The normal cargo of
a large canoe was forty packs of skins, each pack weighing about fifty
pounds. Translated into the currency of today a beaver pelt of fair
quality was worth about a dollar. When we read in the official
dispatches that a half-million _livres_' worth of skins changed owners
at the Montreal fair, this statement means that at least a hundred
thousand animals must have been slaughtered to furnish a large
flotilla with its cargo.
The furs of other animals, otter, marten, and mink, were also in
demand but brought smaller prices. Moose hides sold well, and so
did bear skins. Some buffalo hides were brought to Montreal, but in
proportion to their value they were bulky and took up so much room in
the canoes that the Indians did not care to bring them. The heyday
of the buffalo trade came later, with the development of overland
transportation. At any rate the dependence of New France upon these
furs was complete. "I would have you know," asserts one chronicler,
"that Canada subsists only upon the trade of these skins and furs,
three-fourths of which come from the people who live around the Great
Lakes." The prosperity of the French colony hinged wholly upon two
things: whether the routes from the West were open, and whether the
market for furs in France was holding up. Upon the former depended the
quantity of furs brought to Montreal; upon the latter, the amount of
profit which the _coureurs-de-bois_ and the merchants of the colony
would obtain.
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