The fur trade dominates the recent history of all northern Indians. As the marketable resource which first drew whites to this part of the North, it rapidly made trapping for trade the central activity of people living in the Yukon.

This section gives a chronological outline of the changing historical context in which Native people found themselves during the nineteenth century. It is inserted before before any discussion of "traditional" land use, partly to demonstrate the difficulty of separating the "traditional" from the "early contact" periods, and partly to consolidate references to the European fur trade in one section.

Prior to 1840, the central part of what is now the Yukon Territory was used only by Natives. Russians trading on the Pacific coast never penetrated the Yukon: after the fur seals were gone the coastal Tlingit supplied the Russians by crossing the Chilkat and Chilkoot Passes and bringing back furs from the interior Athapaskans (See McClellan, 1950). Similarly, the Vunta Kutchin in the north acted as middlemen between Russians and northern tribes before the establishment of Fort McPherson and Fort Yukon (Tanner, 1965, p. 21).

The history of frontier trade throughout the world shows that everywhere the non-urban peoples nearest the trading centre sought to bar other "natives" from direct access to the metropolitan trade and that they used their possession of superior arms, obtained in the trade, to maintain their middleman position, if not to drive away or enslave the tribes of the hinterlands. Such motives and means played an important role in the [end §.IV, p. 1] post-Columbian history of the American Indians. . ." (Slobodin, 1962, p. 23).

Until 1840, the Hudson's Bay Company viewed the Yukon as a buffer zone between themselves and the Russians. After 1840 the British leased the Alaska litterol [sic] and took over the trade monopoly the Russians had established on the coast and on the Yukon River.

Traders were in the southeastern region of what is now the Yukon on the Liard River soon after 1800. By 1821, Fort Halkett had been established on the upper Liard. In 1838, the Hudson's Bay Company established a post on Dease Lake. In 1840, Robert Campbell, a clerk at Fort Halkett, was given instructions to explore the north branch of the Liard. He crossed to Frances Lake where he estalished Fort Frances (Honigmann, 1949, pp 42-43). He went on to establish Fort Pelly Banks in 1846 on the upper Pelly, and then Fort Selkirk in 1848 at the junction of the Pelly with the Yukon (Campbell, 1958).

It was costly to maintain these posts and none of them has a very long history: Fort Halkett was closed in 1865, Dease Lake post was abandoned by 1839. Fort Frances was closed when it was looted by the Chilkats in 1851, though opened again briefly in 1880 (ibid., p. 43). Pelly Banks was abandoned in 1850 after it accidentally burned (Dawson, 1898, p. 137). The coastal Chilkats, angered that the white traders were infringing on their monopoly in the interior, burned Fort Selkirk in 1852. Both Pelly Banks and Fort Selkirk had probably been important trading centres before the posts had been built and they remained so after the posts were gone. [end S. IV, p. 2]

Meanwhile, the Hudson's Bay Company was also exploring the watershed of the Mackenzie. In 1840, Fort McPherson was established on the lower Peel by John Bell. In 1842, Bell crossed the Peel to the Bell River where he established La Pierre House, then followed the Bell to the Porcupine and ultimately to the Yukon. Fort Yukon was established at the junction by Alexander Murray in 1847 (See Murray, 1910).

The Porcupine River route to the Mackenzie became the supply route not only for Fort Yukon but also for the upper Yukon River for a while (Raymond, 1900, p. 38).

In 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States and the Hudson's Bay company was compelled to move Fort Yukon out of the United State' Territory. They replaced it with Rampart House, built on the Porcupine River. This post had to be moved twice before it was finally clearly across the International Boundary (McConnell, 1887, p. 224). The new post barely met expenses and was closed in 1894. In 1906, a trader named Dan Cadzow opened a store at Rampart Hous [sic] and the post flourished for a few more years (Balikci, 1963, p. 35).

Ogilvie summarized the transfers of some of these posts during the last quarter of the nineteenth century:

In 1868, following the transfer of Russian Territory to America, a San Francisco firm bought out the Russian Commercial Company and changed the name to the Alaska Commercial Company. This Alaska Commercial Company built a number of posts on the Yukon River. In about 1871, McQuesten established Fort Reliance, six miles below Dawson (managed by Harper and Mayo by 1875). In 1886, McQuesten, Harper and Mayo built a post at the mouth of the Stewart.

The Alaska Commercial Company posts across the border in Alaska had as much influence on the Native people in the Yukon, to whom such boundaries were irrelevant: Belle Isle Post (near Eagle) attracted a good deal of trade from people as far up the Yukon as the Klondike River. In 1891, Harper opened a business at old Fort Selkirk. He also built a post on the Sixtymile River. And in 1892, the North American Transportation and Trading Company built Fort Cudahy just below the mouth of the Fortymile (See Ogilvie, 1913, p. 64-68).

Early posts took vast numbers of furs from the Yukon. . . .

In addition, posts on the Porcupine and on the Liard River were getting large numbers of furs; probably by 1887 at least $50,000 worth of furs were exported annually from the territory.

Raymond describes the scale of prices in 1869: The beaver skin was the standard unit of measurement. A gun was sold to an Indian for eighteen beaver skins. Marten were traded at the rate of two marten to a beaver and other skins were set at lower values. All trading was done by barter and in addition to guns, the Hudson's Bay Company traded pocketknives, pants, shirts, cloth, bullets, knives, pots, buttons, thread, handkerchiefs, "Paris neckties" and "English belts". (Raymond, 1900, p. 39).

The southwest Yukon was blockaded from direct contact with white traders until the 1890's by determined Tlingit traders. Although this blockade was declining by the 1890's Jack Dalton was the first trader to actually build a post in the southwest in approximately 1894. Only the goldrush broke the blockade for good, and posts rapidly appeared in this area - at Nisutlin, Burwash Landing, Champagne, and then along the upper Yukon.

The goldrush brought the first large numbers of strangers to the Yukon. In the southwest, 30,000 men crossed the Chilkoot Pass in a few years. Their impact was felt all the way along the Yukon River. Ten thousand came by other routes, some of them through the southeastern Yukon which had already experienced an earlier Cassiar rush in the 1870's. Still others tried to ascend the Peel River, and their passing had a profound impact on the Native people there (See Graham, 1935; and Slobodin 1963).