The Fur Trade At Bella Coola By the time Mackenzie arrived at Bella Coola in 1793, trading between Native people and Europeans along the coast was common. Early trading was with Spanish boats; later with British and Americans. The fur trade developed quickly as an extension of existing native trade routes. The Nuxalk trapped furs. They also acted as middlemen, controlling trade between the interior and the coast. They carried furs in large canoes to trade with the Heiltsuk people of Bella Bella. They in turn traded with the European ships and with Hudson Bay Company traders who operated Fort McLoughlin at Bella Bella in the 1830s and 1840s.

In 1867, a fur trade post owned by the Hudson Bay Company was established at Bella Coola, first on a boat and later at a permanent post. In 1882 the post was sold to a HBC employee, John Clayton, whose family continued to operate it into the early 1900s. One of the buildings remains on the site today and is visible from the interpretive sign. Besides fur, trade goods at the post included locally-grown potatoes and native items such as carvings and weavings.

"Every man, woman and child carried a proportionate burden, consisting of beaver coating and parchment, as well as skins of the otter, the marten, the bear, the lynx, and dressed moose-skins. The last they procure from the Rocky-Mountain Indians ... to barter them in turn with white people who, as they had been informed, arrive there in large canoes" - from Mackenzie's journal.

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