Managing beaver

August 31 - September 2.

Dakota and I headed back up to the trapline to get some more work done in preparation for trapping season. We we were sick of working on bridges so we decided we'd run the pipeline section of the trapline route. I wanted to make sure the porcupine's hadn't eaten any of the marten boxes and that they were all still okay. On South Trail, two boxes had already been chewed on but both were still useable and it didn't appear they were being chewed on any longer. This is where the plastic boxes show their value, even though they are expensive. Earlier, I had a tree fall on another tree that held a box, knocking it down on South Trail too, so I wanted to make sure a similar fate hadn't happened on the pipeline route.

One section of the Pipeline Trail.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but directly to the right of the cabin is a big old willow floodplain. The beavers have this area covered with dams and at one point were quite distant from the cabin, at least their house and main watercourse was. When the flash floods came, they must have taken out the beaver house because it is no longer there. The beaver then moved further down the floodplain, breaking their original dam and letting it run down nearer the cabin. They then dammed the three creeks that lead out of the floodplain, one, maybe 15-yards from the cabin. Dakota and I have been breaking this dam each day we've been here for the last couple of trips. And each night the beavers have put it back in. Quite often we sneak down and watch them work, they are remarkable but destructive creatures.

To the right of the cabin is a creek that's been dammed by the beaver. Unless kept under control,
they could flood the cabin. They will be removed before the end of October and the ice freezes over.

Dakota giving us his best redneck pose.

Wild raspberries!

August 17-19.

Dakota and I returned to retrieve the bridge planks from the Alaskan Sawmill bridge. We took the bridge apart in the creek and then floated the main beams back upstream. We left five planks there, one to go across the main beams in the middle, and the other four to lie parallel with the main beams, two on each side. These were leaned up against a tree and will be put in closer to trapping season and once the bog freezes.

Wild raspberries are big and plentiful on the trapline.

The rest of the planks we hauled back to the Cabin Trail and we used a few of them to fix the bridge closest to the cabin. The rest of the planks are stored behind the cabin. We'll use them to fix the other two Cabin Trail bridges on a later trip.

On the way back from what is now known as "Broken Bridge Trail", the old quad (2001 Yamaha Kodiak 400 with about 20,000 kilometres on it), overheated and we had to leave it for a few hours in the 30 Celsius heat. Man it was hot on this trip! The quad overheated on South Trail, so we were only about five miles from the cabin and a cold drink.

The old quad has a 1 7/8" ball on it, the same as the quad trailer. The newer quad (2006 Yamaha Kodiak 450) has a 2" ball, so I couldn't use it to haul the planks. The high heat and work pulling the load up the massive hill on Broken Bridge Trail, put the old 2001 out of commission for awhile. We went back later and got it after it cooled off.

This part of Broken Bridge Trail is covered in wild raspberries.
Notice the drop down to the Alaskan Sawmill bridge behind the quads.

This photo shows the incline behind the quads that drops down to the tributary that had the Alaskan Sawmill bridge on it. This is about the middle of what is a 300-foot drop from the top of South Trail down to the bridge. Beyond that point, the trail name changes to the Old Forest Trail. It leads into some spectacular old growth forest.

The Old Forest Trail has six bridge crossings on it, of which only two have any size to them. However, even the small ones are deep and they need to be crossed on logs when using a quad. Later with the skidoo, I wont need any bridges at all. Since the flash flood I haven't been back down Old Forest Trail, but I'm sure those bridges were all taken out too. I won't go back there now until the bog freezes in front of the Alaskan Sawmill bridge.

Dakota's first trip to trouble

August 10th would be the first time my son Dakota was able to make it to the trapline. He'd been chomping at the bit to get here but a summer job had kept him from joining me. Dakota grew up traipsing behind me as I trapped beaver and coyotes for farmers near Genisee and then later near Chip Lake. He is now 17-years-old and he will eventually become my Junior Partner on the trapline. For now, he's another set of muscles - work never seems to end here.

We had been away on summer holidays and then the Alberta Trappers' Association Rendezvous in Stettler. It was a heck of an event and if you ever get the chance, it's a great time spent with the salt of the earth. It had been six weeks since my last trip in. During that time, I had been keeping an eye on the Environment Canada website watching the weather. And it had been raining hard in the foothills. In fact, Jasper and Hinton were experiencing flood problems and every time I logged on to check the weather, it was calling for heavy rains. I was concerned about the runoff and how much water was coming down. Would the cabin be flooded? Surely the bridges must all be gone? Are we even going to be able to make it to the cabin?

The answers to my questions were soon answered. The first bridge we reached on the Cabin Trail was gone. Completely washed away. You could see where the logs had been scattered and tossed about. But somehow the terrain had been altered and we could now pick our way around without too much difficulty. The next bridge was the same, gone, but it too was passable. I was beginning to think this had been for the good, and then we reached the third bridge and went to work putting it back into place. The logs were once again scattered but with a little bit of sweat, we were able to salvage them all and put the bridge back together. We were now able to reach the cabin. At the cabin you could see where the water had breached the bank of the main creek, but thankfully the closest spot had been behind the cabin and we didn't get flooded. The water had come up at least four feet.

