The first trading venture along the north Pacific coast was in 1785 and within a few years American, British and other traders sought the valuable sea otter pelts. They encountered Indians with a rich material culture to whom trade was a familiar aspect of their own economic system. Captain John Meares, an American trader, published an account of his expedition in 1787-1789 in which he reported that "we found to our cost, that these people...possessed all the cunning necessary to the gains of mercantile life." Indian demands combined with competition and international rivalry to raise rapidly the price that traders had to pay for sea otter pelts. Within a generation the animals' slow rate of reproduction combined with severe over-hunting to bring the species close to extinction in many areas.
Coastal tribes headed by powerful chiefs such as Callicum (left) and Maquinna (right) of Nootka Sound assumed the role of intermediaries, acquiring pelts from other tribes either through trade or war. The sea otter trade remained important until the 1820s but it collected largely in the hands of American traders and was not directly related to the inland trade from the St. Lawrence or from Hudson Bay until a later date.
Courtesy: Picture Division, Public Archives of Canada (C-27699)
