What's the history behind the beaver statue on Canadian coins?

There is a cruel history behind the beaver statue on Canadian coins.

Because of the periodicity of hair growth, an animal's fur can only be harvested once a year.

Just like hair, the animal fur we wear is equally important. About/kloc-0.0 million years ago, when early humans moved from Africa to a colder climate, they needed something to resist the cold wind. At first, the most easily obtained warm clothes came from the fur left by the eaten animals (that is, the soft skin of fur), that is, the fur of prey became human clothes. Although the fur of any animal can keep out the cold, the easiest mammal to hunt is often the first choice for human beings. As soon as people find prey, they can put on fur quickly: remove the attached tissue to get fur, then dry it to soften it, and then they can wear it directly on their bodies.

Early humans could only collect fur from hunted animals, but since humans learned to raise livestock 9000 years ago, this work has become much easier. This landmark event reduced the hunting of animals to keep out the cold and satiety, and even disappeared in some areas. Animal fur can be obtained by rational use of captive animals: cattle and pigs can provide leather, and sheep and goats can provide fur. Unfortunately, the most precious and furry animals are not easily domesticated. These animals often live in the cold climate and harsh environment in the north, and they rely on their thick fur for winter.

Beaver hat fever

The fur trade was very important to the British economy from the beginning. In order to support this trade, King Edward II of England established a guild called "High Leather Guild" in London on 1327. The royal family formulated policies to encourage leather merchants to find the most favorable suppliers.

1408, Henry IV authorized a British merchant guild to negotiate with various import organizations, probably including the Teutonic Order. A century later, King Henry VIII thought he could do better, so he instructed leather merchants to negotiate fur import directly with Russian Tsar Ivan IV, bypassing the middleman.

Businessmen in Europe and Arabia are eager to buy furs at high prices, generally for showing off, not for practical or everyday wear. In the past, fur can be used to distinguish social classes, and the ruling class has enacted laws prohibiting luxury to restrict the acquisition and use of fur by ordinary people. King Edward III even enacted a law to stipulate who can wear what kind of fur: which special fur is for the king, which is for the nobles and which is for the senior clergy. In many countries, sable is only used by kings. For example, even at the end of 16, the luxury goods ban implemented by German states still stipulated that businessmen should not wear high-grade furs-mink and ferrets, despite the growing wealth and influence of this class. The middle class can wear cheap furs such as sheepskin, fox skin and mink, but ordinary citizens can't wear any furs.

Although royalty, aristocrats, priests and wealthy businessmen all like to decorate their robes with all kinds of exotic fur, in the16th century, the biggest demand in European society was beaver skin. Europeans have always liked beaver's thick fur, which is mainly composed of short and delicate hair fibers. Most of the demand for beaver skin comes from the homemade hat industry. /kloc-In the 6th century, whether a man with a successful career or a man who is still struggling, a suitable beaver hat is essential. This kind of hat is a symbol of status and wealth, so men should wear it at home or outdoors, in church or at the dinner table. There are different styles of hats: wide and narrow, high and flat, straight edges, elegant and unpretentious ... the only thing they have in common is that they are quite expensive. As a famous writer and black sheep in London in the17th century, SamuelPepys complained that he had to spend 1% of his annual salary on a beaver hat.

A variant of beaver fur hat. The beaver skin market is based on the demand for hats, and the demand for hat styles is varied.

In fact, these beaver hats are priceless and often appear in wills as inheritance. These hats are expensive because they consume a lot of labor. One step involves the stratum corneum. The cuticle of beaver fur is not obvious, and hat makers find that they must open the cuticle in order to achieve the best cashmere shrinking effect. One of the treatment methods is felt pretreatment, which requires adding mercury salt to fur. Although mercury salt can effectively open the stratum corneum and contribute to felting treatment, the smoke generated in the process is harmful to workers' health. Hat-making workers exposed to mercury usually have severe symptoms of nervous mercury poisoning, including difficulty in moving, language barriers, visual distortion and insanity. Poisoning is so common in this industry that the idiom "mad hatter" appears. This situation is not as relaxed and pleasant as the tea party described by LewisCarroll in Alice in Wonderland. After felting pretreatment, the fibers are scraped or pulled out from the skin, then felted, shaped into the shape of a hat, and then re-bonded. Finally, soak the hat in a setting solution containing vinegar, chestnut leaves and glue. Most hats are dyed black, and in some cases, they are coated with waterproof resin, beeswax or sheep fat. After shaping, the hat will become very hard, and it is said that it can even support a person of 200 kg.

