The comparative poverty of vegetation in the more northern parts of the continent contrasts with the abundance of animal life, especially if we embrace those tenants of the sea who seek the land for rest. These northern parallels are hardly less productive than the tropics. The lion, the elephant, and the hippopotamus find their counterpart in the bear, the walrus, and the seal, without including the sables and the foxes. Here again Nature, by unerring law, adapts the animal to the climate, and in providing him with needful protection creates also a needful supply for the protection of man; and this is the secret of rich furs. Under the sun of the tropics such provision is as little needed by man as by beast; and therefore Nature, which does nothing inconsistent with wise economy, reserves it for other places.
Among the furs most abundant in this commerce are those of the fox, in its different species and under its different names. Its numbers were noticed early, and gave the name to the eastern group of the Aleutians, which were called Lyssie Ostrowa, or Fox Islands. Some of its furs are among the very precious. The most plentiful is the red, or, as sometimes called, American; but this is not highly prized. Then comes the Arctic, of little value, and of different colors, sometimes blue, and in full winter dress pure white, whose circumpolar home is indicated by its name. The cross fox is less known, but much more sought, from the fineness of its fur and its color. Its name is derived from dark cruciform stripes, extending from the head to the back and at right angles over the shoulders. It is now recognized to be a variety of the red, from which it differs more in commercial value than in general character. The black fox, which is sometimes entirely of shining black with silver white at the tip of the tail, is called also the silver fox, when the black hairs of the body are tipped with white. They are of the same name in science, sometimes called argentatus, although there seem to be two different names, if not different values, in commerce. This variety is more rare than the cross fox. Not more than four or five are taken during a season at any one post in the fur countries, although the hunters use every art for this purpose. The temptation is great, as we are told that “its fur fetches six times the price of any other fur produced in North America.”[156] Sir John Richardson, the authority for this statement, forgot the sea-otter, of which he seems to have known little. Without doubt, the black fox is admired for rarity and beauty. La Hontan, the French commander in Canada under Louis the Fourteenth, speaks of its fur in his time as worth its weight in gold.[157]
Among the animals whose furs are less regarded are the wolverene, known in science as Gulo, or glutton, and called by Buffon the “quadruped vulture,” with a dark brown fur, becoming black in winter, and resembling that of the bear, but not so long, nor of so much value. There is also the lynx, belonging to the feline race, living north of the Great Lakes and eastward of the Rocky Mountains, with a fur moderately prized in commerce. There is also the musk-rat, which is abundant in Russian America, as it is common on this continent, whose fur enters largely into the cheaper peltries of the United States in so many different ways, and with such various artificial colors that the animal would not know his own skin.
Among inferior furs I may include that very respectable animal, the black bear, reported by Cook “in great numbers,” and “of a shining black color.”[158] The grizzly bear is less frequent, and is inferior in quality of fur to all other varieties of the bear. The brown bear is supposed to be a variety of the black bear. The polar bear, which at times is a formidable animal, leaving a footprint in the snow nine inches long, was once said not to make an appearance west of the Mackenzie River; but he has been latterly found on Behring Strait, so that he, too, is included among our new population. The black bear, in himself a whole population, inhabits every wooded district from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Carolina to the ice of the Arctic, being more numerous inland than on the coast. Langsdorff early remarked that he did not appear on the Aleutians, but on the continent, about Cook’s Inlet and Prince William Sound, which are well wooded.[159] He has been found even on the Isthmus of Panama. Next to the dog, he is the most cosmopolitan and perhaps the most intelligent of animals, and among those of the forest he is the most known, even to the nursery. His showy fur once enjoyed great vogue in hammer-cloths and muffs, and it is still used in military caps and pistol-holsters; so that he is sometimes called the Army bear. Latterly the fur has fallen in value. Once it brought in London from twenty to forty guineas. It will now hardly bring more than the same number of shillings.
The beaver, amphibious and intelligent, has a considerable place in commerce, and also a notoriety of its own as the familiar synonym for the common covering of a man’s head; and here the animal becomes historic. By royal proclamation, in 1638, Charles the First of England commanded “that no beaver-makers whatsoever, from henceforth, shall make any hats or caps but of pure beaver.”[160] This proclamation was the death-warrant of beavers innumerable, sacrificed to the demands of the trade. Wherever they existed over a wide extent of country, in the shelter of forests or in lodges built by their extraordinary instinct, they were pursued and arrested in their busy work. The importation of their skins into Europe during the last century was enormous, and it continued until one year it is said to have reached the unaccountable number of 600,000. I give these figures as I find them. Latterly other materials have been obtained for hats, so that this fur has become less valuable. But the animal is still hunted. A medicine supplied by him, and known as the castoreum, has a fixed place in the Materia Medica.
The marten is perhaps the most popular of all the fur-bearing animals belonging to our new possessions. An inhabitant of the whole wooded region of the northern part of the continent, he finds a favorite home in the forests of the Yukon, where he needs his beautiful fur, which is not much inferior to that of his near relative, the far-famed Russian sable. In the trade of the Hudson’s Bay Company the marten occupies the largest place, his skins for a single district amounting to more than fifty thousand annually, and being sometimes sold as sable. The ermine, which is of the same weasel family, is of little value except for its captivating name, although its fur finds a way to the English market in enormous quantities. The mink, also of the same general family, was once little regarded, but now, by freak of fashion in our country, this animal has ascended in value above the beaver, and almost to the level of the marten. His fur is plentiful on the Yukon and along the coast. Specimens in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution attest its occurrence at Sitka.
The seal, amphibious, polygamous, and intelligent as the beaver, has always supplied the largest multitude of furs to the Russian Company. The early navigators describe its appearance and numbers. Cook encountered them constantly. Excellent swimmers, ready divers, they seek rocks and recesses for repose, where, though watchful and never sleeping long without moving, they become the prey of the hunter. Early in the century there was a wasteful destruction of them. Young and old, male and female, were indiscriminately knocked on the head for the sake of their skins. Sir George Simpson, who saw this improvidence with an experienced eye, says that it was hurtful in two ways: first, the race was almost exterminated; and, secondly, the market was glutted sometimes with as many as two hundred thousand a year, so that prices did not pay the expense of carriage.[161] The Russians were led to adopt the plan of the Hudson’s Bay Company, killing only a limited number of males who had attained their full growth, which can be done easily, from the known and systematic habits of the animal. Under this economy seals have multiplied again, vastly increasing the supply.
Besides the common seal, there are various species, differing in appearance, so as to justify different names, and yet all with a family character,—including the sea-leopard, so named from his spots, the elephant seal, from his tusks and proboscis, and the sea-lion, with teeth, mane, and a thick cylindrical body. These are of little value, although their skins are occasionally employed. The skin of the elephant seal is strong, so as to justify its use in the harness of horses. There is also the sea-bear, or ursine seal, very numerous in these waters, whose skin, especially if young, is prized for clothing. Steller speaks with grateful remembrance of a garment he made from one, while on the desert island after the shipwreck of Behring.