Centuries before Theodore Roosevelt and the birth of America’s conservation movement at the turn of the 20th century, beaver populations were nearly trapped into oblivion thanks to Europe’s need for a quality hat.

With high demand and a seemingly endless supply of beavers in the wilds of North America, trappers plied the lowlands, trading companies manned outposts, and commerce boomed. For hundreds of years, enterprising traders built their empires and set the groundwork for a colonized continent.

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