WEBVTT - Ep. 334: Louisiana Trappers' War - The Camps 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.480 There's a war they didn't teach us about in American history, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.799 and the spoils of the conflict were unlikely characters. This 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:18.880 war wasn't fought over oil or political ideology, but rather muskrats. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.760 It's called the Islanios Trappers War, and it took place 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.800 in nineteen twenty six in South Louisiana. And on this episode, 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.800 we're setting up the context for the war, why it happened, 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.199 and meeting the men whose families fought in it. The 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.120 flavors of South Louisiana will be flying high as we 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.080 hear from a New Orleans filmmaker, a fur handler, and 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:50.320 even the raging Cajun himself, James Carvill. I really doubt 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:54.959 that you're gonna want to miss this one, And don't forget. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.520 The Bear Grease feed continues to complexify and get better. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.080 We now have on this feed Bear Grease, Brins, this 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:09.039 Country Life Podcast, and Lake Pickles, New Backwoods University. I've 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.560 heard this called the Great Southern Takeover of Meat Eater. Yeah, 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:18.000 something like that. I hope you enjoyed this episode. 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.160 So powerful people said, well, this is not right that 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.960 little people should be making all this money when really 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.280 it's rich people that really need money, and that's always 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.319 happened in the world, that rich people are going to 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.839 take the labor and work of poor people and moneturize 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:35.080 it and make more money on it. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:36.520 That's not new man. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.319 That didn't start in nineteen twenty, and it ain't ending 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.160 in twenty fourteen, and it's not going to end in 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:43.360 twenty one fourteen. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.600 It is the sort of inherent. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.080 Right of power to acquire powered money, to acquire more 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.760 powered money, and it played out right there in front 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.160 of my very eyes. 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.800 My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.840 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.560 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.720 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.960 Presented by f HF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.560 and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:29.880 the places we explore. 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:38.520 Can y'all hear me? 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.840 Yeah? Okay, you can hear yourself? 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:41.079 Good? 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:41.560 Do you hear me? 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.640 Yeah? 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.240 I don't know where to start on this one. I 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:52.000 guess we'll just start by introducing our first character, the Muskrats. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:58.079 Okay, Mushkrat. It's nothing but a small rat. It's a rat. 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:03.720 It's a vegetarian, doesn't eat meat. It's the body on us, 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:09.440 about twelve to sixteen inches long. Usually a big rats 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.600 around fourteen inches between two fourteen sixteen inches. I'd say 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.000 it's got a triangular tail. They don't have no round 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.760 tail like a gut a rat. Your tails are more 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.560 of a triangle. It's small in the bottom and it 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.520 goes up a little higher and it comes to point 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.520 on the top. And the tail is usually about another 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:36.080 twelve fourteen inches long. And they live in a prairie, 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.720 a wet prairie. I used to work in the firehouse 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.640 my dad, my grandfather bought for us. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:51.080 Also, that's the voice of Paul Leguard of Placabon Parish, Louisiana, 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.240 character number two. So there's two sets of characters on 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.840 this episode, the muskrats and the living people. They're one 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.120 set like Paul, and then the folks now deceased who 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.280 were actually involved in the trappers war. Here is character 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.160 number three of the first group. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:17.120 How's this this good level? Okay, So I'm going to 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:22.119 talk about the movie. Let me turn my phone off. 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:24.240 Here we go. 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:31.960 My name is David Dubos. I'm a screenwriter, producer, filmmaker 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.880 from New Orleans, Louisiana, which is where I currently reside, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:41.440 mainly because of the movie tax credits that are here 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.080 in Louisiana and that are a big draw for Hollywood 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.000 movies and even international films to come and film here. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:55.560 And my main source of income is through screenwriting. I've 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.080 got four projects in various stages of development, one of 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.840 which is going to be filming this year in later 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.720 twenty twenty five called Chainsaw Confidential, which is about the 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.039 making of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film in the 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:10.000 early seventies. 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.600 Now that's interesting. New Orleans filmmaker David Dubo's also made 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.680 a film about the Trappers War in twenty fifteen called 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:24.280 Delta Justice Theeslanios Trappers War. He's going to help us 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.920 out a lot. Now here is our fourth living character. 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.360 All right, there you go, there you go? 