Canadian beaver and the fur trade

The soft underfur of the beaver’s pelt was particularly good for making felt, the material used for the highest quality gentlemen’s hats.

In felt-making, soft fibres are pressed together to make a thick fabric. The complicated process of felting and the cost of shipping pelts from the colonies made a beaver hat very expensive. A beaver hat cost about the equivalent of £350 in today's money. 

From the 1550s onward, the beaver hat was a must-have for any gentleman in popular society, but by the 1600s, the beavers in Europe had been hunted nearly to extinction. The discovery of vast numbers of beavers in the New World brought about a resurgence in the industry.

Fur traders were usually paid in food and supplies. Although beaver pelts were by far the most valuable traded in the Canadian frontier, other animal pelts were bought on a grading system. A fur trader could expect to be paid the same for one buffalo skin or moose hide as for two beaver pelts or four otter pelts. A fox or wolf hide was worth the same as one beaver. A black bear pelt could be worth as much as five beaver pelts.

It wasn't just the beaver's fur that was valuable. Castoreum is an alkaloid oil from scent glands near the beaver's anus. It was worth a fortune. People in Europe believed it could cure everything from hiccups and insomnia to flea infestations. Some believed that you could improve your memory by wearing a beaver fur hat, rubbing castoreum into your head and back, and drinking a little beaver oil every year!

Traders even dealt in skunk, badger and wolverine pelts, although most preferred fox, marten, muskrat, mink and lynx. At one point, even geese and swans were traded as their thick feathers were used for pen-quills.

The beaver hat remained highly popular until about the 1850s when fashion changed in favour of silk hats. By that time, fur was in demand for coats and other clothing that used entire pelts. Buffalo coats were especially valued, as well as the soft pelts of mink and ermine. 

The fur trade had financed the settlement and exploration of most of British North America. It attracted strong, adaptable people who were capable of living in a hostile land. Gradually, this wild land, built by a culture of explorers and adventurers, became the country known today as Canada.