Besides, they were so durable that almost everyone wanted to own one at that time.

The temptation of fur in the new American world

Unfortunately, although the demand for beaver skin is increasing, the supply is decreasing. Centuries of excessive hunting and destruction of animal habitats have led to a sharp decline in the number of animals in Nordic forests. By the beginning of the17th century, the beaver population in western Europe was basically extinct, and the watersheds and forests around Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea and Russia were also on the verge of extinction. At this time, there were rumors that there were a lot of fresh goods in the forests of the New World of America, so people set sail at once.

The beaver skin trade in the United States began on the North American coast. Far from the mainland, George Beach between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia is a huge underwater mountain range. Due to the tidal action, it has become the sea area with the richest biodiversity in the world. Nutrient-rich seawater breeds huge fish, including herring, haddock, cod and other fish that European fishermen like very much. In order to preserve the catch, fishermen spend weeks or even months on the shore to dry or pickle the fish after each catch. Occasionally, I will meet indigenous people wearing fur coats, who are willing to exchange their fur for western decorations, metal tools and clothes.

At first, this trade was just an extra benefit for fishermen who dared to sail long distances, but as time went on, they realized the great value of this exchange. As a result, this accidental barter transaction has become an independent industry, and it is more profitable than fishing. The story of fur everywhere in this new continent gradually spread back to Europe. It has been rumored that there are more than 50 million beavers living in the jungles of the North American continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and many other animals with high-quality fur are scattered on the vast land from the Arctic tundra to the Gulf of California. As long as you dare to come, fur is at your fingertips. Since then, the "gold rush" that lasted for 200 years has begun to flourish.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and a few Spanish colonists tried their best and made a lot of profits. Among them, French-Canadian businessmen participated the earliest and made the greatest achievements. Native Americans do business not only with Europeans, but also with their own people. Due to the geographical and cultural barriers, it is difficult for both parties to negotiate, and internal competition often breaks out. The entanglement of different factions and interests makes the fur trade in North America extremely complicated, full of struggles and conflicts, the conclusion and breakdown of alliances, the vigorous development and bankruptcy of markets, and the establishment and destruction of colonies and social systems.

The initial trade consisted of informal barter trade between two groups of businessmen: one group was the native Americans who captured and brought fur, and the other group was the Europeans who bartered. Over time, the trading place settled down. The first regulated trading port was Taidao Shaq, located on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River, and then it was extended upstream to trade fortresses in Quebec, sanhe city and Montreal. Although there is no exact historical data about the first trade, the European decorations unearthed in these areas show that barter trade really prevailed here at the end of 16. Fur from the New World of North America has reached the East by hand several times, while European goods have reached the West from all walks of life. Merchants on both sides of the strait rely on complex intermediaries to communicate from the coast to the inland and back to the coast. Huron, Iroquois, Susquehanna, powhatan and Cherokee were all outstanding middlemen in the early Eastern fur trade. They capture, buy and even plunder beaver skins from inland areas and sell them to others on their way to the eastern coastal ports.

As early as before the arrival of Europeans, there had been large-scale exchanges and barter between North American aborigines, so the news of profiting from trade soon spread to various tribes in North America. SamuelChamplain was a French explorer in17th century and the founder of Quebec City. He found that fur trade in mainland China was very active before he arrived here in 1603. Europeans who continue to push westward to the coast of James Bay (the downward protruding part of Hudson Bay) reached the same conclusion in 16 1 1 year.

