The fort got off to a shaky start, however, because Murray didn't have enough trade goods. He wrote, "Guns and beads . . . is the cry in all our country." The district turned out to be one of the continent's richest marten areas, surprising even the Hudson's Bay Company. After the bottom fell out of the beaver hat market, thanks to the introduction of the silk hat, the value of marten pelts soared. For more than 20 years Fort Yukon was one of the company's most valuable producers of these pelts.
Despite the reports, the Russian threat never materialized. When the Hudson's Bay Company finally lost Fort Yukon in 1869, it was not to the Russians but to the new owners of Alaska, the Americans.
