Haw-Ho-Noo; Or, Records of a Tourist

by Charles Lanman

THE FUR TRAPPERS.

The unique brotherhood of men to whom we now direct the attention of our readers have always depended upon the fur trade alone for their support, and as the various fur companies of North America have flourished and declined, so have the trappers multiplied or decreased in numbers. The French, who were the founders of the fur trade on this continent, established themselves here in 1606, and the trapping fraternity may therefore claim the honor of having existed nearly two centuries and a half. To estimate the precise number of individuals composing this class at the present time would be an impossibility, occupying as they do a section of country extending from the Pacific Ocean to Hudson’s Bay.

By the laws of our country they have ever been looked upon as aliens from the commonwealth of civilization, and by the Indian tribes as trespassers upon their natural and inherited privileges. The blood of the white man, though frequently considerably adulterated, invariably runs through their veins, and the great majority trace their origin to a French, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, it being an established and singular fact that trappers of pure American blood are exceedingly rare. Those of the far north commonly have the dark eyes and hair of the Canadian Frenchman, and those of the south-west the flaxen hair and broad brogue of the Scotchman or Irishman. The motives generally found to have influenced them in entering upon their peculiar life are of course exceedingly various, but among the more common ones may be mentioned a deeply-rooted love for the works of Nature in their primeval luxuriance, want of sufficient intelligence to prosecute a more respectable business, and a desire to keep out of the way of certain laws which they may have transgressed in their earlier days. They are usually men with families, their wives being pure Indian, and their children, as a matter of course, half breeds. They have what may be termed fixed habitations, but they are rude log cabins, located on the extreme frontiers of the civilized world. In religion, as a class, they are behind their red brethren of the wilderness, and their knowledge of books is quite as limited. Generally speaking, they spend about nine months roaming alone through the solitude of the forests and prairies, and the remaining three months of the year with their families or at the trading posts of the fur companies. As their harvest time is the winter, they are necessarily men of iron constitutions, and frequently endure the severest hardships and privations. Understanding as they do the science of trapping and the use of the gun more thoroughly than the Indian, they eclipse him in the business of acquiring furs, and from their superior knowledge of the civilized world, limited though it be, they realize much greater profits, and hence it is that they are not only hated by the Indian but also by the traders. Their manner of dressing is ordinarily about half civilized, their buckskin hunting shirts and fur caps, of their own manufacture, appearing almost as picturesque as the blankets and plumes of the Indian himself. Like the Indians, too, they prefer richly-fringed leggins to pantaloons, and embroidered moccasins to shoes. To be perfectly free from every restraint both of body and mind, is their chief ambition, and to enjoy the freedom of the wilderness is their utmost happiness. Those who follow their trade among the mountains are commonly banded together in parties of half a dozen. They perform their long journey altogether upon horseback, and when among the mountains are as expert in scaling precipices, surmounting waterfalls, and buffeting snow-storms as the more hardy of the Indian tribes. They are expert horsemen, ride the best of animals, and take great pleasure not only in decking themselves with ornaments, but also in caparisoning their horses in the most grotesque yet picturesque manner. As to the animals which all of them make it their business to capture, it may be mentioned that chiefest among them all is the beaver; but a goodly portion of their income is derived from the furs and peltries of the martin, otter, muskrat, bear, fox, mink, lynx, wolverine, raccoon, wolf, elk, and deer, and the robes of the huge buffalo.

But let us describe the life of the trapping fraternity somewhat more minutely, in doing which we shall give an illustrative sketch of the career of a single individual, describing his departure from home, his sojourn in the wilderness, his return home, and his manner of spending his brief summer furlough.

It is a bright October morning, and about the threshold of the trapper’s cabin there is an unusual stir. While the trapper himself is busily engaged in examining and putting in order his traps, packing away his powder and lead, with a number of good flints, giving the lock of his old rifle a thorough oiling, and sharpening his knives, his wife is stowing away in his knapsack a few simple cooking utensils, a small bag of tea and a little sugar, several pairs of moccasins and coarse woolen socks, and a goodly quantity of the sinewy material used in making snow-shoes. The fact that our friend is about to separate from his family for the most part of a year, makes him particularly kind to those about him; and, by way of manifesting his feelings, he gives into his wife’s possession what little spare money he may have left in his pocket out of his earnings of the previous year, and allows his children to make as much noise as they please, even refraining from scolding them when they kick and abuse his favorite hunting dogs. All things being ready, night comes, and the trapper permits himself to enjoy another sleep in the midst of his household, but long before the break of day he has whistled to his dogs, and, with his knapsack on his back, has taken his departure for a stream that rises among the Rocky Mountains. If his course lies through a forest land he continues to travel on foot, taking his own leisure, killing a sufficient quantity of game to satisfy his wants, and sleeping at night upon his skins, under a canopy of leaves. If extensive water courses lie within his range, he purchases a canoe of some wandering Indians and plays the part of a navigator; and if he finds it necessary to cross extensive prairies, he obtains a pony, and, packing himself and plunder upon the animal, plays the part of an equestrian. When the first blast of December, accompanied by a shower of snow, sweeps over the land, it finds our trapper friend snugly domiciled in a log shanty at the mouth of the river where he purposes to spend the winter trapping for beaver.

