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One of the things that has always fascinated me with the beaver has been it's instrumental role in shaping the development of Canada. No other animal has had as much influence on the path of Canadian history as this aquatic rodent.

As one historian put it "The beaver, by its defenselessness, no less than by its value, was responsible for unrolling the map of Canada". The quest for the beaver, was the single greatest impetus for exploration in what was at that time the great unknown reaches of Canada--the west. Although the beaver seems to have missed any mention in relation to Noah and his arc, it's clear that they managed to survive more than this early disaster.

The Hudson's Bay Company sent vast amounts of beaver skins to England only to see them mutilated and most of the fur discarded. Most of what we would consider to be the fur was considered waste as the soft underfur was refined into high quality felts for the beaver hats so important during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Huguenots, early French Protestants, became specialists in utilizing the beaver pelt to make this felt. The process would involve the use of various chemicals including several mercury compounds. Unlike today, they weren't aware of the less than pleasant affects that mercury can have on your health. As a result, many of the feltmakers were driven into early senility from these chemicals and thus the term "mad as a hatter" came into being. The famous character from "Alice In Wonderland" was based, at least partially, on fact, and can be related back to Canada's beaver. The possession of a fine beaver hat, was a sure sign of social standing. To the natives of Canada, the beaver did everything almost perfectly--it produced kettles, knives, guns and most everything else the native traders required. The beaver became so valuable that for several centuries it became the standard currency in what would eventually become Canada.

One of the most common fur trade stories related to Indians piling up beaver pelts as high as a gun in order to purchase that particular gun. This is indeed a fallacy and never occurred. It has been tested on several occasions and would have taken almost 400 beaver skins to pile up to the height of the longest guns and not even the most naive Indian trader would have paid that much when the going price was only about a dozen pelts. However, this story has been faithfully passed on for generations.

One of the most important events in the fur trade was the development of the steel jaw trap in 1823. Suddenly, it was possible to leave dozens of traps in likely areas and astronomically increase the odds of acquiring pelts. One party managed to catch as many as 155 beaver in a single day.