North American Fur Trade - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, exchange, and sale of animal fur

Fur

Fur is a synonym for hair, used more in reference to non-human animals, usually mammals; particularly those with extensives body hair coverage. The term is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat, also known as the "pelage". Fur is also used to refer to animal...

s in the North American continent

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

of different regions traded among themselves in the Pre-Columbian Era

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

, but Europeans

Timeline of colonization of North America

This is a chronology of the colonization of North America, with founding dates of European settlements. See also European colonization of the Americas.-Before Columbus:* 6th Century: Brendan The Navigator possibly reaches North America.* 874: Norse reach Iceland...

participated in the trade beginning from the time of their arrival in the New World and extended its reach to Europe. The French started trading in the 16th century, the English established trading posts on Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

in present-day Canada in the 17th century, and the Dutch had trade by the same time in New Netherland

New Netherland

New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...

. The 19th-century North American fur trade, when the industry was at its peak of economic importance, involved the development of elaborate trade networks and companies.

The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North America attracting, at various times, competition among the French, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Russians. Indeed in the early history of the United States, capitalizing on this trade, and removing the British stranglehold over it, was seen as a major economic objective. Many Native American societies across the continent came to depend on the fur trade as their primary source of income. By the mid 1800s, however, changing fashions in Europe brought about a collapse in fur prices. The American Fur Company

American Fur Company

The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest businesses in the country. The company was one the first great trusts in American business...

and some other companies failed. Many Native communities were plunged into long-term poverty and consequently lost much of the political influence they once had.

Origins

French explorer Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big...

in his three voyages into the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 1530s and 1540s conducted some of the earliest fur trading between European and First Nations

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

peoples associated with sixteenth century and later explorations in North America. Cartier attempted limited fur trading with the First Nations

First Nations

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the St. Lawrence River. He concentrated on trading for furs used as trimming and adornment. He overlooked the fur that would become the driving force of the fur trade in the north, the beaver pelt, which would become fashionable in Europe.

The earliest European trading for beaver pelts dated to the growing cod

Atlantic cod

The Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, is a well-known demersal food fish belonging to the family Gadidae. It is also commercially known as cod, codling or haberdine....

fishing industry that spread to the Grand Banks

Grand Banks

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.The mixing of these waters...

of the North Atlantic in the 16th century. The new preservation technique of drying fish

Dried and salted cod

Dried and salted cod, often called salt cod or clipfish , is cod which has been preserved by drying after salting. Cod which has been dried without the addition of salt is called stockfish....

allowed the mainly Basque fishermen to fish near the Newfoundland coast and transport fish back to Europe for sale. Drying fish enabled gathering greater yields, which justified the economic cost and time of long voyages across the Atlantic. The fisherman sought suitable harbors with ample lumber to dry large quantities of cod. This generated their earliest contact with local Aboriginal peoples

Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....

, with whom the fisherman began simple trading.

The fishermen traded metal items for beaver robes made of sewn-together, native-tanned, beaver pelts. They used the robes to keep warm on the long, cold return voyages across the Atlantic. These castor gras in French (or "beaver coat" in English) became prized by European hat makers in the second half of the 16th century, as they converted the pelts to fur felt. The discovery of the superior felting qualities of beaver fur, along with the rapidly increasing popularity of beaver felt hats

Beaver hat

A beaver hat is a hat made from felted beaver fur. They were fashionable across much of Europe during the period 1550-1850 because the soft yet resilient material could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes...

in fashion, transformed the incidental trading of fishermen in the sixteenth century into a growing trade in the French

New France

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...

and later English

British America

For American people of British descent, see British American.British America is the anachronistic term used to refer to the territories under the control of the Crown or Parliament in present day North America , Central America, the Caribbean, and Guyana...

territories in the next century.

New France in the 17th century

The transition from a seasonal coastal trade into a permanent interior fur trade was formally marked with the foundation of Quebec

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

on the St. Lawrence River in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain , "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608....

. This settlement marked the beginning of the westward movement of French traders from the first permanent settlement of Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River

Saguenay River

The Saguenay River is a major river of Quebec, Canada.It drains Lac Saint-Jean in the Laurentian Highlands, leaving at Alma and running east, and passes the city of Saguenay. It drains into the Saint Lawrence River at Tadoussac....

on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, up the St. Lawrence River and into the pays d'en haut (or "upper country") around the Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

. What followed in the first half of the 17th century were strategic moves by both the French and the indigenous groups to further their own economic and geopolitical ambitions.

Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain

led the expansion while centralizing the French efforts. As native peoples had the primary role of suppliers in the fur trade, Champlain quickly created alliances with the Algonquin, Montagnais

Innu

The Innu are the indigenous inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan , which comprises most of the northeastern portions of the provinces of Quebec and some western portions of Labrador...

(who were located in the territory around Tadoussac), and most importantly, the Huron to the west. The latter, an Iroquoian-speaking people, served as middlemen between the French on the St. Lawrence and nations in the pays d'en haut. Champlain supported the northern groups in their preexisting military struggle with the Iroquois Confederacy to the south. He secured the Ottawa River

Ottawa River

The Ottawa River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. For most of its length, it now defines the border between these two provinces.-Geography:...

route to Georgian Bay

Georgian Bay

Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada...

, greatly expanding the trade. Champlain also sent young French men to live and work among the natives, most notably Étienne Brûlé

Étienne Brûlé

Étienne Brûlé , was the first of European French explorers to journey along the St. Lawrence River with the Native Americans and to view Georgian Bay and Lake Huron Canada in the 17th century. A rugged outdoorsman, he took to the lifestyle of the First Nations and had a unique contribution to the...

, to learn the land, language, and customs, as well as to promote trade.

Champlain reformed the business of the trade, creating the first informal trust

Trust (19th century)

A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices. Trusts gained economic power in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some, but not all, were organized as trusts in the legal sense...

in 1613 in response to increasing losses due to competition. The trust was later formalized with a royal charter, leading to a series of trace monopolies during the term of New France. The most notable monopoly was the Company of One Hundred Associates

Company of One Hundred Associates

In 1627 the French government granted the company of 100 associates a monopoly on the fur trade in New france. In return the company was supposed to bring over 4000 French catholics to settle down in new france over the next 15 years. The company allowed the settlers to trade for furs directly with...

, with occasional concessions, such as to habitants
Habitants
Habitants is the name used to refer to both the French settlers and the inhabitants of French origin who farmed the land along the two shores of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River in what is the present-day Province of Quebec in Canada...

in the 1640s and 1650s, permitting them limited trading. While the monopolies dominated the trade, their charters also required payment of annual returns to the national government, military expenditures, and expectations that they would encourage settlement for the sparsely populated New France.

The vast wealth in the fur trade created enforcement problems for the monopoly. Unlicensed independent traders, known as coureurs des bois (or “runners of the woods”), began to do business in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Over time, many Métis

Métis

A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...

were drawn to the independent trade; they were the descendants of French trappers and native women. The increasing use of currency

Currency

In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

, as well as the importance of personal contacts and experience in the fur trade, gave an edge to independent traders over the more bureaucratic monopolies. The newly established English colonies to the south quickly joined the lucrative trade, raiding the St. Lawrence River valley and capturing and controlling Quebec

Quebec City

from 1629 to 1632.

While bringing wealth to a few select French traders and the French regime, the fur trade also brought profound changes to the indigenous groups living along the St. Lawrence. European wares, such as iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

axe heads, brass

Brass

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

kettles, cloth, and firearms bought with beaver pelts and other furs, greatly increased the standard of living for indigenous peoples. The subsequent destruction of beaver populations along the St. Lawrence heightened the fierce competition between the Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...

and Huron for access to the rich fur-bearing lands of the Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...