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.919 Oh okay, pull it up, there we go. Can you 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.719 hear me again? Yeah? You comfortable? Oh yeah, okay. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.760 Well, my name is Lloyd Serenade, better known as Wimpy. 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.760 And the reason why I got that nickname when I 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.200 was a kid and my siblings told them that all 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:56.040 I wanted to do was eat Hamburgers. So I told him, 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.680 and Dave would read the comics to me. You know, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.480 never had TV, but anyway, it would read the comics. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.240 And that character Whimpy, I thought he it was hamplers, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.760 you know. So I told him to call me Wimpy 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.080 and I would go out and play. And if my 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.560 mother would call me by my real name, Laud, I 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.760 wouldn't answer. She called me, and I answered. So I 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.320 just sto Wimpy all my life, so everybody know when 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.800 it is Whimpy. Of course, I was born down in Delacroile, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.240 you know. And y'all wanted to talk about the Trappers Warm, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:31.240 I'm only gonna tell you. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:32.960 I'm gonna tell you what I was telling. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:43.200 The connection between Paul, David, Wimpy and the Muskrats is 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.720 that they all had family involved in the Trappers War. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.119 So now we're going to go to the second cast 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.200 of characters from the actual nineteen twenty sixth war. On 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:59.040 one side was a judge named Leander Perez. Some called 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.480 him a dictator. He was in Placamon in Saint Bernard 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:08.159 Parish in Louisiana, just south of New Orleans. The other 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.480 side of the war was the Islanios, people of Delacroix Island, 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.000 who had trapped there for almost one hundred and fifty years, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:22.040 and their main man advocate was named Manuel Malaro. But 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.400 the ironic part is that Leander Perez, the parish bad boy, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:29.400 was in Islanios too. 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.760 So Leander Perez was a highly educated Islanios and he 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.960 saw a way to usurp the land from the Islanios. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.080 He would have his cousins and you know, buy up 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.920 the land and then turn around and lease it back 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.120 to the Islanios, but then start charging them more and 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.960 more money, and eventually got to the point to where 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.960 they couldn't afford it. And they said, yeah, Perez is 0:07:55.000 --> 0:08:00.160 coming in and finagling and you know, shaking hand with 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.520 the Islanios and then stabbing them in the back and 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.320 with his other hand. And his idea was to monopolize 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.320 the industry and make the money for himself and pay 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.680 them pennies on the dollar kind of thing. So the Islanios, 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:18.280 they were very poor but hardworking people, and to them 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.520 a dollar fifty two dollars a pelt for a muskrat 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.760 was a lot of money. They could go out and 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.680 trap and make and bring in anywhere from fifty to 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:34.599 two hundred muskrat a day. So they were making plenty money. Well, eventually, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.880 when you start making a lot of money, it calls 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.120 attention to itself. And so Leander Perez, who was then 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.240 the district attorney in Blackman's Parish, but he was also 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.680 in Islanios, and he looked at the situation and he 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.920 decided he wanted a piece of that. 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.800 The antagonist, Leander Perez, wanted to take over the muskrat 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.840 fur trade by controlling the trapping leases and jacking up 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:06.880 the prices. History would remember Perez for his stances on segregation. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.679 Many said he was a high octane bigot, but he 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.600 was also loved by a lot of people. We're about 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:20.320 to hear from James Carvill, the Louisiana political advisor who 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.959 rose to national prominence in the Clinton era. Yep, James Carvill. 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:30.080 This clip was used by permission from David's Delta Justice movie. 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.640 Carvill is talking about Leander Perez. 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.000 I've heard that be said that there's some good in everybody, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.800 and I'm sure there was some in him. To my knowledge, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:44.280 it never manifested itself. 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:44.840 In any way. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.720 Not surprisingly given my sort of political persuasion, I think 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:51.760 he's one of the most odious people in the history 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:52.160 of the state. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:57.160 Now saying a right, Perez was a real stinker. Later 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.600 we'll get into some bizarre detail on the man, but 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.319 for now, you just need to know the general architecture 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.720 of this story. The trappers started making money, and people 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.439 from the outside moved in and wanted a big piece 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.880 of the pie. Here's Carville with all you need to know. 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.800 So powerful people said, well, this is not right that 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.640 little people should be making all this money, when really 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.880 it's rich people that really need money. And that's always 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.000 happened in the world, that rich people are going to 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.480 take the labor and work of poor people and moneturize 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:31.680 it and make more money on it. 