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If the legends are to be believed, and take a guess, then the first pirates on the Great Lakes weren't interested in gold, or gems, or even rum.

They were after beavers.

Which, I'll admit, would make perfect sense.

For the first century or so that Europeans knew of the existence of the Great Lakes,

beavers were just about the only thing they knew about them, or at least all they cared about.

Beavours were easy to trap.

They make for good meat, and, as we discussed many years ago now, they have a gland

in their anus that secretes a cheap substitute for vanilla. Mainly, though, the value of beavers

was in their fur. Beaver peltz are large, soft, warm, clean, and waterproof, not to mention

the height of 18th century style.

Beaver pelts were big business, and it was business done in a place with little law and even less enforcement. It was done among rivals, English, French, and native peoples who didn't care for

one another a wink, and it was done with extreme vulnerability. Beaver pelts were traveled out of the north woods mainly on very long canoes,

up to 60 feet long.

Each boat could hold thousands of peltz.

The longest and most densely packed canoe might be worth more than a half a million dollars

adjusted for inflation today.

Yet, compared to their size and value, they were

sparsely manned and even less protected. We can be sure that trappers and hunters at least

occasionally stole from one another, and just as sure that they sometimes fought one another, too.

Hell, between the years 1812 and 1821, there was a flat-out war between the two leading

British fur companies, a topic for another time. So, the idea that there may have been pelt

...