If they would have used the beaver in my stack it would have been more like 40-45 beaver to make a pack.

Incidentally, the story of a stack of beaver to buy a trade gun seems to play on the notion that Indians were poor traders and taken advantage of by whites. From all I've read the opposite normally held true. In Harrison Roger's journal of their California-Oregon trip he constantly complains about high prices the Indians demand for food items, etc. I've read the same about how hard it was tfor various groups of white trappers to acquire horses from the tribes. There is just plenty of evidence in the literature that western tribes were about as good of traders as you could find.

Impressive

Thank you k snow and BP for the information. Much appreciated.

Now go forth and spread the truth! Haha.

Lol. Will do, k snow.

Yeah, I've heard the story about stacking beaver as high as the gun also. Indians traded their whole lives, while I'm sure there were a few stupid Indians that were poor traders (everybody has an idiot in their family) most knew quite well what they were doing. One reason the fallacy about them being poor traders prevails is because people don't understand the totally different values items had to different cultures. Trade a handful of glass beads worth pennies for a bunch fur worth a lot where you come from and you might think they are poor traders, but those glass beads are totally unavailable where they come from and very valuable, while there were lots of furs available for the taking if they had the skill. Likely there were some sharp Indian traders who would go back and trade a fraction of the glass beads they got from the white trader for more furs than they gave him in trade, and repeat the process, laughing behind his back about fleecing the stupid white trader. lol

There’s one of those outside at the Museum Of The Fur Trade in Chadron.
Well worth the trip to that place. Looks pretty small but it’s actually friggin huge inside, tons of stuff.

The fur press is still at Moose factory.