. The competition for hunting is believed to have contributed to the earlier destruction of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians

St. Lawrence Iroquoians

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians were a prehistoric First Nations/Native American indigenous people who lived from the 14th century until about 1580 CE along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and New York State, United States. They spoke Laurentian...

in the valley by 1600, likely by the Iroquois Mohawk

Mohawk nation

Mohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...

tribe, who were located closest to them, were more powerful than the Huron, and had the most to gain by controlling this part of the valley.

Iroquois access to firearms through Dutch

Dutch colonization of the Americas

Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...

and later English

History of New England

This article presents the History of New England, the oldest clearly defined region of the United States, unique among U.S. geographic regions in that it is also a former political entity. While New England was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples, English Pilgrims and especially Puritans,...

traders along the Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

increased the casualties in the warfare. This greater bloodshed, previously unseen in Iroquoian warfare, increased the practice of “Mourning Wars”. The Iroquois raided neighboring groups to take captives, who were ritually adopted to replace the dead Iroquois; thus a cycle of violence and warfare escalated. More significantly, new infectious disease

Infectious disease

Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...

s brought by the French decimated native groups

Population history of American indigenous peoples

The population figures for Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus have proven difficult to establish and rely on archaeological data and written records from European settlers...

and broke up their communities. Combined with warfare, disease led to the near destruction of the Huron by 1650.

British and French competition

The era from roughly 1660 through 1763 saw a fierce rivalry grow between France and Great Britain as each European power struggled to expand their fur-trading territories. The two imperial powers and their native allies competed in conflicts that culminated in the French and Indian War

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

, a part of the Seven Years' War

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

in Europe.

The 1659-1660 voyage of French traders Pierre-Esprit Radisson

Pierre-Esprit Radisson

Pierre-Esprit Radisson was a French-Canadian fur trader and explorer. He is often linked to his brother-in-law Médard des Groseilliers who was about 20 years older. The decision of Radisson and Groseilliers to enter the English service led to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company.Born near...

and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers into the country north and west of Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

symbolically opened this new era of expansion. Their trading voyage proved extremely lucrative in furs. More importantly, they learned of a frozen sea to the north that provided easy access to the fur-bearing interior. Upon their return, French officials confiscated the furs of these unlicensed coureurs des bois. Radisson and Groseilliers went to Boston and then to London to secure funding and two ships to explore the Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

. Their success led to England's chartering of the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

in 1670, a major player in the fur trade for the next two centuries.

French exploration and expansion westward continued with men such as La Salle

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, or Robert de LaSalle was a French explorer. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico...

and Marquette

Jacques Marquette

Father Jacques Marquette S.J. , sometimes known as Père Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan...

exploring and claiming the Great Lakes as well as the Ohio

Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...

and Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

valleys. To bolster these territorial claims, the French constructed a series of small fortifications, beginning with Fort Frontenac

Fort Frontenac

Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in 1673 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It was positioned at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario , in a location traditionally known as Cataraqui...

on Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

in 1673. Together with the construction of Le Griffon
Le Griffon
Le Griffon was a 17th century sailing ship built by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in his quest to find the Northwest Passage to China and Japan....

in 1679, the first full-sized sailing ship on the Great Lakes, the forts opened the upper Great Lakes to French navigation.

During the 1640s and 1650s, the Iroquois Wars

Iroquois Wars

-First Invasion:In January 1666, the French invaded the Iroquois homeland in present-day New York. The first invasion force was led by Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle. His men were greatly outnumbered by the Iroquois and were forced to withdraw before any significant action could take place...

forced a massive demographic shift as Iroquioa's western neighbors fled the violence. They sought refuge west and north of Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

. More native groups learned about European wares and became trading middlemen, most notably the Ottawa

Odawa people

The Odawa or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in...

. The competitive impact of the new English Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

trade was felt as early as 1671, with diminished returns for the French and the role of the native middlemen. This new competition directly stimulated French expansion into the North West to win back native customers. What followed was a continual expansion north and west of Lake Superior

Lake Superior

. The French used diplomatic negotiations with natives to win back trade and an aggressive military policy to temporarily eliminate the Hudson's Bay Company competition. At the same time, the English presence in New England grew stronger, while the French were occupired with trying to combat the coureurs de bois and allied Indians from smuggling furs to the English for often higher prices and higher quality goods than they could offer.

