Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well, that's the very thing I want you to tell me about," replied Jack. "I want to find out all that I can about the beaver, before I see any. In the first place, suppose you tell me how big they are."

"Well," said Hugh, "they are the biggest gnawing animal we have in this country. A full grown beaver will weigh from forty to sixty pounds; perhaps big ones will average as heavy as a half sack of flour."

"My," said Jack, "that's bigger than I supposed they were. I have always heard of the beaver as a little animal. It seems to me that it's a big one."

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's quite a sizable animal, and if you've got a half dozen to pack to your camp on your back you'll think they are pretty good sized animals before you get them all in."

"Well, where do they live?" said Jack.

"I reckon," replied Hugh, "that they live all over this country of North America, from Texas north as far as there are any trees. You know that the food of the beaver is the bark of certain trees, and, of course, they can't live anywhere except where these trees grow, but I have heard of them 'way down in Texas, and I know that the Northern Indians away up toward the limit of trees trap beaver a plenty, so that I expect they are found over the whole country. I have heard your uncle say that there were some beaver in Europe, but over there I reckon they have been about cleaned out. Too many people killing 'em, I reckon."

"Well," said Jack, "I guess they are found all over North America, north of the United States, anyhow; because I know that the coat of arms of Canada has the beaver on it."

"Yes, I reckon the beaver was the reason that Canada was settled, and in fact the beaver was what led men into all this western country. In the early days, soon after Lewis and Clark went across the continent, the fur traders began to push their way into this western country, north and south, and beaver was what they were after. You see in those days it was a mighty valuable fur, worth a good deal more than it's ever been since.

"Just as soon as the white men came into the country and found the Indians wearing robes made of beaver, and clothing trimmed with beaver and other fur, they began to trade for the robes, and to tell the Indians that if they'd bring them in beaver skins they'd give them knives and needles and beads, and later, rum, and, of course, that set the Indians to killing beaver as fast as they could.

"But, as I say, it wasn't until after Lewis and Clark got across the continent that trapping began down in the United States. Along in the 30's, though, white men began to get up fur companies and to hire the best trappers that they could get, and they pushed out in all directions, up the Arkansas, up the Platte, and up the Missouri River, setting their traps in every valley and cleaning out the beaver as fast as they could. Then they got into the mountains, and there they found more beaver and better fur, and there, too, is where they began to run across Indians to bother them. The Blackfeet were the worst. They used to steal our horses and take our traps, and now and then a scalp, when they could, and they made us a great deal of trouble. The prices for fur were good until in the 40's, just before I got out into the country. Then they fell, and for the next twelve or fifteen years every old trapper that you met was growling about the fact that beaver weren't worth anything any more.