Buffalo Robe Trade As trade decreased and the number of Métis
employed in the trading companies began to diminish, Aboriginal and
Métis emphasized another product, which stemmed from the bison or
"buffalo" centred economy – the buffalo robe. The buffalo robe trade was part of the end of the buffalo. It has
been suggested that the buffalo herds amounted to 60 million individual
animals in North America before European settlement. The bison travelled
in two vast herds, the southern herd and the northern herd, each with
its own migration route. The northern herd travelled in a huge loop down
through what is now Saskatchewan, south of Cypress Hills into Montana,
and back up beside the Rockies, across the Oldman River, north across
the Red Deer River and up to the North Saskatchewan, before bending back
east and then south again.
A market for the robes developed in the eastern states, not only for
coats and robes for carriages, but also as a source of leather for
industrial belts. As prices, driven by demand, increased in the south,
some of the northern Aboriginal buffalo robe product made its way into
the American markets. The HBC, realizing they were losing profits,
increased their prices as a result. Since much of the bison came from
the Aboriginal communities it is estimated that the Aboriginal people
were only eating four out of every one hundred animals they slaughtered.
The Métis who at this stage sought an alternate income other than the
fur trade had a number of economic strategies. They did some subsistence
farming, they fished, trapped and hunted, and they combined the buffalo
robe trade with freighting goods between the large trade centres. The
Métis took on a middleman position, purchasing hides from the Aboriginal
people and re-selling them to the HBC or to companies across the line.
Over time, the Métis took on more of the hunting and hide
preparation. Whole communities moved out to the plains in the fall to
hunt buffalo all winter. They settled where there was shelter, and where
they knew the buffalo could be found. These outposts became winter
villages, and before 1870 some were becoming permanent settlements. The
Métis people from St. Albert and Lac Ste. Anne (a little north and west
of Fort Edmonton) made use of the territory between Battle River and Red
Deer River, settling at the river fords and around Buffalo Lake. The
best known hivernant settlements were Tail Creek, on Red Deer River
southwest of Buffalo Lake, and Buffalo Boss Hill, on the eastern side of
the lake.
The involvement of the Aboriginal and Métis communities in the hide
trade resulted in the disappearance of the buffalo and their whole
economy and way of life. By 1860, it was becoming obvious to everyone in
the area that the buffalo were disappearing; they were already scarce in
the Canadian prairies. The Great White Hunt across the northern states,
from 1870 to 1873, in which over 5000 white hunters and skinners
participated, took over 3 million buffalo and spelled the end of the
great herds. By 1887
it was estimated that there were 1100 buffalo left alive, and by 1890,
the estimate fell to 750 animals.
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Background
North
West Company
Hudson's Bay Company
Geography and Ecology
The Trade
Provisioning
Buffalo Robe Trade
Company
Employment (Wage Labour) |