Canada and Newfoundland

by Frank G. Carpenter

Most of the fine fox skins now marketed in Canada come from animals raised in captivity on fur farms. Occasionally a cat may act as a substitute mother for a litter of fox kittens.

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.