NWC agrees to resume buying pelts from fur trappers

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This article was published 13/12/2019 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The North West Company and Fur Harvesters Auction are banding together to support the Canadian trapping community after a series of changes to wild fur sales left trappers questioning the industry’s future.

In a joint press release, the North West Company and FHA announced Wednesday that Northern and NorthMart stores will now act as FHA agents. The stores will once again accept furs from trappers and provide advances against the sales at auction.

Alex Yeo, president of Canadian retail for the Winnipeg-based parent company of the remote general stores, said in a release that the new arrangement will enable the company to “resume funding in the communities where we operate.”

Earlier this month, Northern and NorthMart stores across Manitoba stopped accepting pelts in exchange for cash due to a decline in demand for fur.

The program ended weeks after the North American Fur Auction — the continent’s oldest and largest auction house — entered creditor protection. (Then, on Dec. 1, NAFA, moved out of its Winnipeg office. That’s when the only remaining auction house in the country, FHA, set up shop.)

Amid the developments around NAFA, northern trappers have been uncertain about whether they will receive their pelt profits or pelts that were not sold at previous auctions.

The uncertainty was made worse when the North West Company halted its pelt-for-cash program; some trappers relied on the cash they made from their wild furs, everything from mink to beaver, to buy groceries.

“I’m happy that this has happened because I felt for the northern trappers who have little or no place to market their fur, and what they used to do was sell to the Northern stores and be able to use that as store credit to get essentials,” Mary Schellenberg, FHA’s general manager for Western Canada, said from her office in Winnipeg.

“Now, at least they will have a bit of an avenue. The door hasn’t closed on them completely.”

There are 25 Northern stores and a single NorthMart in Manitoba. The locations stock groceries and general store goods — including trapping materials — in remote communities.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie