Since Jacques Cartier landed in what became Labrador in 1534, people in North America have trapped beaver for clothing and trade. The beaver also fueled disputes and vast fortunes.

There is perhaps no animal native to Pennsylvania that has caused so much controversy in geopolitics, wealth acquisition, opening up trade routes and in the fashion industry as the beaver.

The fur trade has been around for as long as people have been wearing clothes. Animals were hunted for food and their pelts were worn for protection against the elements.

Humans on every continent found that pelts could protect them and provide a resource that could be traded for other goods.

Beavers were found in great numbers in Central Asia and Russia, and their hair was used to make a felt product that was used in durable clothes and tents.

By 1600, the need for more beaver fur exploded. European beavers were dying out because of overhunting to create new fashions, such as beaver felt hats.

Felt is made by pressing, heating or treating animal hair with chemicals. It is valuable because it is waterproof, moldable and doesn't wear out easily. The best kinds, like beaver, are very soft and smooth.

In 1534, Jacques Cartier of France landed in what became Labrador hoping to find a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean as a shortened trade route to China and the Far East.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, he instead met the Mi'kmaq, the First Nations People of Nova Scotia, and traded knives for their abundant furs. When the furs arrived in Europe, the interest in beaver pelts stirred the interests of fortune and adventure seekers.

In 1670, Henry Hudson discovered Hudson Bay and eventually this led to the King Charles II of England to give the Hudson Bay Company a charter to the lands of Canada.

Wars between the French and English over the New World and fur trading in the 1700s eventually spilled over to the Huron and Iroquois peoples. Frontier New York and Pennsylvania became battle zones for the French and Indian Wars.

Many of the first outposts and forts were trading posts for the fur traders, and capturing or destroying them was not only militarily significant but economically advantageous.

Love them or curse them, the beaver still is a big part of Pennsylvania wetlands conservation and hunter-trapper interest. The role beavers play with the riparian zone is significant as it is a keystone for other species' survival and habitat enhancement.

There are others who will argue that their harvesting trees and flooding roads and waterways might interfere with other land uses. Although at one time there were more than 60 million beavers in North America, that number has been substantially reduced to a current estimate of 12 million.

One can observe live beavers in action on nearly every waterway in Butler County. Lake Arthur has colonies of beavers on its waters. In fact, I picked up a nice 5-foot section of tree trunk stripped of its bark as a souvenir.

Pennsylvania has a liberal trapping season that allows for 10 to 40 beavers to be taken, depending on the WMU. Beavers are still sought for their fur, glands, which are used for medicine, and perfume — and some people eat the meat.

I have tried beaver at a wild game dinner and found it to be palatable enough. Many traditional hunters and native primitive collectors wouldn't feel complete without either a beaver pelt article of clothing or a craft item.

Many fur traders still stretch a beaver pelt over a willow hoop tied by rawhide, which was a common method of drying and displaying the beaver pelts 400 years ago.

For those who employ it now, it likely serves only as a reminder of our country's history and the exploration of a new frontier.

Jay E. Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.