What was it about fur trapping that could drive men who had barely survived unspeakable hardships to plunge right back into the wilderness cauldron all over again? Was it the excitement, the adventure, the solitude, the closeness to nature? It was probably all of these things and more, but foremost among motivators was simply money. There was a profit to be made in the pelts of beavers, sometimes a huge profit, even for the "lowly" trappers themselves. Indeed, the possibility existed for a few industrious men to begin their lives in buckskin and end them in the costliest of tailored fabrics.

When such men did manage to effect that metamorphosis, fashion required that they own several hats made of the beaver pelts like those they had once cut from the plump, paddle-tailed rodents. These...