Early in this commerce, desirable furs were obtained in barter for a trifle; and when something of value was exchanged, it was much out of proportion to the furs. This has been the case generally in dealing with the natives, until their eyes have been slowly opened. In Kamtchatka, at the beginning of the last century, half a dozen sables were obtained in exchange for a knife, and a dozen for a hatchet; and the Kamtchadales wondered that their Cossack conquerors were willing to pay so largely for what seemed worth so little. Similar incidents on the Northwest Coast are reported by the early navigators. Cook mentions that in exchange for “beads” the Indians at Prince William Sound “readily gave whatever they had, even their fine sea-otter skins,” which they prized no more than other skins, until it appeared how much they were prized by their visitors.[145] Where there was no competition, prices rose slowly, and many years after Cook, the Russians at Oonalaska, in return for “trinkets and tobacco,” received twelve sea-otter skins, and fox skins of different kinds to the number of near six hundred.[146] These instances show in a general way the spirit of this trade even to our own day. On the coast, and especially in the neighborhood of the factories, the difference in the value of furs is recognized, and a proportionate price obtained, which Sir Edward Belcher found in 1837 to be for “a moderately good sea-otter skin from six to seven blankets, increasing to thirteen for the best,” together with “sundry knick-knacks.”[147] But in the interior it is otherwise. A recent resident in the region of the Yukon assures me that he has seen skins worth several hundred dollars bartered for goods worth only fifty cents.
Beside whalers and casual ships, with which the Esquimaux are in the habit of dealing, the commerce in furs, on both sides of the continent, north of the United States, has for a long time been in the hands of two corporations,—being the Hudson’s Bay Company, with directors in London, and the Russian American Company, with directors in St. Petersburg. The former is much the older of the two, and has been the most flourishing. Its original members were none other than Prince Rupert, the Duke of Albemarle, Earl Craven, Lord Ashley, and other eminent associates, who received a charter from Charles the Second, in 1670, to prosecute a search after a new passage to the South Sea, and to establish a trade in furs, minerals, and other considerable commodities in all those seas, and in the British possessions north and west of Canada, with powers of government, the whole constituting a colossal monopoly, which stretched from Labrador and Baffin’s Bay to an undefined West. At present this great corporation is known only as a fur company, to which all its powers are tributary. For some time its profits were so considerable that it was deemed advisable to hide them by nominal additions to the stock. With the extinction of the St. Petersburg corporation under the present treaty, the London corporation will remain the only existing fur company on the continent, but necessarily restricted in its operation to British territory. It remains to be seen into whose hands the commerce on the Pacific side will fall, now that this whole region will be open to the unchecked enterprise of our citizens.
This remarkable commerce began before the organization of the Russian Company. Its profits may be inferred from a voyage in 1772, described by Coxe, between Kamtchatka and the Aleutians. The tenth part of the skins being handed to the custom-house, the remainder were distributed in fifty-five shares, consisting each of twenty sea-otters, sixteen black and brown foxes, ten red foxes, and three sea-otter tails; and these shares were sold on the spot at from eight hundred to one thousand rubles each, so that the whole lading brought about fifty thousand rubles.[148] The cost of these may be inferred from the articles given in exchange. A Russian outfit, of which I find a contemporary record, was, among other things, “about five hundred weight of tobacco, one hundred weight of glass beads, perhaps a dozen spare hatchets and a few superfluous knives of very bad quality, an immense number of traps for foxes, a few hams, a little rancid butter.”[149] With such imports against such exports, the profits must have been considerable.
From Langsdorff we have a general inventory of furs at the beginning of the century in the principal magazine of the Russian Company on the island of Kadiak, drawn from the islands, the peninsula of Alaska, Cook’s Inlet, Prince William Sound, and the continent generally. Here were “a great variety of the rarest kinds of fox skins,” black, blackish, reddish, silver gray, and stone fox,—the last probably a species of the Arctic; “brown and red bears, the skins of which are of great value,” and also “the valuable black bear”; the zisel marmot, and the common marmot; the glutton; the lynx, chiefly of whitish gray; the reindeer; the beaver; the hairy hedgehog; “the wool of a wild American sheep, whitish, fine, and very long,” but he could never obtain sight of the animal that produced this wool; also sea-otters, once “the principal source of wealth to the Company, now nearly extirpated, a few hundreds only being annually collected.”[150] Many of the same furs were reported by Cook on this coast in his day. They all continue to be found,—except that I hear nothing of wild sheep, save at a Sitkan dinner.
