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Updated: June 3, 2025
Even in such parts of the country as the Company endeavour to preserve, both the fur-bearing and larger animals have of late become so scarce, that some tribes are under the necessity of quitting their usual hunting-grounds.
No fort is established in them: so scarce are the fur-bearing animals of these parts, their skins would not repay the expense of a "trading post." Far different are the "wooded tracts" of the fur countries. These lie mostly in the southern and central regions of the Hudson's Bay territory. There are found the valuable beaver, and the wolverene that preys upon it.
The people who first pushed into the unknown country west of the Mississippi, in the earlier half of the last century, were chiefly hunters and trappers. They did not intend to make permanent homes in the wilds, but rather to stay only so long as they could secure an abundance of fur-bearing animals.
He had trapped for fur-bearing animals on the North Shores; he had twice fought the rebels at the Red River; he had freighted many and many a "prairie schooner" from the Assiniboine to the Saskatchewan; and then, one glorious morning in July, when the hot yellow sun poured its wealth of heat and light into the velvety plains of Alberta, Maurice descried at the very edge of the western horizon a far-off speck of shining white, apparently not larger than a single lump of sugar.
The moose, the beaver and the bear had for years been decreasing, and other fur-bearing animals were slowly but surely lessening with them. The natives, aware of this, were now alive, as well, to concurrent changes foreign to their experience.
The natives certainly could and should be helped out in their living, as competition in the fur trade of late has so exterminated fur-bearing animals that hunting and trapping bring them in little, and their diet is indeed low. One of my hunters during last fall only secured one bear, one silver gray fox, and two land otter.
Between 1602 and 1668, English adventurers from London and Bristol, notable amongst whom were WILLIAM BAFFIN, LUKE FOX, and CAPTAIN JAMES, mapped the coasts of Hudson's Bay and Baffin's Bay and brought to the notice of merchants in England the abundance of whales in these Arctic waters, and of fur-bearing beasts and fur-trading Indians in the region of Hudson's Bay.
Up to 1840, one eighty-fifth share had averaged 400l. per annum; since then, however, the dividends have been on the decline, nor are they ever likely to reach the same amount, for several reasons, the chief of which is the destruction of the fur-bearing animals.
He told of the fur-bearing animals, and of what a vast fortune could be made if their skins could only be got to Holland, where furs were needed. He told of the Indians; and the river which flowed past the island he spoke of as "The River of the Mountains." The directors of the Dutch East India Company were not particularly pleased with Hudson's report.
"And it also told us," Owen continued, "that there were a lot of little fur-bearing animals living along the stream, with a mighty strong taste for fresh-water clams." "As what?" asked Bandy-legs. "Oh! mink, otter, muskrats, raccoons, and perhaps fisher. All these used to be plentiful through these parts in years gone by.
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