Photostory #45: Abitibi Beaver Pays Dividends

Photographers
George Hunter , Gar Lunney
Maker
National Film Board of Canada
Release Date
February 21, 1956
Collection
CMCP fonds
Credit Line
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
Main Text
Conservation is paying big dividends to the 700 Indian families who tend the lonely traplines of northern Quebec's 149,000 square miles of beaver country. Each year they share in an estimated $500,000 which fur buyers pay for the more than 20,000 beaver pelts flown to Montreal for auction. Behind this bonanza lies a long-term federal-provincial program to educate trappers in up-to- date fur control methods. The fur-development experts' job: to spread the gospel of conservation among the Cree and Montagnais trappers, and to see that beaver pelts from the big Abitibi, Rupert House, Mistassini and Bersimis Preserves get to market.