I was now concerned about the bridge Pierre and I had built with the Alaskan Sawmill. Surely it would be gone too. Then I remembered the two other log bridges we'd built, one on South Trail and the other on an unnamed trail not too far from the cabin. If the bridge on South Trail was gone, we'd have to rebuild it to find out if the Alaskan Sawmill bridge was still in one piece.

The next day, as I feared, the bridge on South Trail had been annihilated; logs were strewn all over the place and the creek was still running hard and fast. Dakota and I spent the better part of two hours putting the bridge back together so we could continue on to see what the fate of the Alaskan Sawmill bridge was. I had ridden my quad over that bridge and back, once. I feared that would be the only time I'd ever cross it.

When we arrived near the bridge, we were cut off by a huge wet bog that had given us trouble previously, but now it wasn't passable. We began the short walk to the bridge that was now 30-feet downstream from its original position. Amazingly, it was still in one piece.

Without enough time left on this trip, recovering the bridge would have to wait until the next weekend. It was a lot of work I hadn't planned on. The bridges we'd replaced were quickly thrown together and would each have to be reworked. The cabin Trail bridges would also have to be reworked, somehow. The one closest to the cabin was also washed away, but we had time to put it back together, and so we did.

Welcome to the trapline buddy!

The bog before the bridge that is now a mess.

Dakota on the Alaskan Sawmill bridge 30-feet downstream.

You can read the bridge story in its entirety in my Outdoor Pursuits column in Alberta Outdoorsmen magazine here: Back to the Drawing Board

The bridge

As I mentioned earlier, the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is covered with running water. The main creek on my trapline runs through the valley where my cabin is located. The cabin is at about 3400 feet. The surrounding valley climbs to as high as 4300 feet. From there, I know of about 20 creeks that flow down. In my 38 mile trapline route, I cross probably 15 of these. Some are small but deep, and others are much wider, but none, other than the main creek, are wider than 14 feet. But all need a way to cross, at least if travel is going to be made by quad during warm weather periods. And it is these periods of warm weather where we need to be out there working on the line; not working on the line when we should be trapping.

During the trapping season, the snowmobile becomes the mode of transportation and many of these creeks are frozen over and filled with snow, making travel across them easy. Still, the wider ones need a bridge. With this in mind, Pierre and I, along with the Alaskan Sawmill, built a bridge over exactly one off those places.

Here I'm sawing the main log in half. These will become the bridge supports.

The main bridge supports complete.

And put into place.

Here I'm cutting the planks. Each plank is two-inches thick.

A view of the Alaskan Sawmill straight on.

The finished bridge.

In all, it took about six hours to complete the bridge. This bridge is about a 45-minute quad ride from my cabin and leads into some old growth forest that is prime for marten. This bridge is critical to the 38-mile route, as it is the only way into that old forest without a major journey.

Work around the cabin

At the end of June I managed to get back to the trapline for a little bridge building. This time I was much better prepared, I not only had an Alaskan Sawmill with me, I had my good friend Pierre along as well. Pierre needed another load of wood and the trade, (which I won again), was on.

The first thing we did was cut the grass down around the cabin. It had grown to about two-feet tall and would be a haven for mice if it wasn't take care of. The last thing I wanted was to deal with a mouse problem inside the cabin. So far so good. With that done, we set about burning a pile of trash out behind the cabin. It had been raining quite frequently so it was deemed a good time to burn it.

Pierre watching over the burning. He has a piece of plywood over
his head to keep him dry. It started to rain half way through.

Next up we fell a few dead trees around the cabin and bucked them up for firewood. One of the tree stumps we turned into the main chopping block for the yard - it's quite large and works perfectly. We also painted the front door to the cabin.

The tree stump chopping block that works so well.

The newly painted front door.

One night while sitting around the campfire after a hard day of work, a mink suddenly appeared on the far shore of the creek. It looked our way and then dove into the water and headed downstream around the corner. I grabbed my camera and we tried to get a photo of it, but all we got was its tracks. I've also had the pleasure of watching moose walk by through the cabin's front window.

The mink tracks in the creekbed beside the cabin. 

A shave before home

After eight days of trapline work with my dad, it was time to go home. But first a shave was in order.


This is how we get water from the creek - the bucket toss.

Loaded up and ready to head out.

It was a great trip with my dad and I can't wait until he can come back again.

Clearing trail

For the most part, trappers in Alberta that hold registered traplines have several miles of trail that has to be kept open if they want to get anywhere. In my case, it's probably about 30 miles of trail that crosses through just about every land type you can imagine. In many instances, we have cutlines that we can use for travel but quite often these can become grown in or impassable because of deadfall. It's amazing how fast a willow can grow and how often a tree can fall over. So we spend a fair amount of time working on our trails.

The following photos show a before and after of a trail that Dad and I cleared. This particular trail is about one mile long and was completely overgrown in many places throughout its distance. My son Dakota and I had to clear the trail again about a week ago, while not that bad, the willows had grew back quickly in a few areas. We also took care of the over-hangers, tall willow branches that will over-hang a trail once a heavy snow falls. If you've ever had to travel a trail with over-hangers, you quickly realize that you don't want to have to do it very often.

