Trappers take pelts from fur to fashion – Duluth News Tribune

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Samantha Youngren couldn’t help slipping her hands into a pair of pure white polar fox mitts Wednesday night at the Duluth Boat, Sports, Travel and RV Show. Next, she and her husband, Alex, had to check out a plush raccoon fur trooper cap. The Hermantown couple found both items at the booth of the New American Fur Co.
Samantha loved the mittens.
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“They’re awesome. They’re gorgeous,” Youngren said. “They definitely would keep you warm in a Minnesota winter.”
The New American Fur Co. is a venture launched last April by Allen Edberg, 48, of Fredenberg Township and Gary Gagnon, 47, of Duluth. The two are lifelong friends who have been trapping together since Edberg was 10 and Gagnon was 9.
The Duluth boat show is just the latest stop for the two men, whose retail fur business is growing rapidly.
“I’ve been doing this for years,” Edberg said, “but this year we went all over the country. We were out in New York, down in Missouri to the national trapping convention. And Facebook has helped us huge.”
Facebook and furs. Those are two words the French voyageurs never used in the same sentence.
Edberg has been dabbling in the retail fur business for a few years, but he and Gagnon committed to the new partnership last April. Edberg takes in the raw furs, then skins and fleshes and stretches them. They’re tanned commercially. Gagnon and two others do all the sewing.
Some trappers send Edberg and Gagnon their raw furs with specific requests for finished products.
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“We’re doing a bunch of beavers for a beaver bedspread for a guy in Tennessee,” Edberg said. “We had a big order from a guy in Louisiana. He traded us shrimp, and we made him scarves from raccoon and otter.”
The men trap or buy other furs and turn them into retail products for sale to the public. The product line is diverse –hats, mittens, vests, jackets, bedspreads, beer cozies, teddy bears. Even muskrat snap-bracelets.
“If they want it out of fur, we’ll make it,” Edberg said. “We just got an order for 100 ‘weenie warmers’ for dogs. Like for sled dogs when they’re running. It’s a strip of fur that goes in front of their (private parts).”
A Two Harbors musher, Troy Groeneveld, needs a bunch of them for a race he plans to do on the shores of Hudson Bay this winter.
Variety of furs
The garments that Edberg and Gagnon make come from all kinds of furs — beaver, coyote, fox, bobcat, muskrat, mink, fisher, nutria, skunk and badger.
Skunk teddy bears sell for $129, Edberg said. Fox hats are $129. A coyote trooper hat is $149. Simple beaver mitts are $149. Some dogsledding mitts with removable liners and other features go for up to $400.
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Demand is strong for fur products. Many of their products are available at Frost River in Duluth’s Lincoln Park and at Fisherman’s Corner in Pike Lake. Duluth’s Empire Wool & Canvas Co. makes liners for the technical musher’s mitts.
“It’s amazing how much of that stuff we’re selling,” said Fisherman’s Corner owner Scott VanValkenburg. “You hear about different folks who are anti-this and anti-that, but we don’t hear any of that up here.”
People buy fur for different reasons, VanValkenburg said.
“Some folks buy it just to stay warm,” he said. “Some like the dressiness of a coyote hat or a Davy Crockett hat. But the warmth is incredible. Once you’ve worn one out in cold weather, the other stuff just isn’t the same.”
Gagnon believes some buyers would rather have a traditional garment than a synthetic.
“This is the age of plastics,” he said. “Products that are supposed to be eco-friendly aren’t. Everything is a petroleum product, as opposed to renewable resource. Fur looks good, and around here how can you find a better way to celebrate our heritage?
Old friends
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Watching Gagnon and Edberg manning their fur market at the boat show, it’s obvious they’re longtime friends. Their early trapping experiences provided plenty of learning experiences.
“We swam the Cloquet River in April to get a beaver,” Gagnon said. “We’ve fallen through almost every lake in northern Minnesota doing spring beaver trapping.”
Now, they’re on the special-events circuit, selling their wares. They plan to hit a lot more trappers’ gatherings this year, Edberg said.
Soon, another Minnesota fur may become part of the product line. The gray wolf has been removed from the Endangered Species List, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources plans hunting and trapping seasons as early as this fall.
“If they open it, I have a feeling we’ll get quite a few in the shop,” Edberg said. “We buy them now from Alaska and Canada. It’ll be cool if we can work some native ones.”
After the Duluth boat show ends today, the next stop on the fur-selling circuit will be the 14th annual Fish Lake Classic Snowmobile Challenge next Saturday.
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