Indians Breaking Into A Beaver House

C.W. Jefferys' notes about this picture from The Picture Gallery of Canadian History Volume 2

Before the introduction of steel traps, the Indians caught the beaver by piercing a hole in the roof of the house with an ice chisel, set into a heavy six-foot pole, after barring the underwater outlet with stakes driven through the ice. Observe the open water in the middle of the pond to the right, and below the dam to the right, the distant beaver houses already broken open, and the dog, whose instinct enables him to detect the presence of  he beaver in the house. David Thompson's Narrative describes the method of hunting in detail.