Maritime fur trade

Hi there! Do you know what fur is? It’s the fluffy thing on the outside of some animals, like a bear or a rabbit. A long time ago, people used the fur to make clothes to keep them warm in the winter.

Now, imagine a long time ago, when there were no roads or cars to get around. People had to travel by boat on the big oceans to get to other places. When they went to new places, they would meet new people and animals that they had never seen before.

The people who traveled by boat were called traders. They would carry things with them that they wanted to trade for other things. In those days, one thing that people really wanted was fur. So, the traders started going to new places to trade for fur to bring back home.

One special type of fur trade was called the maritime fur trade. “Maritime” means “related to the sea” and this fur trade was special because it happened on the water. There were many different countries that traded in the maritime fur trade, but the most famous are the British and the Russians.

The traders would sail across the oceans in big boats called ships. When they got to a new place, they would talk to the local people and try to persuade them to trade some of their fur for things like beads, knives or cloth.

The maritime fur trade went on for a long time, but it started to become less popular as more people started to use different materials for clothes like cotton and wool. Even though the maritime fur trade is not as popular today, it’s still a really important part of history that we can learn from.