The beaver’s long, sharp-edged teeth were used as [a]Fashion in Fur] chisels by the Indians, before the white man brought in iron and steel. The meat I have spoken of already; some of my western readers know its taste well. It is something like tender pork; the choicest morsel, the tail, makes fine bacon. The animal used often to be roasted whole, in the skin, till its fur became too valuable to burn.
The French fur traders found their best market in Russia and Poland; but the fur-wearing fashion “caught on” in France itself, and spread to England. Then it was found that the shorter hairs of the beaver made the finest felt, and beaver hats of many shapes became the rage. When English hatters took to mixing cheap rabbit fur with the more expensive material, a law was passed forbidding them to use anything but beaver. If silk had not taken its place, in the last century, the beaver would probably have been hunted out of existence in Canada. It disappeared from England hundreds of years ago, and very few are now left in northern Europe and Siberia. Even when the beaver’s fur was no longer wanted for felting, and there was choice of many fur animals for other purposes of luxurious clothing, it was still greatly sought after, and a few years ago the beaver was disappearing. Then Canadian governments forbade its capture for a while, and to-day our beaver colonies are growing fast.
Look back now to the day when the beaver first became King of the West—when the Company settled on the shores of the Bay.
The domain granted by Charles the Second to this company included “all the lands, countries, and territories upon the coasts and confines” of “all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds lying [a]Ruling Over Rupert’s Land] within the entrance of Hudson’s Straits,” excepting only such land as might be in the possession of other Christian nations. As we look on the map we see that the area thus granted included not only a strip of land two or three hundred miles wide around the eastern and southern shores of Hudson Bay, but an empire of forest and prairie stretching westward to the Rocky Mountains, where the Saskatchewan had its sources—a thousand miles across.
Over the whole of this territory of “Rupert’s Land” the Company was to reign. Some of its powers were greater than the king himself dared to exercise in the mother-country. An absolute monopoly of trade; power to make laws, inflict punishment, plant colonies, build towns and forts, maintain armies—all these were conferred on Prince Rupert and his partners; and, to crown all, no British subject was so much as to set foot on the soil of Rupert’s Land without the Company’s written leave. The reason given for this imperial grant was that the Adventurers had “at theire owne great cost and charge undertaken an Expedition for the discovery of a new Passage into the South Sea, and for the finding some Trade for Furrs, Mineralls, and other considerable Commodityes,” by which the king hoped for “very great advantage” to himself and his kingdom. As rent for the whole vast domain the Company was to pay his Majesty “two elks and two black beavers” per annum.
For many years the Company had no idea of the size of its domain, and made no attempt to occupy even the best-known districts of the interior. The Indians from [a]A Trading Scene] hundreds of miles up country brought their annual catch of furs to the Company’s posts on the Bay.
The scene when one of these yearly parties appeared was picturesque, but not altogether pleasant. Pitching their camp outside the palisade of the fort, the red men celebrated their arrival by drinking as much of the white men’s spirits as they could get. Although the liquor, for economy and for safety, was plentifully mixed with water, trading was out of the question for two or three days.
When the Indians were ready for business they were admitted to the fort with their bundles of furs. Each skin was carefully examined, and the price decided on was paid in the form of little notched sticks or quills. With these counters each red man passed on into another room, where axes, guns, blankets, mirrors, beads, trinkets, and all the other useful or useless objects of an Indian’s desire were spread before him.
Everything was priced in beaver-skins, not in shillings or dollars. A price list dated 1733 shows that one beaver would then buy a brass kettle or twelve ounces of colored beads, a pound and a half of gunpowder or two pounds of sugar, two combs or twelve needles, a pair of shoes or two looking glasses, eight knives or two hatchets. If the Indian asked the price of a blanket, he was told “Six Beaver.” He could get a gallon of brandy, at that time, for four beaver. He paid ten or twelve beaver for a gun, four for a pistol, three for a pair of breeches or two handkerchiefs.