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Fox and Mink Ranching

In the early 1930s a new type of farming came to Long and Brier Islands, that of fox ranching. Large fences were erected around wooden pens. Wire was put down into the ground to prevent tunneling by the foxes, who would chew anything wooden. Individual houses entranced through runways, were constructed inside the fence with a wooden sluiceway connecting the males and females. When it was breeding time, the sluiceway was opened and a watch was kept on the activity from a nearby tower, so as to estimate the pups' time of birth. "Nests" for whelping were lined with cedar so as to prevent fleas within the houses.

Because of the nervousness of these animals, contact between owners and foxes were kept to a minimum and strangers were not encouraged to venture near the pens. Platinum, black-faced,and silver foxes were farmed on the two islands by a variety of people, Daniel Kenney Sr. in Westport, Sam Young, Charlie Young, Melvin Tibert, Alton MacNeill, Douglas Lent, Lloyd Blackford, and Carman Nase in Freeport. The first and largest fur farm was owned by Gorham Elliott Sr., and was located by the school house in Tiverton. Each fox ranch had their own registered "trade mark" that was tattooed in the animales ear : e.g. "MCO" for the Fundy Vista Ranch of A. MacNeill. When cured, pelts eventually found their way to the fur auction, the individual owners could be identified by the tattoo in the ear and paid accordingly.

The foxes were fed beef and fish which had been prepared in an electric grinder. Pens were cleaned once a week. A disagreeable job was killing the foxes. This was done in the fall of the year due to the improved condition of the fur at that time. The pelts were placed on a wooden board and all the fat was scraped off, making sure to keep the feet as clean as possible. Fur "fairs" were held in the Annapolis Valley and the fox ranchers would take their product there to be judged and have a price set for their product, which were sent off to Montreal or Winnipeg. By the 1950s the fox ranching was done, but the last remnants of the pens and tower in Tiverton survived into the 1960s. Tiverton boys remember when hitting a ball over the fox tower constituted a home run when they played baseball in a near by field.

At the same time, Bernard Bowers had a mink ranch in Westport, with approximately 100 mink. Wild mink and muskrat were also trapped on both islands to bring in added income. Stoles made from local mink and foxes are still owned by some local ladies.

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Gorham Elliott Sr. with a fox from Elliott's Fox Ranch, the first ranch established on Long Island.
1935
Tiverton, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Daniel Kenney Sr. with his pet fox Mushy.
1935
Westport, Nova Scotia, Canada

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In the 1930s fox ranching became an economic force on Long and Brier Island. Daniel Kenney Sr. erected a fox ranch on Brier Island and began the work of tending, feeding and breeding them. One fox had to be taken to the family home and be fed by a family cat. It became somewhat of a pet and was named "Mushy" . Although Mushy was more of a pet than the rest of the foxes he lived in the fox ranch. Whenever Daniel would enter the fox ranch he would wag his tail like a dog. When the bottom fell out of the silver fox ranching business, all Daniel's foxes had to be disposed of, even Mushy. Daniel recalls it was a sad day - "Hardest thing I had to do ." His wife Viola still has Mushy's fur, which was kept in rememberance of the fox that sometimes felt he was a small part of the family.

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Clarence Outhouse, one of the managers at Elliott's fox farm in Tiverton.
1935
Tiverton, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Stole made from a black tipped fox
24 September 2003
Freeport, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Feet as part of the stole
24 September 2003
Freeport, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Stole made from a platinum fox
24 September 2003
Freeport, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Elsie Young
1994
Freeport, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Elsie Young describes the work involved in feeding her family's foxes.

When you tended the fox ranch, what did you have to do besides feeding. They were quite tempermental animals weren't they?

Yes, we had to be very careful. A stranger couldn't go in when they had their young, because they would eat them.

Charlie said one time you had to tend them?

Oh yes when he went to Sydney. After the girls got through school they wanted to go to college. So he went to Sydney and I had 100 foxes. And I use to have the food come up from Yarmouth on the boat and it was in blocks frozen hard. And all tied around with wire. I'd have to cut that open and let it thaw up and then I'd put it in the grinder and grind it and mix it up with some kind of meal. I use to have four or five big pails of food, put it in a wheelbarrow and take it down. That's after I moved down here. Take it down and feed the foxes. And I had the switch board at the same time, and the girls use to tend that while I was feeding the foxes.

Was fox farming quite lucrative?

Oh yes. At that time, but then it just went right flat. And then mink came in.

From an interview conducted in 1987 by Dorothy Outhouse

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Island fox ranches were of great interest to the tourists that came to the Islands in the 1930s and 1940s. They would like to tour the ranches, and if the pups were old enough to be out of danger [their mothers would eat them if they were upset by the scent of strangers], owners would allow the tourists to go through. One tourist asked the question " How many pelts do you get from each fox ?" Apparently the lady felt that a fox was somewhat like a sheep
and could be pelted each year in the same manner as a sheep was sheared.