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December 20, 2002
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Magic on St. Croix Amid too much mass-marketed hubbub of frenzied holiday shopping there is still the possibility of moments of magic, perhaps an unanticipated encounter with something rare and beautiful. This writer is a non-consumer, the sort of person who avoids shopping and, when driven by occasional necessity ventures by preference to a secondhand store or garage sale. I’m not the sort of person who’s likely to write lyric words praising a store (except perhaps Harmony Co-op in Bemidji, where a person generally encounters very good conversation with a cup of coffee). But, Jim Rosenwald’s North Star Fur business in Marine on St. Croix is a surprisingly wonderful place. Back in early October, Press/ON ran an ad for North Star Fur’s “2nd Annual Extravaganza.” In his ad, Rosenwald listed all sorts of miscellany, from “American Indian art and artifacts” to 2000 year old “antique glass trade beads” and “furs.” I read it fairly carefully (proofreading ads pre-publication), but thought something on the order of “ho, hum.” I’ve seen enough banal stuff marketed as “American Indian art and artifacts” that I’m not going to go out of my way to look at more of it. But last
Friday, several of us at Press/ON went on an expedition to
Marine on St.
Croix. Jim Rosenwald, whose forbearers were among the early immigrant settlers of the Lac Qui Parle area and whose grandfather was the mayor of Madison, Minnesota, told Press/ON that he “grew up trapping.” Rosenwald speaks softly, almost shyly, a man perhaps more comfortable with the solitude of the trapline than the hustle of modern life, but he has mastered the nuanced etiquette and cadences of backwoods trading, and approaches his vocation with the artistry of a connoisseur and the passion of a historian. North Star Fur sells kitschy knick-knacks – stocking-stuffer sized polar bears made from rabbit fur, souvenir key chains, and suchlike – but he also sells top-quality antique beads, and shows his astonishing collection of trade beads to visitors with a knowledgeable description of the role that those beads have played, world-wide, in the expansion of trade since the heyday of the Roman Empire. Rosenwald has the most extensive collection of high-quality “African trade beads” (he explained that such beads were historically made in Venice) I’ve ever seen, along with an impressive array of beads I’ve never seen outside a museum including some remarkable Inca quartz and shell beads and strands of what really are 2000 year old Roman beads. [When this writer telephoned Rosenwald to check a few facts, he emphasized that the so-called “African trade beads” I’d admired were Venetian beads. He pointed out that they’d been traded all over the world and detailed some of the history of trading with such beads, including in the Great Lakes fur trade. I said that I’d put the commonly-used description of those beads in quotation marks and that it was the term that most people knew them by. Rosenwald reiterated that some of those beads had never even been to Africa, described the kinds of beads that were made in Africa during that era, and urged me not to perpetuate historical inaccuracies by using a common but incorrect term to describe them. Okay … by any name they’re still beautiful-looking beads that played a significant role in history.] Rosenwald’s inventory is that of a genuine backwoods trader. Sometimes he has ‘quite a bit’ of this or that, and at other times he’s well-stocked in something else. His network of trading and bartering includes more than a few superb craftspeople, and he had an almost-overwhelming array of museum-quality reproductions of nineteenth-century beaded cradleboards, vests, rifle cases, and other items, as well as extremely high-quality quillwork and woven horsehair. After spending several hours photographing Rosenwald and his ‘trade goods,’ I felt dazed by the cases of southwestern-style silver jewelry, racks of furs, piles of hides, and array of buffalo skulls. If you know someone who needs a legal wolf pelt, good quality brain-tanned elk hide, bird-of-paradise feather dance fan, hand carved Pueblo doll, buffalo robe, sweetgrass braid, or fully-beaded vest, Rosenwald probably has several. He also sells an eclectic and ever-changing assortment of other goods, from antique Guatemalan weavings to quilled buffalo-horn ladles. This writer was impressed not only by the quality of Rosenwald’s wares, but also by his prices. One of the Press/ON staffers who went to North Star Furs is a woman with impeccable taste who enjoys shopping. She’s been looking for Venetian glass beads, and was delighted with the assortment of antiques that Rosenwald showed her. “They’re beautiful,” she said, “and the ones I’ve been looking at [in other stores] cost three times as much, but weren’t nearly as nice.” Press/ON publisher Bill Lawrence, who is generally sparing with praise, described Rosenwald’s place as “amazing,” then added, “it’s like stepping back into the nineteenth century fur business. It’s a unique shopping experience, no, it’s really an adventure, but I think a person should plan on spending two to three hours there, because it takes that long to comprehend what’s there, let alone decide what you want to buy.” Press/ON
asked Rosenwald why he’d remained in the fur trade, where business has
been
declining since the mid-1800s and plummeted in the 1970s.
He smiled. “Y’know,
I’ve
always believed in treating people fairly,”
he said. I think he enjoys the ancient art
of
trading. |
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