The
Beaver Club was a
gentleman's dining club founded in 1785 by the mostly English speaking
fur-trading 'barons' of
Montreal. According to the club's rules, the object of their meeting was "to bring together, at stated periods during the winter season, a set of men highly respectable in society, who had passed their best days in a savage country and had encountered the difficulties and dangers incident to a pursuit of the
fur trade of
Canada". Only fragmentary records remain of their meetings, but from these it is clear that the Beaver Club was "an animated expression of the
esprit de corps of the
North West Company". The men of the Beaver Club were the predecessors of Montreal's
Square Milers.