The willows had completely enclosed the trail.

The end result... at least for awhile.

Preparing snares

One item on the agenda was preparing snares for the upcoming season. These are all 3/32 airline cable used for coyote and wolf. There are several ways to prepare a snare, but I prefer just making a good old-fashioned home brew. Mainly just stuff from the area - bark, grasses, pine needles and cones, some spruce boughs etc. The first step is to get a big cauldron of water boiling and then add the ingredients. I like to boil the brew until the water is the colour of tea, usually about 45 minutes. Keep a lid on it so it doesn't boil down too much.


The home brew just starting to boil.

Dad checks the colour of the brew.

 Once the brew looks like tea, scoop out all the ingredients and then add your snares. Bring the snares to a boil for about a 1/2 hour and then remove them. Hang them up away from any foreign odors (make sure you don't touch them with your hands), and let them dry. Once they are dry, I bag each one individually with a fresh piece of spruce or pine bough in the bag. I like to keep them in individual packages because I find it easier to just grab one when I need it, but you can put as many in a bag as you want.

Here the snares have been added and are about to boil.

A finished snare. Notice the difference in colour.

Ready to be put away until December.

 In the Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) my trapline resides, the use of snares is not allowed for wolf and coyote until the grizzly bears are denned. This is generally in December. Grizzly bears in Alberta are considered a threatened species, however, many question the estimated number of grizzly bears in the province.

Dad arrives

Dad finally arrived on May 25th and good friend Pierre decided to join us for a couple of days. Pierre wanted to get a load of firewood to take back to his home in Jasper, so we traded off some work. He'd help build a couple bridges and we'd help him get a load of wood. I think I won the trade-off.

Another bridge on the Cabin Trail.

My dad, Vern, falling a tree for bridge beams.

Dad (top) and Pierre hauling logs across the creek.

Good enough for a quad, maybe not the skidoo!

And getting a trailer full of wood to haul to Pierre's truck.

Dad and I would be here for a full eight days. Our plan was to get up as many marten boxes as we could. Google Earth had proven to be a welcomed resource for plotting my route. Combined with what I already knew, I was able to plot a course that, by the time we were done, would run a full 38 miles of which about 10 miles would be backtracking. The Google Earth plotted route was only 32 miles long at the beginning, but new discoveries, an impassable trail and a long, too-steep of hill changed things up and the end result is 38 miles of trapline trail.

We managed to get a few signs up around the trapline.

Dad on one of the trails.

Dad posing in front of a marten set we just finished putting up. We got so good at this,
we could have the poles cut and installed with the marten box attached in less than 10 minutes.

Another marten set.

My dad is a workhorse who will outwork most men half his age. My dad is 75-years-old. You can read about him and this trip on the Alberta Outdoorsmen website in my Outdoor Pursuits column. Here is the link, enjoy.   75 Years Tough!

My Cabin

My cabin isn't very large, being just 14 feet wide by 18 feet long. But it does the job in keeping me warm and dry during the trapping season. The outhouse needs to be tore down and a new one put up (or my wife will never set foot here), and I need a skinning shack. That will have to happen next year though. There is a shed attached to the back of the cabin that is the same width as the cabin and perhaps six-feet long. This is where I store all of my trapping supplies, coolers, gas, oil etc.

The front of the cabin - that door will get painted.

My Alder Flats moose antlers and RFMA sign.

Looking from the firepit to the cabin.

After a tough day of work, it's a nice place to sit.

The inside of the cabin looking towards the front door.

Looking towards the back wall and the beds.

First warm weather trip

In mid-May, I was finally able to make a trip in by quad. My dad would be coming up at the end of May to help me get the trapline ready for the next season. A lot of work needed to be done, however, one thing I didn't count on was the amount of water in the country. This first trip in I had to winch my way and build two bridges before I could even reach my cabin. By myself, it was a lot of work but I managed to get a couple of rudimentary bridges built and eventually got there.

Pulling a trailer full of gear and winching my way in.

Once I winched my way through the hole above, I discovered I had a flat tire. The good thing about a quad is that one flat only limits you, it doesn't stop you. I managed to use the quad when I needed it near the cabin, but other than that I was pretty much grounded.

Doesn't look too flat, but it is.

The two bridges that I built on the way in. Crude but effective. It was barely wide enough for my quad trailer though.

The first bridge I had to build on the cabin trail.

The second bridge I had to build before I could reach the cabin.

On this trip, I hauled in 59 marten boxes, 42 built brand new. However, because the quad was limited with a flat tire, I had to leave them all by my parking spot and haul them in at a later date. I also brought in all my traps, snares and snare-making supplies. The small boxes on top with the 2-inch hole are weasel boxes.

59 marten boxes and 6 weasel boxes.

An assortment of traps and supplies headed to the trapline.

I was here for four days so I had enough time to clean up inside the cabin, put up my RFMA sign and moose antlers over the cabin entrance, and clean up the yard site. I also managed to do a little exploring around the area. It is beautiful country!