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:33.160 That's not new man. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.960 That didn't start in nineteen twenty, and it ain't ending 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.800 in twenty fourteen, and it's not going to end in 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:40.000 twenty one fourteen. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.319 It is to sort of inherent. 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:46.480 Right of power to acquire power and money, to acquire 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:47.520 more power and money. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.559 And it played out right down in front of my 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:50.280 very eyes. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.200 You nor I expected to hear James Carvill on Bear grease. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.000 But what we really need to remember is that Manuel 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:02.000 Malaro is our protetagonist. He represented the right to the 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.559 trappers in a head to head legal battle with Leander 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.959 Perez over the land. Here is how the war started, 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:12.200 but well how. 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.600 The war started. It was a one day war. Perez 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.920 got a crooked judge to give him overturned the appeal 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.679 that Manuel had won, and he tried to Now, of 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.320 course you have to enforce that. It's just a piece 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.280 of paper. So when he went back to the Islanians 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.720 and said, hey, get off my land, they just said, 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.960 you know, screw you. And that's when Perez turned around 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.880 and hired a bunch of mercenaries from Texas to come in, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.200 get a boat, get a Gatlan gun on it, and 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.520 go down to buy you Whether Islanis said. His attention 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:53.160 was to murder them, but the Islanians got wind of it, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.839 and so they were ready for them and kind of 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:01.040 ambush them. And that's the one day war, which was 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.960 referred to. As you know they talk about street justice 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.480 or courtroom justice. This was delta justice. This was by 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:13.920 you justice, old school, old fashioned, you know, Hatfield's McCoy's 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:23.760 kind of you know, between the Islanios and Perez. Many 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:28.280 of the Islanios, I would say, they are proud of 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.080 the fact that they stood up for themselves against what 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.520 they felt was the tyranny of the local government, who 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.840 was just Perez and his ilk were mainly interested in 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.200 the money to be made from the muskrat trapping, which 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.240 would turned into fur coats up north and sold. And 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.640 there was a lot of money. I mean, it was 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.840 maybe a couple of dollars per pelt, which now is nothing, 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.880 but back then was a lot of money. I think 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.000 in the film we convert the money that they would 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.360 have made on Africa per trapper to you know, and 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.080 it was close to like one hundred thousand dollars. There's 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:09.360 a lot of money for trapping. The film is ten 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:10.040 years old now. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.480 I asked Wimpy Sarenay how valuable furs were to these people. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.600 I'm upon it this week. I remember they were what 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.319 they what they call dollar around, no other words, dollar 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:36.240 for each far And my dad needs to catch you 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.040 by the hundred rounds a day, a. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:39.720 Lot of money. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.200 So for how many months of the year could he 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.240 do that? From December till March. Well, I'm gonna put 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.839 it this way. When you first went, you know, you 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:51.959 caught a lot of rap, but towards the end of 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.640 the season, you you finishing up. See the way they trapped. 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.880 Let's see it. You had a squapys of land, so 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.120 you would trap what they call him. You'd put your 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.200 traps all around the land, all around the outside of 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.880 your land, your boundary lines, okay, And as the season 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.840 goes by, you keep closing that that circling in and 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.200 you keep closing it in, so you're catching the rat. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.199 And at the end of the season, you got them 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.840 in one little spot, so you would get right I 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:21.800 was left, you know. 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.600 So the Islanios were very they're very prideful people. I mean. 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.880 And these some of these people in Saint Bernard Parish 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.360 and the lower end of it where Dela Crowe Island 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:43.160 is and where the original descendants lived, there's only five 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:48.560 families left there. And it's so between Hurricane Betsy and 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.840 nineteen sixty five, and of course Katrina years later, forty 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.640 years later, just kind of wipe out Delacroue Island. But 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:02.880 that was once a very fertile place for fishing, hunting, trapping, 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:04.920 and that's what people did. They lived off the land. 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.840 My grandfather on my mother's side, that's what he did. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.400 He lived off the land and that's how he fed 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.080 his family. But I would say that the majority of 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.640 Islanios had heard the story of the trappers ord because 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.240 it was passed down generation to generation oral histories basically, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:28.880 and they looked at it as an unfortunate thing that happened. 