And now all things are ready, and the trapper has actually entered upon his winter avocation. He has reconnoitered the valley in which he finds himself, and, having ascertained the localities of the beaver, with their houses and dams, he forthwith manages to shoot a single male beaver, and having obtained from his glandulous pouch a substance called castoreum, he mixes it with a number of aromatics, and in three or four days he is supplied with a suitable bait and proceeds to set his traps. As the senses of the beaver are exceedingly keen, the business of the trapper requires experience and great caution, and he glides through the forests almost with the silence of a ghost; but, when a master of his calling, he seldom leaves a beaver village until, by his cunning arts, it has become depopulated. The war of extermination, as already intimated, begins at the mouth of the river, and with our friend will only cease when he has reached the fountain-head, or the season for trapping comes to an end. The coldest of winds may blow and the woods may be completely blocked with snow, but the trapper has mounted his snow-shoes, and day after day does he revisit and rearrange his traps. If night overtake him when far removed from his shanty (which may be the case more than half the time), he digs himself a hole in some sheltered snow bank, and, wrapped up in his blanket by the side of his solitary fire, spends a strangely comfortable night. When not engaged with his traps, he employs his time in drying and dressing his furs; or, as fancy may dictate, he shoulders his gun and starts out for the purpose of capturing a deer, a bear, or some of the beasts which are wont to howl him to sleep at the midnight hour. Venison and bear meat constitute his principal food, but he is particularly partial to the tail of his favorite beaver. The only human beings with which he has any social intercourse during the long winter are the poor wandering Indians who chance to visit him in his cabin; and at such times many are the wild adventures and strange legends which they relate to each other around the huge fire of the trapper. And he now enjoys to perfection the companionship of his dogs. Companions, it is true, of another sort sometimes gather around his lonely habitation to relieve his solitude, for the snowy owl hoots and screams at night from the huge pine branch that reaches over his cabin, or perhaps an unmolested deer manifests its love of companionship by browsing the twigs in broad daylight almost at his very threshold. But now fair weather cometh out of the north, and the trapper begins to think that he has secured such a supply of furs as will guarantee him a comfortable support during the coming summer, and one by one he gathers in his traps. The crack of his rifle is now heard more frequently echoing through the woods, for he cares not to obtain more beaver skins even if he could, and he would obtain a sufficient number of miscellaneous furs to render his assortment complete. Heavy spring rains have set in, the water courses are nearly released from their icy fetters, and on issuing from his cabin, after a night of conflicting dreams, he finds that the neighboring stream has become unusually full. A single glance at its turbid waters is enough. He cuts down a suitable tree and builds him a canoe, and in this does he stow away his furs and all his other plunder; and, seizing his paddle, he jumps into his seat, and with a light heart starts for his distant home.

The rains are over and gone, and although our voyager has already been ten days upon the waters, he has yet at least a thousand additional miles to travel. Rapids without number are to be passed, many a laborious portage must be made around huge waterfalls, and at least two months must elapse before he can moor his little barge in the haven where he would be. Day follows day, and his course is onward. All along his route the forest trees are bursting their buds and decking themselves with the livery of the vernal season, while the grasses and flowers of the prairies are striving to overreach each other as they loom into the pleasant sunshine. And then, too, the heart of our voyager is cheered by the singing of birds. When night comes, and he has lain himself down by his watchfire on the shore, in some little cove, he is lulled to sleep by the murmuring music of the stream. If, on a pleasant day when he is fatigued, he happen upon an Indian encampment and finds that an extensive ball-play or an Indian horse-race, or any important medicine ceremony is about to occur, he tarries there for a few hours, and then, as his mind dwells upon the grotesque and laughable scenes he has witnessed, resumes his voyage in a more cheerful mood. Day follows day, and the stream upon which he is now floating is broad and deep, and sweeps onward as if rejoicing with pride for having triumphed over the obstacles of the wilderness, and is rapidly approaching the fields and the abodes of civilization. It is now the close of a day in the leafy month of June, and our voyager is gliding noiselessly into the quiet cove beside his cabin, and, uttering a loud whistle or whoop and firing his gun, his wife and children hasten to the shore, and—the trapper is at home!

The summer time, in the opinion of our trapper friend, is the season of unalloyed enjoyment, for it is then that he gives himself up to the gratification of all his desires. Having disposed of his furs and peltries at the nearest trading post for a few hundred dollars in cash, or its equivalent in merchandise, he deems himself independently rich, and conducts himself accordingly. In a fit of liberality, he orders his wife and children into his canoe and takes them upon a visit to the nearest frontier village or city, where he loads them with gewgaws, and the family spend a few days. The novelty of this visit soon passes away, and our trapper with his family are once more domiciled in their cabin. A week of inactivity then follows, and the trapper becomes as restless as a fish out of water. He is troubled with a kind of itching palm, and away he goes upon a vagabondizing tour among the hangers-on about the trading establishments, recounting to all who will listen to him his adventures in the wilderness, and spending the remainder of the summer after the manner of the idle and the dissipated. But the first frost brings him to his senses, and the trapper is himself again—for he is thinking of the wilderness.