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IN THE BEGINNING
By: Many Trades
When asked, most people will answer
that the American fur trade era began in 1820 or at least
no earlier than Ashley's ad for 100 young men. The truth
is that to say when the trade began, it has to be looked
at from a different perspective. Let's take, for example,
the origins of the beaver. Fossils have been found that
show the earliest beaver lived about 10,000 years ago. He
had front teeth that measured eleven and a half inches,
weighed maybe four to five hundred pounds and was more
than seven feet long. Other than being larger, he looked
pretty much like today's smaller edition. And, even though
he is the second largest of his kind in the world, the
beaver is still a rodent.
Being a vegetarian, Mr. Castoridae eats grass, roots,
water plants, and, of course, the bark of trees. He cuts
down trees in order to get at the tender bark of the limbs
and to obtain logs for building his dams. He eats the bark
off the limbs much as you or I eat corn on the cob. He's
very clever with those front feet.
The young beaver stay with their parents for about two
years. Alas! There comes a spring day when they are then
driven out to make room for new babies. If he lives that
long a young beaver matures at three years of age and goes
hunting for a mate. Finding one seems not all that
difficult. When ready, the twosome go in search of a place
to build a home. Their prime real estate may be a stream
large or small (small being preferred). The spot can be
somewhere in reach of their parents or it can be miles
away. In any event, they are on their own and will stay
mates throughout their lives-usually about sixteen years.
Once a spot is selected, the pair go about construction of
a dam and house. If the stream they chose has a fast
current, the dam will be made to curve upstream-much like
the man-made dams on major rivers.. If it is a gentle
flow, they will build it straight across.
Building and living underwater would
be a tough chore for most any other creature, including
humans. But the beaver is uniquely prepared. In both
nostrils and ears there are valves that close to keep out
all water. They have transparent membranes to cover their
eyes yet still let them see. By closing a pair of skins
behind the teeth they can eat underwater. Their webbed
back feet make for great swimming while the front feet are
nimble and about as capable as human ones. They keep
themselves well groomed by use of the split nail on the
second toe of the hind feet. Then there's that tail. It
serves as a steering devices, (a rudder), and as a prop to
hold it up and for balance when sitting. And not least, by
whacking it against the water it gives warning of danger
to others. That whack doesn't sound like a
"crack!" It sounds more as if someone had
dropped a large flat stone from high up; a sort of dull
thumping sound, or as if someone had performed a perfect
cannon ball into a pool.
Mr. Beaver had, for many years, a grand life. His only
enemies were creatures of the wild. Although many of the
native Indians relished beaver meat and had it as a
regular part of their diet, they yet venerated the beaver
and made it an important part of their religion. Too,
their methods of catching the beaver was with arrows, pits
or deadfalls., methods not conducive large-scale killing.
The Indians also had a practice of not taking too many
beaver from a colony. Until the advent of iron traps their
impact on the beaver population was minimal.
Work on the dam begins with moderately sized tree limbs.
Smaller ones get added as needed. Base logs are set in so
that they point upstream. The big ends get anchored to the
bottom by piling on large rocks. With their phlegmatic
attitude toward work, beavers will build a dam to whatever
length is required to back up the waters of the stream
they have chosen. The longest recorded reached more than
two thousand (yes, two thousand!) feet across.
The young couple, without previous experience, perhaps by
instinct, know how to build a house. As the dam is
completed, the water backs up to form a pond or, depending
on its size, a lake. The pair work like beavers, usually
at night, and it doesn't take them all that long to get
the job done. Their dwelling is a remarkable thing, The
door is under water where to enter, one must swim beneath
the surface. The entrance leads through a tunnel up to the
living quarters which are nicely above the water level of
the pond. Usually there is another tunnel that leads from
the living quarters to a spot somewhere on dry land. The
interior of the beaver house will have a floor covered
with grass and wood chips. The roof will be strong, but
thin enough to allow for ventilation. Lodges are often
plastered with rocks and mud.
With cold weather the animals are usually at home. The
house has frozen so hard that even a bear can't dig
through. Even though the pond may freeze, the dam is high
enough to assure the water is of a depth that it will
still have unfrozen water beneath the ice adequate to the
beaver's needs.
