Page 6 - August 2018

Along the lake shore are the lonely trapper’s cabins,
Canada’s northern fur traders abandoned their dog sleds
in favour of airplanes as soon as it became obvious that
they could easily make more money flying over the
wilderness than “mushing” through it.
According to the Winnipeg Free Press the watershed year
was the winter of 1933-34 when the major fur trading
companies had to scrap “traditions and trading customs
built up through the centuries” when an enterprising
aviator disrupted their commerce. In a March 16, 1935,
article the newspaper described the Hudson’s Bay
Company and Revillon Frères as the leading victims of
new technology that included both airplane and radio.
“With one light airplane,” the newspaper said, “C.M.
Smith, a young but far-seeing fur trader in the land north
of here, last winter gathered in practically [all of] the pick
of the season’s fur catches, did a remarkable business in
trading with the far-flung line of trappers, and undersold
his older and more staid rivals.” Smith had based his
flying trading post concept at La Ronge, Saskatchewan.
The Hudson’s Bay Company and Revillon Frères, the two
leading fur-buying firms at the time, responded quickly
and the following winter, 1934-35, both companies
chartered their own airplanes “in order to combat the
‘curb service’ offered by the newcomer.”
The Free Press article described the aerial service from La
Ronge as a one-stop concept: “With the [winter] flying
day from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., it means hard and fast
work for the pilot and ‘factor’ of the ‘flying trading post.’
Loaded up with canned goods, rifle ammunition, trapping
equipment and other trading goods, they ‘push off’ in the
morning in their ski-equipped machine, then head north
to the Athabasca Lake country, several hundred miles
away.
for the lake to them is their only means of travel,
summer and winter. Settling down on the snow-
covered ice near the shore, the pilot taxis in toward
the cabin. Outside, if it is not too cold, or inside the
trapper’s home, the trading takes place. Furs are
bartered for foodstuffs, ammunition, and the like.
Usually there is little cash business…. [The trapper]
can buy cheaper from the flying trader.”
In the spring of 1935 the Toronto Star Weekly also
published a feature on how the airplane and radio
transformed the fur trade. “Canada’s northern
wildernesses have gone modern,” said Star Weekly,
writer W.A. De Graves in a feature published on
March, 23: “Where a few years ago, trappers
plodded across the great snow deserts, ant-like
specks in a waste of white, behind their team of
panting, steaming huskies, taking a month to get
into their trap lines, or spending all fall poling and
tracking freight-laden canoes up foaming rapids and
rivers… today they soar over the wilderness in
heated cabin aeroplanes, using only a few hours’
comfortable flying time.”
The Weekly continued: “And where they formerly
waited until spring and summer to bring out their
season’s catch of fur, today they listen in on radio
broadcasts for fur prices from Edmonton and
Winnipeg, and when the prices are right, they load
up their sleds with baled fur, mush to the nearest
wireless station, radio for an aeroplane…. Today
they know what price they will get for their fur
before it reaches the market, but in the old days
they were compelled to bring it in when the rivers
opened, taking their chances on what price it would
bring when they reached the fur auctions.”