Collecting Wood

Trapping is about so much more than catching and skinning animals. It’s about collecting wood to keep the shop warm enough to thaw the frozen critters before skinning. It’s about days spent riding drifted over trails to check empty traps. It’s about setting, picking up, moving, and resetting dozens of traps only to do it all over again in a couple of weeks when they don’t produce. It’s about long hours crossing terrain so rough that you can’t catch your breath between bumps.

There’s not much that can keep my trapper-husband, Gregg, inside the cabin for an entire day. After a hearty breakfast of corned beef hash, fried eggs, and homemade cinnamon raisin toast, we usher the dogs outside, gear up, and head out for our secret spot with loads of standing deadfall. Our 10-year-old husky/shepherd/wolf, Denali (“great one”), and her 2 year-old Chocolate Lab sister, Nuka (“little sister”), curl up on the hay in their dog houses on the deck and watch through the blowing snow as we check the sled, crank up the snowmachines, and head off down river. Living eight miles from the nearest year-round neighbor, the dogs have learned to stay home when told, so there is no need to tie them up, which leaves them with a sort of self-imposed freedom.

 

We are on the Unalakleet river for less than a quarter of a mile when we take the trail up the bank, headed north over the tundra toward the trapping grounds. It’s been a dry winter with strong winds, leaving the tundra hillock tops bare and the trail rough, to say the least. The snow has been blown in diagonal, jagged sheets in places, hard as rock and jarring to drive over as the snowmachine skis clatter and shake, vibrating the machine all the way up through the handle bars like an electric shock continuing to the driver’s shoulders. It makes for sore wrists and sore elbows, sore backs and bruised knees when the occasional thump thrusts the driver forward into the machine itself. My mind wanders to the sled full of logs that Gregg will be towing back across here in a few hours.

Gregg chooses a tree.

Finally, after several miles, we hit the tree line and begin to pick our way along the well-worn trail that he and Sissy have been using all winter. The trees become a thicket in a hurry and soon the trail is barely wide enough for my skis to pass, weaving in and out, up and down, over and around, hard drifts and frozen creeks. We make a couple of loops off of the main trail to check empty marten traps and Gregg collects them and piles them in the sled to reset somewhere else. North River, where we are, seems to be trapped out for this season. One trap has a Gray Jay, aka Camp Robber, in it, aptly named since it is always a terror, stealing trap bait and flying away. This particular little guy wasn’t so lucky, probably too full and fat to move fast enough to make his getaway. Oh well. At least this one won’t be stealing any more of our bait!

Helping out.

After collecting six empty traps, we arrive at the beaver pond with the deadstanding timber. There is a large beaver house with two air-hole snow cones at the top, indicating an active house. However, there is no other beaver sign anywhere. Gregg quickly spots his target, unpacks the chainsaw and trudges through the knee deep snow toward a 30-foot pine, hanging moss replacing the needles that have long since fallen off. The trees in this particular spot all drowned when the beavers moved in. Completely inaccessible in the summer, it makes the perfect spot to collect dry wood in the winter.

Tying down.

The tree falls right where Gregg wants it and he begins removing limbs and sawing it into lengths which he measures with his arm breadth, and I follow along clearing the limbs out of the way and rolling the eight-foot lengths 180 degrees so that he can go back through and remove the limbs and stubs from the underside. Two of these trees usually makes a big load and once they are snugly tied into the sled, traps on top of the logs, it’s time to head home. The day has turned sunny and bright, with the 20 degree sunshine causing us to stop and discuss the option of possibly dropping the sled and heading further up the trail to hunt for moose antlers, which make terrific chews for our dogs. After all, it is shed season. We decide we’re tired and ready to head back; he’s still got to haul the logs to town and unload them at the shop. I’ll head back to the cabin to work on a sewing project and get dinner started, moose burgers and hash browns.

Heading home.

Back at the small engine repair shop that Gregg owns in town, he sees that Boyd has been by with three lynx and hung them to thaw. Gregg unloads the wood, while his mind wanders back to the trap line that he helped Boyd, a local state trooper, set up earlier this season, thinking to himself, “Boyd, your Jedi training is complete.”

Gregg has shared his love of trapping with a number of people throughout his life, taking them under his wing, showing them the ins and outs, celebrating their catch with them. Yes, trapping is about more than catching and skinning critters. As the wood we gathered will keep the shop a warm place for the physical taking care of the animals, it will also provide a warm place for shared stories, smiles and laughter among trappers in this small village on the Bering Sea.