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.720 But they had to defend themselves against the Perez people 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.360 and his group, especially when he hired mercenaries from Texas 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.520 to come over and murder them. They just felt, Okay, well, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.240 that's the last straw. But they were lucky that they 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:49.000 had Manuel Malero, who was an educated in Islanios who 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.080 knew that they were being taken advantage of. 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.120 We're learning little bits of this story as we build 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.240 the context of the value of trapping bad Boy. Perez 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.840 would end up hiring mercenaries to kill the Islanios trappers, 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.600 but we'll get to that. But to understand any story, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.320 you've got to understand the historical context of the Roaring twenties. 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.200 So if you can picture America in the nineteen twenties, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:25.359 this was a high time for the coastal cities. Hollywood 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.400 was just getting started and was thriving with silent films, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.280 and New York was like the talk of the nation. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.680 Everything new and innovative was going on. It started in 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.200 New York and slowly made its way around the country, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:45.720 and fur coats became a status symbol for a lot 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.880 of rich, wealthy women who lived in New York and 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:53.680 all over the East Coast. So there was this great 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:59.440 demand for furs, and of all the furs that were prized, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:06.719 muskrat fur was considered the most expensive and the most desired. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.880 And so you can imagine all the great department stores 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.640 that sprung up out of New York that were trying 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.160 to sell these coats. They had to get them from somewhere. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:18.679 Well. 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:24.280 They eventually word got down to South Louisiana, where the 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.960 muskrats were thriving throughout the marshes and Bayous. So the 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:33.720 Islanios trappers and the hunters and the fishermen and shrimpers 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.159 who made a living off the land, they were contacted 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:44.800 by these outside sources to say, hey, they need these muskrats. 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.760 In nineteen twenty five, prime muskrat furs were going for 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.320 a dollar thirty each. The math adds up if you're 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.920 catching over one hundred per day for the seventy five 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.000 day season, which yields a single trapper making three to 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.160 four thousand dollars per season. It's estimated that Plaqua Mine 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.879 Parish alone sold over a million dollars worth of muskrat 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.480 hides in its peak in the late twenties, and author 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:17.439 Glenn Jeanson says that Louisiana produced more furs than any 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:22.640 other states and more muskrats than all the other states 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:27.680 combined during this period. The territory of Alaska, thirteen times 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.280 larger than Louisiana, sold only one third as much value 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:39.439 in pelts in nineteen twenty five. Here's Paul, what does 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:41.640 it Does it feel like? Muskrat fur? 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.119 Oh? Well, you know what a mink feels like. You 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:50.480 have rubbed mama, your grandma's mink coat. Well, mink. The 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.760 head is smaller and shorter on a mink. On a rat, 0:18:55.160 --> 0:19:01.360 A good rat. It was a good prime, right. I'd 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.959 say that the furs inch and a half long sometime, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:11.080 and the top of the rat was black. They had 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.719 some of the best rats they caught. Was out of Canovn. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.640 That's a little settlement right down the river here, that's 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:24.000 where all lands behind. 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.440 It's not like a horse rat. It's bigger than the 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.119 house rat. It's about this big, you know, and it 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:32.800 looks like a rat. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:33.440 It's a rat. 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.920 It's a musk rat. And they have two lands of 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.920 musk in them. And you know when they would catch 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.200 them and scin them, you know, and of course the 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.680 Caucasus they were trying to buy you the buzzies and 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.080 that would eat it them. They would take the musks 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.840 and like my mother, she would she would get the 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.000 musk and they'll put them in alcohol in preserva them 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.679 and sell them to people who make foray fuel. 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:04.639 With the muskrat. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.960 I think that's what it is. This toy from gold 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.000 mustard probably came from that, you know. I remember the jaws, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.120 you know, full of musk rat must musk in the 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.520 jaws because they would put them a s m alcohol 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.800 and something in presumab and the wins and that would 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:25.920 that would their money. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:26.199 You know. 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.840 The hair felt very smooth. The top of it was 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:38.000 not black, but very very dark. The bottom was like 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.240 the color your shirt gray on the bottom, you know. 