There has been much exaggeration with regard to the profits of the Russian corporation. An English writer of authority calls the produce “immense,” and adds that “formerly it was much greater.” I refer to the paper of Mr. Petermann, read before the Royal Geographical Society of London, in 1852.[151] The number of skins at times is prodigious, although this fails to reveal precisely the profits. For instance, Pribyloff collected within two years, on the islands northwest of Alaska which bear his name, the skins of 2,000 sea-otters, 40,000 sea-bears or ursine seals, 6,000 dark ice-foxes, together with 1,000 poods of walrus ivory.[152] The pood is a Russian weight of thirty-six pounds. Lütke mentions that in 1803 no less than 800,000 skins of the ursine seal were accumulated in the factory at Oonalaska, of which 700,000 were thrown into the sea, partly because they were badly prepared, and partly to keep up the price,[153]—thus imitating the Dutch, who for the same reason burned spices. Another estimate masses the collection for a series of years. From 1787 to 1817, for only part of which time the Company existed, the Oonalaska district yielded upwards of 2,500,000 seal-skins; and from 1817 to 1838, during all which time the Company was in power, the same district yielded 879,000 seal-skins. Assuming, what is improbable, that these skins were sold at twenty-five rubles each, some calculating genius has ciphered out the sum-total of proceeds at more than 85,000,000 rubles,—or, calling the ruble seventy-five cents, a sum-total of more than $63,000,000. Clearly, the latter years can show no approximation to any such doubtful result.
Descending from these lofty figures, which, if not exaggerations, are at least generalities, and relate partly to earlier periods, before the existence of the Company, we shall have a better idea of the commerce, if we look at authentic reports for special periods. Admiral Von Wrangell, who was so long governor, must have been well informed. According to statements in his work, adopted also by Wappäus in his “Geographie,” the Company, from 1826 to 1833, a period of seven years, exported to Russia the skins of the following animals: 9,853 sea-otters, with 8,751 sea-otter tails, 39,981 river-beavers, 6,242 river or land otters, 5,243 black foxes, 7,759 black-bellied foxes, 16,336 red foxes, 24,189 polar foxes, 1,093 lynxes, 559 wolverenes, 2,976 sables, 4,335 swamp-otters, 69 wolves, 1,261 bears, 505 musk-rats, 132,160 seals; also 830 poods of whalebone, 1,490 poods of walrus-teeth, and 7,121 pairs of castoreum.[154] Their value does not appear. Sir George Simpson, the Governor-in-chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who was at Sitka in 1841, represents the returns of the Company for that year, 10,000 fur-seals, 1,000 sea-otters, 2,500 land-otters, 12,000 beavers, and 20,000 walrus-teeth, without including foxes and martens.[155] There is a report for the year 1852, as follows: 1,231 sea-otters, 129 young sea-otters, 2,948 common otters, 14,486 fur-seals, 107 bears, 13,300 beavers, 2 wolves, 458 sables, 243 lynxes, 163 mole-skins, 1,504 pairs of castoreum, 684 black foxes, 1,590 cross foxes, 5,174 red foxes, 2,359 blue Arctic foxes, 355 white Arctic foxes, and also 31 foxes called white, perhaps albinos.
Besides these reports for special years, I am enabled to present, from the Russian tables of Captain Golowin, another, covering the period from 1842 to 1860, inclusive,—being 25,602 sea-otters, 63,826 otters, probably river-otters, 161,042 beavers, 73,944 foxes, 55,540 Arctic foxes, 2,283 bears, 6,445 lynxes, 26,384 sables, 19,076 musk-rats, 2,536 ursine seals, 338,604 marsh-otters, 712 brace of hare, 451 martens, 104 wolves, 46,274 castoreums, 7,309 beavers’ tails. Here is an inexplicable absence of seal-skins. On the other hand are sables, which belong to Asia, and not to America. The list is Russian, and perhaps embraces furs from the Asiatic islands of the Company.
From a competent source I learn that the value of skins at Sitka during the last year was substantially as follows: Sea-otter, $50; marten, $4; beaver, $2.50; bear, $4.50; black fox, $50; silver fox, $40; cross fox, $25; red fox, $2. A recent price-current in New York gives the following prices there in currency: Silver fox, $10 to $50; cross fox, $3 to $5; red fox, $1 to $1.50; otter, $3 to $6; mink, $3 to $6; beaver, $1 to $4; musk-rat, $0.20 to $0.50; lynx, $2 to $4; black bear, $6 to $12; dark marten, $5 to $20. These New York prices vary from those of Sitka. The latter are the better guide to a comprehension of the proceeds at Sitka, subject to deduction for the expenses of the Company. Of the latter I say nothing now, as I have considered them in speaking of the existing Government.
The skins are obtained in three different ways: first, through the hunters employed by the Company; secondly, in payment of taxes imposed by the Company; and, thirdly, by barter or purchase from independent natives. But, with all these sources, it is certain that the Russian Company has enjoyed no success comparable to that of its British rival; and, still more, there is reason to believe that latterly its profits have not been large.
Amid all the concealment or obscurity which prevails with regard to revenues, it is easy to see that for some time to come there must be a large amount of valuable furs on this coast. The bountiful solitudes of the forest and of the adjoining waters have not yet been exhausted; nor will they be, until civilization has supplied substitutes. Such, indeed, is part of that humane law of compensation which contributes to the general harmony. For the present there will be trappers on the land, who will turn aside only a little from prizes there to obtain from the sea its otter, seal, and walrus. It cannot be irrelevant, and may not be without interest, if I call attention briefly to those fur-bearing animals which are about to be brought within the sphere of republican government. If we cannot find their exact census, we may at least learn something of their character and value.