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Beaver tale

Fur market rebounds for spring hunters

Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 04/01) - Around the North, hunters are turning in their pelts from the spring beaver hunt and getting a bit of a surprise from last year's low price on beavers.

Francois Rossouw, a territorial fur management officer, said the first auction at North Bay, Ont., yielded some good prices for NWT pelts.

"In the most recent sale of beavers, our price averaged about $34," Rossouw said. "That's up from last year, where we were averaging about $22."

The pelts are sold on basis of size, colour and quality of fur, he said.

There are more than 27 grades.

"(Beaver) is the most heavily graded species there is," he said. "There is such a variety in coloration, fur quality and leather."

The best furs are sheared to about six millimetres thick and sold to designers throughout the world.

"There is good demand within the industry right now and our beaver is about the best you can get for shearing," he said.

John Desjarlais has been trapping and hunting beavers around Fort Smith all his life, but hasn't gone out this spring, due to the low price of fur.

"It's a lot of work -- you have to skin them out, then flesh them and dry them," Desjarlais said. "It can take a good hour to do a beaver -- that's if you're fast."

The pelts and castors (sex glands) are auctioned, with the pelts used for clothing and the castors used in perfume. Desjarlais says hunters also use castor scent for their boats, not only mask the human scent, but to draw beavers closer.

Growing up on the trapline, he says his family ate a lot of beaver meat and says he still gets a craving for it.

"On a spring hunt, we'd smoke it so it lasted a little longer," he said. "You can roast it on a fire, or boil it or in a roasting pan in the oven."

"You can stuff a small beaver like a turkey," he added. "You use the same stuffing you'd use in a turkey and it comes out nice and tender."

Then the beaver's head is thrown in fire in respect for the animal's spirit.

"My dad taught me to do things in a certain way and the beaver will come back," he said. "Sometimes they throw the bones back in the water where they got the beaver."

Muskrats also used to be a big part of the spring hunt in Smith, but the populations have fallen off considerably since the Bennett Dam was built.

"You used to see rats everywhere in the spring," Desjarlais recalled. "Four or five swimming in a group together -- now you'd be lucky to see one rat in the big slough."