Trappers and Traders

North America's fur trade began in Canada in the 1500s along the St. Lawrence River near Montreal. Those early rough and tumble trappers and traders endured unimaginable hardships. Through this beautiful presentation, take a trip with those men as they hunt beaver pelts needed to make the fashionable men's top hats. Paddle canoes carrying the heavy fur cargo of bear, otter, bison, wolf, mink, rabbit, fox and seal. Get a sense of the savvy global business handlings of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Fur Company, as many explorers went in search of the mythical "Northwest Passage."