Although there may be no holes in the ice that the beaver
may use to come up for air. the animal will make do. A
beaver can stay underwater without additional air for
about 6 minutes. Should he need more time, he will
suddenly blow out all the stale air in his lungs and
follow the resulting bubble up to the under-surface of the
ice. The air hits the ice and is at once purified. The
beaver then sticks its nose into the bubble and breathes
the purified air in again. He can do this over and over.
The beaver plans well for a winter of
isolation. They store bark-covered limbs in the bottom of
their pond to last through even an extended winter. They
can dive down for a snack whenever they please.
So there they stay all winter, snug in their self-built
home, safe from harm from predators. Even a bear cannot
tear the frozen house apart. The spring can be a different
story. Babies, born in litters of three to as many as
eight, are not yet prepared for flight. There are many
dangers inherent at this time. For one, otters can and
will find them. Vicious little thrill killers, the otters
will invade the beaver house and slay every creature
there-not necessarily for food, but just for the pure
thrill of killing. But despite all the dangers; otters,
bears, coyotes, mountain lions and more, the beaver
survived. They even survived, but barely, when faced by
the most dangerous foe of all-the trappers.
Unfortunately for the beaver, their fur is uniquely
fashioned for the making of the finest felt. Beaver hair
consists of an outer guard hair and a much fine, thick
under fur. The under fur is tipped with a tiny barb. Felt
is made by wetting it and smashing it together to make a
solid body which is then shaped into whatever form is
desired. The barbed tips of the beaver fur bind the felt
in such a way as to make it superior to any other. Alas
for the beaver, felt from his fur was the very best for
making hats, and hats of his fur were in style during the
17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
Beginning as early as the mid to late 1500s, beaver became
an important item of trade between the Americas and
Europe. There was, once, a large population of European
beaver, a creature somewhat related to the American
beaver. By the 1400s it had become a rarity and the
species now is practically extinct. The American beaver
was discovered to range from Alaska as far south as the
deep southwest. To give but one example of the devastation
wrought by trappers, in just one year prior to 1627,
twenty two thousand beaver pelts were shipped to Europe by
the French in Canada.
With such riches to be made on the hides of beaver, it
wasn't long before the leaders of every town were holding
trading fairs. Whiskey quickly became the first order of
business. After a few belts of the raw alcohol, the
Indians would likely throw their catches on a counter and
take whatever the trader wanted to give in return. These
trading fests quickly turned into bacchanals replete with
violence, prostitution, and thievery. Seeing the fortunes
being made and having a sense of wanderlust, young
settlers soon took to the wilderness to acquire pelts and
the resultant riches. Called coureurs de bois, they ranged
far into the interior, joined with the various tribes, and
became more Indian than the Indians. If he didn't drink
away his profits a coureur could make a profit of seven
hundred percent.
During the next hundred years the
beaver were persecuted and knowledge of the interior by
French and English grew. Companies had been, and continued
to be, formed-including the Hudson's Bay Company and later
the Northwest Fur Company. Cities had been named after
royalty, religious figures, and explorers as Europeans
pressed ever westward. Fortunes were made and beaver
colonies were devastated.. As if this were not enough,
there was a rebellion in the eastern English colonies and
the United States were born. Soon, with the Louisiana
Purchase, Lewis and Clark made their journey of discovery,
and let John Colter stay in the wilderness. His resultant
return to civilization with tales of an abundance of
beaver, combined with Lewis and Clark's reports of the
same, led to the era of the mountain man and the near
extinction of the large rodent.
The number of beaver at the advent of the fur trade by
Europeans has been estimated at fro 20 to 60 million. The
vagueness is because no one really knows and even though
records were kept of catches by the larger fur companies,
the independents did not. It is known, however, that by
the early 1900s, the beaver were nearly extinct. States
began a program of live trapping some of the few left and
relocating them to favorable locations. They also imposed
a no kill status on them. The program was so successful
that 1915 the plantings had resulted in a population of
15000 animals. A few years later the beaver were in full
swing, eating up valuable timber. A short trapping season
was allowed. From 1933 to 1940, in the state of New York
22000 pelts were taken and sold for $374,000.00. From
there the beaver have been "managed" and have
proven very valuable. They are used not only for their
fur, but for their dam building qualities. They are
released by request to provide catch basins for later
irrigation. The ponds help new growth forests and provide
flood control. Beneficial insects use the ponds as
breeding grounds. Dead watersheds come to life.
For the beaver, life is good again.
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