The settlement of native refugees from the Iroquois Wars

Iroquois Wars

in the western and northern Great Lakes

Great Lakes

combined with the decline of the Ottawa middlemen to create vast new markets for French traders. Resurgent Iroquoian warfare in the 1680s also stimulated the fur trade as native French allies bought weapons. The new more distant markets and fierce English competition stifled direct trade from the North West with Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. The old system of native middlemen and coureurs de bois traveling to trade fairs in Montreal or illegally to English markets was replaced by an increasingly complex and labor-intensive trade network. Licensed voyageurs, allied with Montreal merchants, used water routes to reach the far-flung corners of the North West with canoe loads of trade goods. These risky ventures required large initial investments and had a very slow return. The first revenues from fur sales in Europe did not arrive until four or more years after the initial investment. These economic factors concentrated the fur trade in the hands of a few large Montreal merchants who had available capital. This trend expanded in the eighteenth century, and reached its zenith with the great fur-trading companies of the nineteenth century.

The English colonies

By the end of the 18th century the four major British fur trading outposts were Fort Niagara

Fort Niagara

Fort Niagara is a fortification originally built to protect the interests of New France in North America. It is located near Youngstown, New York, on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at its mouth, on Lake Ontario.-Origin:...

in modern New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Fort Detroit

Fort Detroit

Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Détroit was a fort established by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701. The location of the former fort is now in the city of Detroit in the U.S...

and Fort Michilimackinac

Fort Michilimackinac

Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th century French, and later British, fort and trading post in the Great Lakes of North America. Built around 1715, it was located along the southern shore of the strategic Straits of Mackinac connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, at the northern tip of the lower...

in modern Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, and Grand Portage in modern Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, all located in the Great Lakes region. The American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

and the resulting resolution of national borders forced the British to re-locate their trading centers northward. The newly formed United States began its own attempts to capitalize on the fur trade with initially some success. However by the 1830s the fur trade had begun a steep decline. Fur was never again the lucrative enterprise it had once been.

Social and cultural impact

The fur trade and its actors has played a certain role in films and popular culture. It was the topic of various books and films, from James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...

via Irving Pichel

Irving Pichel

Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director. He married Violette Wilson, daughter of Jackson Stitt Wilson, a Methodist minister and Socialist mayor of Berkeley, California. Her sister was actress Viola Barry...

s Hudson's Bay
Hudson's Bay (film)
Hudson's Bay is a 1941 Historical drama by 20th Century Fox starring Paul Muni, Gene Tierney and Laird Cregar. The film is about a pair of French-Canadian explorers whose findings lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company...

of 1941, the popular Canadian musical My Fur Lady
My Fur Lady
My Fur Lady is a satirical musical theatre production, first staged in Canada in the 1950s. It was premiered in Montreal on February 7th 1957, by McGill University students. A revue, it tells the story of Princess Aurora Borealis of "Mukluko" who is searching for a husband, to help keep her...

(music by Galt MacDermot

Galt MacDermot

Galt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song African Waltz in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona...

) of 1957, till Nicolas Vanier

Nicolas Vanier

Nicolas Vanier is a French adventurist, writer and moviemaker.His 2004 film The Last Trapper is about a trapper in the Yukon....

s documentaries. However, in contrast to "the huddy buddy narration of Canada as Hudson's

Henry Hudson

Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...

country", propagated either in popular culture as well in elitist circles as the Beaver Club, founded 1785 in Montreal the often male-centered scholarly description of the fur business does not fully describe the history. Chantal Nadeau, a communication scientist in Montreal's Concordia University

Concordia University

Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...

refers to the "country wives" and "country marriages" between Indian women and European trappers and the Filles du Roy of the 18th century. Nadeau says that women have been described as a sort of commodity, "skin for skin", and they were essential to the sustainable prolongation of the fur trade.

