German dyers are at work there. From the standpoint of the consumer, the chief objection to dyed fur is that the natural never fades, while the dyed one is almost certain to change its hue after a time.
Now let us go into the rooms where the furs are made up. It is like a tailor shop. Here is a designer, evolving new patterns out of big sheets of paper. There are the cutters, making trimmings, stoles, neck pieces, and coats. Each must be a colour expert, for a large part of the secret of fashioning a beautiful fur garment is in the skillful matching of the varying shades to give pleasing effects. Were the skins for a coat sewn together just as they come from the bale, the garment resulting would be a weird-looking patchwork. Even before the skins are selected, they must be graded for the colours and shadings which go far to determine their value. There are no rules for this work; it takes a natural aptitude and long experience. In the London warehouse of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the men of a single family have superintended the grading of all the millions of skins handled there for more than one hundred years.
Turn over this unfinished beaver coat lying on the bench and look at the wrong side. See how small are the pieces of which it is made and how irregular are their shapes. It is a mass of little patches, yet the outer, or right side, looks as though it were made of large skins, all of about the same size and shape. A coat of muskrat, transformed by dyeing into Hudson seal, may require seventy-five skins; a moleskin coat may contain six hundred. But in making up either garment each skin must be cut into a number of pieces and fitted to others in order to get the blending of light and dark shades which means beauty and quality.