Trappers from across northern Saskatchewan were in Prince Albert on Saturday to sell their furs and several painted a picture of an industry that is struggling.
“It’s getting slower, slower every year, because of the fur prices, price of gas, food,” Stan Morin, from Green Lake, said.
He noted the biggest issue is declining fur prices.
“Down down, they keep going down, and everything else is going up,” added Morin who is also a board member with the Northern Saskatchewan Trappers Association (NSTA).
His comments were echoed by Don Gordon who was at the event buying furs for Groenewold Fur and Wool, a private company based in Illinois.
Gordon, who is from Nipawin, pointed to some of the pine marten pelts trappers and how much they were bringing in.
“Go back even 10 years, you were averaging $125, $140 for those skins,” he said. “And today we’re paying a top price of $55 to $60.”
He said that’s the general trend in the industry, although there are exceptions. For example, beaver prices have gone up, mostly to produce felt to be used in hats.
He added some big companies have stopped using fur as trim for their winter clothing. And the biggest fur auction company in North America shut down a couple of years ago.
“It’s a sad state for a nation that was built on the fur industry,” he said.
Gordon said much of the world’s fur is now processed in China but even that industry has slowed down due to COVID and other factors.
People like Sheila Schmutz are trying to buck the trend. Schmutz, a former animal sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan, has a company called Wear our Heritage that produces clothing made with fur.
Sheila Schmutz makes products using natural fur. (Doug Lett/northeastNOW Staff)“I work with fur in support of the northern peoples who still depend on it as part of their livelihood,” Schmutz, who had a booth at the NSTA event, said.
She explained while many people in the North still wear fur, very few in urban centres use it, and she is trying to produce products that will appeal to city-dwellers.
“I want to make it more accessible and sadly we don’t have any furriers left in Saskatchewan anymore; it’s just people like me who do is as a hobby,” she said.
One of the reasons fur has fallen from fashion is the perception that it is cruel, but Gordon and others said trapping has become much more humane.
Traps, he said, are tested and certified not to break bones or lacerate the skin. Traps designed to kill the animal do it quickly, Gordon said.
“A pine marten must be dead within two minutes,” he said. “Trappers probably have more respect and humaneness for the trade than most people realize.”
Morin agrees.
“It’s all humane trapping now, we can’t use the old type traps.”
Morin, who has been trapping near Green Lake for decades, runs a trapline around 25 miles long. He said it can take from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. to cover it, even by snowmobile. But he still enjoys the work.
“We were brought up doing this, so we just like to carry it on, show our young ones what it’s about,” he said.
Morin is also an instructor in humane trapping, and he says despite the challenges there are young people entering the industry.
“They get interested being outdoors I guess, learning how to do this out in the woods,” he said.
Provincial government figures back up the perception of a struggling industry. For the 2020-2021 trapping year, there were around 4,600 licenced trappers in the province and total sales of furs were just over $3.7 million.
By comparison, in 2012-2013, there were 3,600 trapping licences, but they made a lot more money, with total sales of pelts at $5.7 million.
The NSTA added trappers from as far away as Île-à-la-Crosse and Cumberland House attended the event, but attendance was lower than previous years.
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doug.lett@pattisonmedia.com
Twitter: @DougLettSK
