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For about a century, the company of adventurers traded along the shores of Hudson Bay and the Indigenous people came to them. What they didn’t realize was that the Cree were acting as middlemen, taking trade goods inland and trading for furs, which they used to purchase more trade goods.Article content
Before fur trade, fur trapping was an individual thing, people trapped fur for their own use and most of their time was spent hunting for food. After the firearms were introduced, it cut back on the time spent hunting, so people began to go out on the land to trap for furs. The iconic Hudson’s Bay blanket became their No. 1 trade good. This gave the Indigenous people a reason to go back to the trading post and settlements grew up around the posts, which were established on waterways and traditional trade routes.Article content