The Maritime Fur Trade: From Sunday Rocks to Canton

When Juan Perez, aboard the Spanish ship Santiago, first visited the west coast of British Columbia in 1774, he encountered Haida people off the northwest point of Langara Island, and Nuu chah nulth people near Estevan Point. Through trade with these people, Perez acquired a few sea otter furs. Similarly, when Captain Cook visited Yuquot (Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound) in 1778, he traded for a small number of sea otter furs. Cook's ship later traded these furs in Canton, China, for high prices. This small initial trading set off worldwide rumors about a potentially lucrative trade for sea otter pelts on the west coast of British Columbia.


The British ship, Sea Otter, arrived in Nootka Sound in 1785, and acquired 560 sea otter pelts through trade with Chief Maquinna of the Mowachaht. Reports of this ship's profits brought six ships to Nootka Sound the next year. By 1792, twenty-one ships traded on the British Columbia coast for sea otter pelts. A prime adult sea otter pelt was five and a half feet long, three feet wide, and glossy black. Prices paid by ships' traders to Aboriginal traders quickly escalated. Between 1787 and 1792 sea otter pelts doubled in value on the West Coast of Vancouver Island; between 1792 and 1795 the cost of pelts doubled again (Gibson 1992). According to ships' records of the day (ships were famous for underreporting the numbers of furs they acquired in an effort to discourage the fierce competition) from 1790 through 1799 some 100,000 sea otter skins were shipped from the coast to Canton (Gibson 1992). Within a span of less than twenty years - from 1774, when Perez visited, until 1793 - Nootka Sound, which had been the primary rendezvous point for trade ships, was virtually hunted out of sea otters. By 1803 the focus of the sea otter trade had shifted to Haida Gwaii and the Alexander Archipelago to the north, and few ships even bothered to stop at Nootka Sound.
 
 

Between 1788 and 1826 American trade ships made at least 127 voyages between the US and China via the Northwest coast (Gibson 1992). These ships bartered for sea otter furs on the northwest coast, took the furs they acquired to Canton and traded them there for goods, and then took those goods back to the United States (Boston being the most popular location) to sell them for cash. In this way, ships maximized their profits. Between 1790 and 1818, approximately 300,000 sea otter skins were shipped to Canton (this doesn't include the numbers of pelts the Russians acquired and traded in northern regions) (Gibson 1992).

The high value placed on sea otter furs and the high profits that could be realized through this triangle of trade caused a fast rush and early peak to the coastal fur trade. It exacted a heavy toll on sea otters. The continual demand of traders for more and more sea otter pelts and the proficiency of native hunters, combined with the natural characteristics of the sea otter (they retain prime pelts year round; they have only one offspring per year; mothers stay close to their young for an extended period) meant that, once the maritime fur trade had begun, the sea otters stood little chance of long-term survival.

In 1911, when an international treaty between Japan, Russia, and Britain (representing Canada) was signed, there were less than 2000 sea otters remaining in the world. These were scattered in a handful of remnant populations in Russia, Alaska, and California. Some of these remnant populations subsequently became extinct, likely due to their small size. The last sea otter off Vancouver Island was taken near Kyuquot in 1929.

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