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.080 And when they when the skin them, the skin from 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.679 the back legs, you cut right along with tail and 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.400 you turn them inside out and just peel the skin off. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.520 And then you would put it on a rat stretcher 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.520 and you put the rat on air and you let 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.600 it go. It stretched the you're far out and then 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.880 they would create the excess meat off of the bottlement 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:07.560 that far was inside out. Then they would hang them 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.720 on what they call uh right hangers, you know, uh 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.040 big big hangers with with booge with nails in it, 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.560 and they'd just hang them up. You know, we have 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:20.960 pictures of that in the museum down as in. But 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.879 then they would they have pictures of God hanging up 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.320 muskrat to dry. You put it in the some and 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:30.160 dry and once they dry, and that's when the uh 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.200 the deal is what we call you know, would bottom 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:39.040 the fur even even you to sell pieces if if 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:40.879 one of the rants was ate up or something, they 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:42.680 don't just sell the piece or whatever they had was 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.560 left because there was I guess it was with a 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.240 lot of money they could sell it all well. The 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.000 way I understand it was, it was the fashion in 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.520 the twenties was for a coach. Even the men used 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.840 to wear long fur coach. My mother had a said 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:04.399 she had my dad had muskrat coat fulls lant coat 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.080 made out and beautiful. It was so soft one the 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.800 time they they tanned it and worked it out and 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:12.760 men then then the colt out of it, you know. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:22.160 They I used to work in the firehouse, and uh 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:26.400 they bought him for from Simon Yoka, the Jewish Man, 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.280 and uh he owned Delta Row Farr. 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.679 So so in your lifetime that fur business was alive 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:34.639 and well. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:34.960 In New Orleans. 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.920 Yeah, yeah, so you worked How long did you work 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:38.720 in the firehouse. 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.680 Well, I'd go there at the end of the trapping 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:46.640 Caesar and they'd be shipping to New York, and uh, 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.160 they'd have all those fires in there. Lord, they had 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.639 furst stack from flowing around the walls from the flood 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:53.440 of the seal. 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:54.560 All muskrat h No. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:58.560 Everything you had marsh grat, you had mink, she had honors. 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:00.080 You had cools. 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.120 Added the firs down here compare with northern firs. 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:05.960 They got to have you thicker far up there because 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.040 of the cool water. But you had cold. We had 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.000 cool windows down here. When I was a kid man. 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.800 You know, I don't say every morning, but i'd say 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.879 quite often. You had icycles hanging off the tin roof. 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:23.040 Like I was telling you, I worked in the firehouse 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.200 and they'd taken all as far as would go in 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.520 and at the end of the season they had shipped 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.480 to New York, and uh, so I'd go in there, 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.280 and uh, plenty of them had mildew on them. And 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:38.639 then so they take the otters. Otters got a lot 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.440 of fat on them, and you'd scrape them. They had 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.680 big boards and they'd scraped that inside hide and get 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.560 especially the tail, and you put that it put that 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:52.320 fat in a in a rag. And for ours that 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:57.160 stand there at their tables and wipe them rats, wipe the. 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:00.760 Mill with the with the otter fat with the fact. 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:05.200 And made it beautiful. They came out beautiful. And uh, 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.000 then they'd take them and they'd put them in a press. 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.160 They had a press about as water as this table. 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:15.639 And then they did press it down full of muskrats, 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:18.600 full of muskrats. They weighed about four or five hundred 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:20.159 pounds or you couldn't. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.080 They were shipping them green. Yeah, you ship them green, right, 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:25.760 shipped them green. Wherever they processed them, they turn them. 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.440 They t well, they didn't even process them here. Most 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.040 of them went to Europe. You see, they they'd go 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:34.360 to they'd go to New York and then they had 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:36.879 a forest sail up there and they'd sell them to 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:45.280 the people in Europe. My great grandfather was was a 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:48.639 farm and that's what he did. They didn't know nothing 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:51.840 but for him. And when my grandfather got down there, 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:55.720 they you know, they trapping was starting to pick up, 0:24:56.680 --> 0:25:00.679 and uh so he uh and know those days, there 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:03.000 wasn't no you owned this piece of land. And now 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.200 the guy I owned up it was all open priority. 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:09.800 It was just like wild wesh And uh. When you 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:11.760