Nadeau describes fur as an essential, "the fabric" of Canadian symbolism and nationhood. She notes the controversies around the Canadian seal hunt, with Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...

as a leading figure. Bardot, a famous actress, had been a model in the 1971 "Legend" campaign of the US mink label Blackglama, for which she posed nude in fur coats. Her involvement in anti-fur campaigns shortly afterward was in response to a request by the noted author Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.-Biography:Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie...

, who asked Bardot to use her celebrity status to help the anti-sealing movement. Bardot had successes as an anti-fur activist and changed from sex symbol to the grown-up mama of "white seal babies". Nadeau related this to her later involvement in French right-wing politics. The anti-fur movement in Canada was intertwined with the nation's exploration of history during and after the Quiet Revolution

Quiet Revolution

The Quiet Revolution was the 1960s period of intense change in Quebec, Canada, characterized by the rapid and effective secularization of society, the creation of a welfare state and a re-alignment of politics into federalist and separatist factions...

in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, until the roll back of the anti-fur movement in the late 1990s. Finally, the PETA

Peta

Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...

celebrity campaign: "I'd rather go naked than wear fur", turned around the "skin for skin" motto and symbology against fur and the fur trade.

Métis people

The Métis peoples of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

are descended of marriages of Cree

Cree

The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...

, Ojibwa

Ojibwa

The Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...

y, Algonquin, Saulteaux

Saulteaux

The Saulteaux are a First Nation in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.-Ethnic classification:The Saulteaux are a branch of the Ojibwe nations. They are sometimes also called Anihšināpē . Saulteaux is a French term meaning "people of the rapids," referring to...

, Menominee

Menominee

Some placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...

, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and other First Nations

First Nations

to Europeans, mainly French. The marriages were generally between Indian women and French men. Along with the First Nations

First Nations

and Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

, the Métis are one of the three officially recognized Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....

. Commonly pronounced ˈ or meɪˈtiː in English, meˈtsɪs in Quebec French

Quebec French

Quebec French , or Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language in Canada, in its formal and informal registers. Quebec French is used in everyday communication, as well as in education, the media, and government....

, meˈtis in Standard French, mɪˈtʃɪf in Michif

Michif language

Michif is the language of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women and fur trade workers of European ancestry...

, they are also sometimes historically known as Bois-Brûlés

Bois-Brûlés

Bois-Brûlés , or Brullis , is a sub-tribe of North American Dakota Indians . The name is most frequently associated with the Dakota in Manitoba near the Red River of the North.The Bois-Brûlés took part in the Battle of Seven Oaks...

, Mestizo

Mestizo

Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

, mixed-blood

Mixed-blood

The term mixed-blood in the United States is most often employed for individuals of mixed European and Native American ancestry who are not of Hispanic descent . Some of the most prominent in the 19th century were mixed-blood or mixed-race children born of marriages and unions between fur traders...

s, half-breed

Half-breed

Half-breed is an historic term used to describe anyone who is mixed Native American and white European parentage...

s, Acadian

Acadian

The Acadians are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia . Acadia was a colony of New France...

or country-born

Anglo-Métis

A 19th-century community of the Métis people of Canada, the Anglo-Métis, more commonly known as Countryborn, were children of fur traders; they typically had Orcadian, Scottish, or English fathers and Aboriginal mothers. Their first languages were generally those of their mothers: Cree, Saulteaux,...

Modern day

Modern fur trapping and trading in North America is part of a wider $15 billion global fur industry where wild animal pelts make up only 15 percent of total fur output.

In 2008, the global recession

Late 2000s recession

The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession or Lesser Depression or Long Recession, is a severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world...

hit the fur industry and trappers especially hard with greatly depressed fur prices thanks to a drop in the sale of expensive fur coats and hats. Such a drop in fur prices reflects trends of previous economic downturns.

External links

Economic history of the North American fur trade, 1670 to 1870

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