The fur industry was booming in the early 1920s, and by 1923 the market in British Columbia was worth an estimated $5,000,000. B.C. was climatically ideal for raising foxes, more so than any other area of Canada, and 200 pairs were in the province by 1924.

Willard W. Warren, a man with years of experience in raising foxes, moved from Prince Edward Island in 1922. He established the Cranbrook Silver Black Fox Company at the corner of Durick Avenue (now 7th Avenue) and 5th Street.

Two pairs of foxes arrived from a fox ranch on P.E.I. in November 1923, and by December of that year, the company had six pairs to breed. A few years later, the prosperous company was selling public shares in the Cranbrook Silver Fox Co. Ltd, and an average pelt was selling for around $300.

After Mr. Warren died in 1926, Joseph Condon, who also worked at a silver fox ranch on Prince Edward Island, took over. In 1927, under Mr. Condon’s care, the company acquired sixty high-grade foxes for mating. During the depression years, the farm was purchased by W.H. Harris and managed by Elliot Harris until the late 1930s.

Another fox farm on the Jaffray/Baynes Lake Road, overlooking Deer Lake, was in operation from 1926 until 1938. Owned by Etherly Eaton Payne, the farm raised 30 pairs of foxes and a few mink and martin. The foxes were fed old or sick mine horses purchased from the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company, fish from the Little Bull River, and gophers in the summertime.

The Payne farm had just started to raise muskrats when the depression caused the fur market to decline. It was no longer economical for the Payne family to raise animals for fur. They quit farming and moved to Natal, B.C.

Other known fur farmers in the area included: Carl Bloom, who raised mink on a farm near Wardner; P.F. Howden’s fur farm in Cranbrook that had rabbits, black skunks, and red foxes; a large fur farm at Woodbury Creek, and a farm at Lemon Creek in the Slocan Valley.

O.P. Neilsen, who was of Danish descent and a butcher by trade, had a large fox farm in Edgewater at the end of the Second World War and fed horse meat to the animals. He may also have been associated with the round-up of wild horses on Skookumchuck Prairie at that time.

According to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce at Ottawa, Fox farms produced nearly the entire Canadian supply of over 230,000 silver fox pelts in 1938. That year was also the highest in the silver fox industry’s history, with over 6.7 million dollars in total value comprising 39 percent of all fur types.

Although fur farming was quite profitable, the farms had a malodorous scent that attracted wild animals such as coyotes. Predation caused significant loss to the farmers.

The Columbia Basin Institute intends to continue research on this topic. We would like to hear any recollections you may have regarding fur farming in the Columbia Basin.