Letter from Hamdon and Alley Ltd., Fur trade, Edmonton 1930s
Date: Fort Chipewyan, Alberta; 1935\r\n
Dear Ahmid:
I am shipping today 11 good Cross Foxes, 15 Reds, 1 Otter, and 4 Lynx to Sam. I am instructing him to pay you $250.00 and also to pay M. Tarrabain $100.00 and the balance of approximately $11.00 to you. I want you to buy me 3 tents 10 x 12, 4’ walls, 8 oz. and 3 tents 8 x 10, 4’ walls, 8 oz. Also to ship me 150 lbs of cheap butter and 50 lbs of good butter for our own use.
If you remember the last time I was shipping a little bunch of fur coming from Andy to have I divided between yourself and Tarrabain and others. Up till today, the fur from Pond Duc Lak did not show up, so I got a chance and got hold of this bunch of fur as I new you were hard up. I am shipping this fur to Sam.
Business is not very good around here this year, in fact since Christmas there has been hardly anything doing with anyone. Most of the traders close up and go to the café. We are in hope that by the 10 or 12 of March things will be going on nicely. There is going to be plenty of rats and everyone is anxiously waiting for the season to open. So let us hope everything will turn out alright.
Re: Claims. The bunch of claims we got last fall before everybody which is worth a fortune, we lost them, on account of to many good friends mixed up in it such as Sine brother in law Louis Mercrede. He was away to hell and gone in the bush after stakes and he didn’t both to come down and sign the papers to have them registered and some other people were delaying in sending there money for there share of the expenses to pay for there register fee, so we lost those beautiful claims tied up to the discovery.
Since I found that out I had to get men to go and stake three claims on your license which I have to pay $75.00 as a man is going on the plane tomorrow. Of course the other claims are going to cost the same. I am charging $75.00 to your account which I hope will be satisfactory to you. If not you can let me know and we can turn them over to some other party which will be glad to pay the amount to have the claims. There is another expense to these three claims $50.00 for registration. I will send the papers for you to sign. That make a total of $110.00 for the three claims.
I managed to get three parties to stake for you and Sam and Assif I am still holding two, one for Hoe and one for your Nephew, which I hope I will be able to fill soon.
The people are simply going crazy over that place. Plane after plane going there day after day. There is going to be thousands of people there by March or April so let us say like the English better later than never.
Close with best regards to your wife and family, Joe and Mike and everyone of the boys.
You can tell Mike I will try and fill his license at the first opportunity, tell him I am more sorry for him than myself over loosing those first claims.
Yours sincerely,
Ali Hamdon
AW/FW