by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 03/97) - An Edmonton business likes to seek out cold climes for warm garments.

This truism of the retailing business explains why one furrier set up shop in Yellowknife this past weekend.

"When the weather is cold, it's very good for selling furs," observed Maria Mott, a saleswoman for Edmonton-based Lister Furs, which filled a conference room at the Explorer Hotel with leather and furs.

"And in Edmonton, we haven't had any minus days this year. It's plus seven there today."

The business holds similar weekend sales in Northern locales such as Fort McMurray, Cold Lake and Grande Prairie, Alta., and Whitehorse -- in other words, places that know what cold really is.

"You know what they say," Mott said, "if the mountain didn't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed had to go to the mountain."

The company began the travelling sales in the late 1980s, when anti-fur sentiment was reaching its peak in the south and fur sales slowed as a result.

But in the North, where trapping is a way of life for many, people have never been shy about buying and wearing fur.

Fur coats are once again becoming fashionable in the South, but the Northern trips were successful and will continue.

"The fad about anti-fur was like any fad. It lasts a while and then it goes away."

The outlet's main customer base was men intent on surprising wives and girlfriends with Christmas furs, but also had a selection of coats designed for men. While women in the North opt almost universally for full-length coats -- "with hoods," notes Mott -- men's styles are parka-length coats with hoods, selling for $2,500 and up.

"Men don't want a coat made out of silver fox," she said.

"We make them out of what we call 'manly' furs like raccoon and wolf."

Many of the furs come from the North to begin with -- the product of NWT trappers, she said, and the business is bringing them back. As for the appeal, she says a well-made and cared-for coat will last 25 winters.

"And there is nothing like wearing a fur," she said.