North American Fur Trade Routes

The canoe and post networks that moved North American beaver pelts to European hat makers from the 16th to 19th centuries.

Overview

European felt hats made beaver fur a commodity for three centuries. French traders ran from the St Lawrence through the Great Lakes west with voyageur canoe brigades, while the Hudson's Bay Company, chartered in 1670, drew furs to bayside posts. Indigenous nations were not passive: they controlled supply, set terms and worked as the trade's actual logistics, exchanging pelts for blankets, kettles, guns and alcohol, the last a destructive and contested good. The trade mapped half a continent, produced the Metis people, and the company survives as a Canadian retailer. Silk hats and beaver depletion ended the classic era by the 1840s.