When Queen Elizabeth arrived in Lower Fort Garry, Manitoba, in 1970, she was, like many foreign leaders, greeted with a reception and offered tokens by her hosts. What was different about this occasion, however, were the gifts offered: live elk and beaver. In the long-standing tradition of the Hudson’s Bay Company, should the King or Queen arrive in the lands governed by the charter King Charles II granted in 1660, he or she would be presented with two elk and two beavers by the company officials. 

Only Queen Elizabeth and her father had the opportunity to take advantage of this part of the charter’s clauses, but the royal houses of Britain had benefitted from the Hudson’s Bay Company for hundreds of years beforehand. Britain had grown rich on the profits brought into the country from across the seas in North America, and an incredible amount of those profits came about from a relatively tiny animal that was abundant across the continents. 

Though the importance of hats is easy to overlook, it was deadly serious in more ways than one, impacting the beavers and birds used to make fashionable hats, the environment of the region, and the people fighting over the resources.

Beaver hats put the Dutch, British, and French in conflict, and later the Americans and Canadians. Plumed women’s hats were considerably less important historically, but they had a huge ecological impact. The beaver is a crucial species that once had an immense impact on the environment around it, while the short era concerning the plume trade for women’s hats drove a number of bird species to near-extinction.

Indeed, several species have never recovered their numbers. The end product was fashionable men and women’s hats, sold primarily in Europe and the United States, but from raw materials to finished products, these hats linked tribal peoples, traders, hunters, trappers, merchants, and soldiers. Whether it crossed their minds or not, countless men and women in London and Paris were linked to the North American wilderness and all the violence it entailed.

Beavers and Plumes: The History of the Trade and Conflicts over Beaver Hats and Feathered Hats examines the impact of the events that occurred as a result of the supply and demand of the fashionable hats.