Siberia and British North America are the two great fur-yielding regions of the world. They form immense hunting-grounds for almost every variety of fur animal. They give constant employment to large numbers of adventurous men, who in their trapping and hunting are exposed to great risks and dangers.
The Siberian trappers are usually bold, hardy peasants, whom the rigor of the climate drives to adopt this life of hardship and danger. In North America, although many hundreds of white men are employed as fur-hunters, the hunting and trapping are mostly in the hands of theIndians, who barter the skins they obtain for blankets, biscuits, and a variety of articles for use and personal adornment.
Siberia provides by far the largest share of the fur trade of the world. Among its fur-bearing animals are the sable, marten, beaver, fox, squirrel, ermine, wolf, bear, lynx, badger, sea-otter, and seal. The richest and handsomest furs are obtained from the eastern part of Siberia.
It is said that China alone imports annually from Siberia nearly three million squirrel-skins, irrespectiveof other furs. Turkey and Persia are also large importers of Siberian furs. The winter, of course, is the season for fur-hunting, because then the coats of the animals are at their thickest and best. All through the winter the hardy, intrepid hunters are scattered over the wildest and mostsolitary parts of the country, collecting the furs. After the break up of the winter they bring their collections to certain towns, where annual fairs are held for the sale of the furs and other commodities.
Among the most important of these towns are Nishni Novgorod on the Volga, Archangel on the White Sea, and Yakoutsk on the Lena in Eastern Siberia; each of which acts as a central depot for the fur trade in its own part of the empire. The Emperor of Russia derives part of his private income from a tribute which is paid by certain Siberian tribes in the shape of the most costly of furs. Such furs are, as a consequence, never allowed to appear in the markets.
The fur trade of North America was entirely in the hands of the Hudson Bay Company till the year 1860, but since that time it has been taken up by several other traders.
Victoria, in Vancouver Island, is the chief depot for the Hudson Bay traders, who confine their operations mostly to the North-West Provinces, Hudson Bay, and the Rocky Mountains. New York, Boston, St. Louis, and Montreal are the chief centers of the fur trade for the eastern partof the continent.
The principal fur-bearing animals of America are the sea-otter, common otter, and seal; black, red, white, and silver foxes; the panther, wolf, beaver, racoon, bear, wolverine, badger, musk-rat, lynx, ermine, and marten.
The furs sent out annually from British Columbia formthe most important and valuable of its exports.
The estimated total collection of furs from all the fur- producing countries of the world in a single season does not fall far short of 30 million peltries, their total value being upwards of ?3,000,000 sterling. This, of course, takes no account of rabbit-skins and others that are used for felting purposes, for such skins are not styled peltries. Of these France is estimated to produce no less than 80 millions; England, 30 millions; Australia, 20 millions; Belgium, probably 15 millions; and Austria and Germany another 20 millions.
The trade in peltries gives employment to three distinct classes of people. First there are, as we have seen, the trappers, who collect the skins; then there are the wholesale dealers, to whom they sell them at the great trading centers; lastly, there are the furriers, or fur-dressers, who prepare the skins for the market.
The pelts, as they are taken by the trappers, are simply rubbed and salted to arrest putrefaction, and in this state they are brought in to the depot. At the depot they are cleansed and cured, and then packed in large casks for shipment to England and other countries, wherethey command high prices, and yield large profits to the traders. London is a great center of the fur trade.
The value of the fur, of course, depends upon the condition of the skin. If the pelt is torn, through the struggles of the animal in the trap, or riddled with shot, or badly stretched and dried, it loses materially in value. On the other hand, it is a remarkable thing that so little is really wasted, even in a so-called spoilt pelt. The smallestclippings, cuttings, and remnants are pieced together withmarvellous skill, so that it is often difficult to see that they have been joined.
Many skins owe their elegance and value to the length and fineness of the overhair, but we have only to examine a lady"s seal-skin jacket or muff side by side with some other fur article to see a striking difference. The seal- skin fur has a close velvet-like softness, without any of the long, loose hairs such as we see in most other furs. The skin as it is taken from the seal and put into pickle for the London furrier has stiff coarse overhair, which almost conceals the real fur beneath, but in the work of preparation all the overhair is carefully removed.
For a long time each hair was plucked out singly by hand. At last, however, some one discovered that the roots of these stiff coarse hairs were more deeply embedded in the skin than those of the true fur, and a curious method has since been adopted for removing them. The pelt is first stretched out flat with the flesh side uppermost,and part of the skin is pared or shaved off with a sharp, flat knife. In cutting away this under surface of the skin thosedeeply-embedded hair-roots are cut through, and it is an easy matter then to pull out the long overhairs. No one but an expert would be able to recognize a seal-skin as it leaves the hands of the furrier, if he could have seen it in its greasy, salted state when it was taken out of the pickle cask after landing in this country.
