with the Iroquois and it is probable that the Algonquins, Mon-
tagnais and other hunting tribes, armed with guns obtained by
trade from the French, had driven the Iroquois southward, out of
the St. Lawrence Valley. The Iroquois were unable to fight back
until they secured guns from Dutch traders at New Amsterdam.
Now that their enemies had been forced south, Indians from the
Ottawa and the vicinity of Georgian Bay were free to come down
to the St. Lawrence.

The beaver was at the beginning of that long career of promin-
ence which was to earn it a place on the coat of arms of Canada.
The beaver's skill in masonry was its undoing. Living in con-
spicuous, fixed houses, the animals were easy to find and kill,
especially after trade with Europeans had provided Indian hunters
with iron. The beaver, an amphibious animal, had a rich, heavy
fur, much finer in winter than in summer. It consisted of two
layers--a coarse guard hair as much as two inches long, and a soft
under hair less than an inch long, armed with tiny barbs which
caused it to felt well. This felting quality made beaver the
basis of the fur trade as long as beaver hats were in fashion.

The Indians made traps to catch the beavers or broke in their
houses, skinned the animals and scraped the skins to loosen the
deep roots of the guard hair. The skins were cut into rectangles,
sewed together with moose tendon, and worn as cloaks. Scraping
made the long guard hairs fall out, leaving the soft, even under fur
which in wear became greasy and pliable and was called castor gras.
Beaver robes in this state were taken to France, where the fur was
sheared off close to the skin and made into felt.

Since they were used as clothing, beaver skins were in great
demand among the Indians themselves, and Cartier found St.
Lawrence Indians trading up the Saguenay River for furs for
their own use. During the sixteenth century trade in fur by
Europeans was only an incident in the course of their fishing,
but, following penetration to Gaspé and a revival of the fashion
for beaver hats, it was launched to a vigorous start.

Indians very quickly recognized the superiority of iron
weapons and utensils over wooden or stone ones. Denys wrote:

They have abandoned all their own utensils, whether because
of the trouble they had as well to make as to use them, or because
of the facility of obtaining from us, in exchange for skins which

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