Native American hunters know the habits of beavers. They know that castoreum (secretion of perianal gland of beaver) is attractive to other beavers and can be used as common bait. In order to catch beavers, hunters will first paint a branch with castoreum, and then wait for their prey to arrive. Native Americans have been killing beavers with sticks or spears, but they soon began to use metal traps brought by Europeans and placed them near the entrance of beaver nests. When the beaver steps on the device, it will trigger the iron claw of the trap and clamp its leg. The frightened beaver's first reaction is to dive into the deep water, but when it jumps into the water, it will drag a heavy trap. In this way, the hunter can collect the drowned beaver the next morning.

In the early trade, people would skin beavers on the spot at the capture site. The beaver's body was put on its back, its claws were cut off, then it was cut from the chin, along the stomach to the tail, and then the skin was peeled off like undressing. The hunter took the fur back to the camp, and then it was further processed by the women in the tribe. They scrape off the flesh and fat with flat stones, ground bones or shells, and they must be careful in the whole process to prevent the hair roots from being scraped off. The cleaned fur will be hung on the branches bent into a U shape and stretched, and then naturally dried for several weeks. After that, the stiff beaver skin is softened with a mixture of alkali ash, animal fat and brain extract, then rubbed and slapped, and finally the rough long hair mixed with high-quality short hair is removed. Usually these extra hairs can be pulled out by hand, but they can also be removed by thorough grinding. Merchants call this kind of grinding skin "finished beaver skin" because these skins can be used immediately. The treated fur was loaded into canoes and sent to the middlemen. Then, these middlemen will sail eastward until they meet European businessmen and their ocean-going ships.

Generally speaking, Indians only hunt the right amount of animals for food and clothing. But later, faced with the temptation of Europeans, they abandoned tradition and rationality and hunted a large number of beavers in exchange. In order to increase production, hunters sometimes destroy the whole nest and kill all beavers with sticks, spears and shotguns, regardless of gender, age and age. By the 1940s, the number of beavers in the jungles of North America had dropped sharply, just like what happened in the jungles of Europe 300 years ago. Soon after, the beaver skin trade collapsed. In order to get better animal fur in the cold area of the west, and because the beaver resources in the east are exhausted, beaver hunters began to March to the west. Relying on this desire for fur-constantly going back and forth between the source of fur and the market-French fur merchants followed in the footsteps of Indians and drew a map of the new world for the coming European invaders. So it is no exaggeration to say that beaver gave birth to the first map in North America. Today, the beaver statue printed on Canadian nickel coins is a commemoration of its great achievements.

The increasing demand for industrial products in the New World of America has stimulated the rapid development of European industry. On the one hand, processing beaver skin into hats requires the participation of many industries: from transporting bundles of fur from the St. Lawrence River to European cities and factories, processing fur, and finally transporting high-quality beavers to the market. On the other hand, goods used for fur exchange (including metal tools, guns and ammunition, ceramics, glass ornaments, blankets and other fabrics) also need to be manufactured. Trade has also stimulated the financial industry, because immigrants, hunters and businessmen all need raw capital. In any case, fur trade is like an economic booster for Europeans and North Americans.

Fur consists of fine hairs below and thick bristles above.

Of course, now some people will criticize the use and processing of fur. Since the late 1960s, there have been more and more voices against the use of fur, especially against hunting and making fur. There are two camps: some people insist that any use of animal fur is immoral, and Austria, Switzerland and other countries have passed laws prohibiting fur animal husbandry. Although some people can accept the use of fur, they also think that higher animal protection standards must be implemented. The fur industry has formulated guidelines (such as "best management practices") aimed at improving animal management on farms and ensuring that animals caught in the wild are treated humanely. However, people who sympathize with the fur industry believe that hunting in the wild is a "green" means to control the number of animals in today's shrinking habitat.

Hudson Bay blanket. This is one of the commodities used by the Hudson's Bay Trading Company to barter with Indians.

In any case, people still have fur demand today. 85% of the world's animal fur products come from animals raised in pastures, most of which come from Europe. There are more than 300 mink farms in the United States, which can produce nearly 3 million minks every year. From 2012 to 2013, the global fur sales reached 40 billion US dollars, especially in China and Russia, and this market is still expanding. Capitalists attribute the expansion of the market to the approaching price of fur and the popularity of fur in various social occasions: nowadays, people wear fur not only in formal occasions (such as ballroom dancing), but also in more leisure occasions (such as watching sports games).