I want to make a wooden hoop for a tanned beaver. What kind of tree works best? I have snapped 4 poplar trees so far. I have tried soaking them in water but they still snap when I try to make the hoop.

Willow if you can find some.

Willow

You could build a Steam box.

Wait 'til spring. The old saying is you can bend willow in any month that doesn't have an "R".

^^^ He's the man when it comes to hoops ^^^

If you're shooting for authenticity . . . .
Here is an excellent encyclopedic guide to the equipment of the early trappers. According to the text, 30 years of research went into the writing of this book. The author tracked down the diaries and letters of the trappers themselves, and the business records of fur-trading companies.


In the chapter on Beaver Traps and Trapping, there is an illustration showing some of the personnel of a large American trapper party in camp. According to the text, “It was common practice for trappers attached to large parties to bring their freshly skinned beaver pelts to the clerk of the camp, who credited the trapper. ‘Camp-Keepers’ then stretched the pelts on willow hoops and hung them to dry.”


Explaining, Carl P. Russell wrote:
“The American Fur Company clerk Warren Angus Ferris provided an excellent eyewitness description of such a camp scene as shown above. On May 15, 1832, ‘in a narrow bottom beneath the walls of Grays Creek [near the sources of the Black River, Idaho] we found a party of trappers, headed by Bridger, one of the partners in the R.M.F. [Rocky Mountain Fur] Company. Their encampment was decked with hundreds of beaver skins, now drying in the sun. These valuable skins are always stretched in willow hoops, varying from eighteen inches to three feet in diameter, according to the size of the skins, and have a reddish appearance on the flesh side, which is exposed to the sun. Our camps are always dotted with these red circles in the trapping season when the weather is fair. There were several hundred skins folded and tied up in packs laying about their encampment.” [Western Literary Messenger, June 28, 1843, p. 406.] Mulcahy drawing, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Make a steamer for your willow It well help with the bending.

Yellow birch works well if you have any of that in your area

Listen to whatever Muskrat says about hooping furs.

Moosetrot

Muskrat Isn't going to tell you how he prepares his willow. And If you look at his hoops he doesn't bend the willow around to make a complete circle he crosses those willows at each end. I think that's how the old timers did It.

Sheesh Beav i thought you used to be with Bridger ???

No that was Moses

Well Muskrat you did it !!!
Caused me to buy a HC Copy of this book ...

Try this for authentic. Still happening but fading. This is more along the lines of historic photos that I have seen. Heavier hoops that overlap significantly.
I'll dig around and try to find some more.
Enjoy!

https://norj.ca/2014/06/fort-smith-trapping-couple-back-from-month-long-hunt/

Scroll to the bottom for a photo of a beaver being fleshed on a wooden hoop. Very similar to above; heavy wood, much overlap.

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/materialhistories/workinglife.php

Really cool stuff

Same here and they ain't cheap!

:grin
Awesome!!! 3 days it should be here!!!

The northern cree always use hoops to dry their beaver.
Tamarack is what is used-willow is useless it will warp like a potato chip.





I got this tamarack beaver hoop from fort Albany.Look how perfectly it matches the oval auction house standard.

I have three beaver hooped on willow for wall hangers. The biggest one warped slightly, the other two not at all. I guess I just got lucky.