Quote:
Originally Posted by Olthreelegs
straight from nafa: only demand right now is for winter full primed beavers. Anything else ie.... fall or spring are of no value.
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That's the way it goes, and always has.
Demand changes from season to season and may change during the season.
Demand more then anything determines price. At one time we were averaging $60.00 for good Beaver hides and $10.00 for kits and damaged hides.
In today's dollars that would be around $160.00 and $30.00 respectively.
A year later we averaged $25.00 and $5.00 respectively.
1981 I was on a seismic crew running a drill truck. In January that year I earned just over $4,000.00. Meanwhile my dad sold four Lynx pelts for just over $4,000.00. Top price that year was $1,800 for a large lynx.
I remember thinking I was in the wrong business. A year later Trudough introduced the NEP and I was out of a job.
I did go back to trapping, but by then Greenpeice and PETA had driven a lance through the heart of trapping.
For a few years I was able to make living trapping in winter and working farms in summer and hauling bulk cement and cement tanks in the off seasons. Eventually fur dropped to where it didn't even cover the cost of fuel for the skidoo and boat.
I did land a job trapping for the county where fur prices made little difference and that year I went hauling logs instead of cement and cement tanks. That kept me going for a few years but eventually the county decided to go with a bounty system so once again I need to find alternate employment for part of the year.
I had to give up full time trapping in the winter and for the next several years I trapped on weekends and hauled logs during the week.
Still working farms in the summer.
Eventually my health put an end to that too.