Canadian Beavers & Vermeer's Hat

"In the case of the painting I have just described, that lovingly textured broad-brimmed hat opens a door which leads from Vermeer's Delft westwards across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada, where buccaneering adventurers like Samuel de Champlain - leader of a French mission seeking a northwest passage through the Great Lakes to the Pacific in the 1600s - exchanged beaver pelts for firearms with the Huron chiefs to finance their journeys. Back in Europe, the underfur of those much-sought-after pelts was stewed in copper acetate and mercury-laced glue to make the very best felt for the most fashionable hats..."