Beaver, mink and a northern goshawk

October 19 to 22:

Dakota and I hit the trapline for four days this week. I pulled him out of school for Friday and Monday with Mom's approval. Our plan was to take the beaver in the pond beside the cabin and break their dam, get his squirrel snares on the poles (he has poles set up on eight middens), and get some more wood put up.

On the road up, we spotted what we think is a northern goshawk that gave me a fleeting chance at a photo from the window of my truck before it took flight. Looking through the Birds of Alberta book, the closest we could come to it was a northern goshawk. Not being a raptor expert, I can't be 100% sure though.

Northern goshawk, or some other type of raptor?

We arrived at the cabin to a blustery fall day. The snowfall we'd had last time in had melted but a new skiff of snow was now on the ground. We're going to need a lot more snow before we can run the skidoo and sled, which will make running the 38 miles of trapline doable in a day. If we have to run the line by quad, we'll need two days to complete the run and probably won't be able to access some areas. Keeping my fingers crossed for the white stuff.

A cool -5 Celsius at about 3:00 in the afternoon.

Looking from the cabin porch.

Our main objective this trip was to take out the beaver next to the cabin. They are damming up the three creeks that run out of the floodplain and if they aren't removed, we could get flooded next spring. We finally found their house, out in the middle of the floodplain and not accessible by foot until the ice freezes. With the leaves off the willows and new snow, the house stands out like a sore thumb. Funny, because I had no idea where the house was until now. This is a new house though, so I'm sure the amount of beaver here wouldn't be that many. I want to take them out now because we can use their meat for bait. Their pelts won't be perfect but shouldn't be too bad.

We set up four traps the first night we arrived. Two where the beaver had been feeding last time we were here, one on the creek we've been breaking the dam on, and another on a run over their dam closest to their house.

A 330 conibear set on a run the beaver have been using to feed.

The next morning we awoke to -10 Celsius. Both traps on the feed runs were frozen in without beaver in them. The trap closest to the cabin had been filled full of sticks and mud as the beaver dammed up the creek again (we broke it before setting the trap), and the trap closest to their house was sprung with a stick in it. Now, I've trapped many beaver over the years and only once did I have a problem catching them. An old female who had watched me take her mate and kits had proven a handful but I eventually won and the farmer I trapped for was very grateful. In this case, I was baffled. How could these beaver be trap-shy way the heck out here in the middle of nowhere? I chalked it up to a fluke, readjusted my traps and added another as near their house as I could.

The trap on the floodplain creek closest to the cabin. The beaver filled it full of mud and debris.
I'm surprised the trap never went off when they were pushing the stuff in there.

That night while sitting around the fire, Dakota and I heard a trap go off. We quickly grabbed the binoculars and focused in on the trap nearest the beaver house. Sure enough, we could see the tail and one leg of a very large beaver sticking out of the water at the trap. We high-fived and congratulated ourselves, positive we'd have the rest of the beaver by morning. Boy were we wrong! All we had was the adult male; a large beaver pushing 40-pounds or better. The two traps on the feed run were frozen in again, the trap closest to the cabin had been filled in again, and the new trap had been sprung with a stick. Once again, we reset the traps and then headed out to put up some squirrel snares.

The squirrel snares are left to hang under the pole before the season opens.
Notice the snare to the left, and another nearer the tree. There is also one in between but it's hard to see.

November 1st is the open for mink, weasel, squirrel, marten and fisher. Coyotes and wolves are already open but we can only use legholds in our zone (Zone 4) because of the grizzly bears - we can't put up snares until December 1st when they are supposed to be in their dens. I have yet to see a grizzly on the trapline but have encountered their tracks and scat, including the tracks of a sow and cub. Coyotes aren't too plentiful here and only now and then do the wolves move through. Without snow, it's pretty hard to trap these guys unless you set up a bait station, and even then it's difficult not knowing what trails they are using. Without snow, a trapper is limited.

Dakota now has about 50 snares set up on his eight squirrel middens. We'll probably set the snares upright as soon as the season opens. I'd like to wait a little longer into November before setting up some mink and weasel sets but we'll see. There appears to be a good population of mink here as we encounter their tracks regularly and have seen them in the past and on this trip.

Mink tracks along the ice close to the creek shore.

One morning we were walking around the floodplain on our way to set a trap when a mink suddenly came scrambling along the ice right in front of us. Dakota said it looked like he was playing but I'm sure he was just hellbent to get out of the open. Mink are preyed upon by several animals but none that strictly focus on them, mostly just happenstance encounters. But owls, eagles and hawks are especially dangerous when mink are out in the open.

About two hours later back at the cabin, I suddenly heard Dakota hollering mink! mink! I quickly looked and sure enough, there was a mink just 20 feet away from Dakota across the creek on the ice. This time I had my camera nearby and managed to get a photo of him before he disappeared. Not too often you get to see two mink on the same day.

The mink cruising across the ice just out from the cabin.

The next morning we awoke to a windy and very cold -10 Celsius. Every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is toss my bucket into the creek for a fill of water. I use this water to wash my face; it's very refreshing and wakes you up in a hurry. On this morning, my bucket didn't just contain water, but it had ice in it as well and it really woke me up in a hurry!

The thermometer showing -10 Celsius. With the wind it felt more like -20 Celsius.

My water bucket with ice from the creek. Wakes you up in a hurry!

When we checked our beaver traps that morning, we discovered we had caught a kit. Now we had two beaver. The remaining traps had all been sprung with sticks except the one closest to the cabin, which was full of mud and debris again. I was now convinced we had a trap-shy beaver, the big female. In fact, we watched her chewing a stick while watching us reset the trap that held her kit. I'm now convinced there were just three beaver here, the two adults and one kit. From watching them in the summer, I can confirm this as we never saw more than one kit at any time and we watched these beaver a lot. The only way I'm going to catch her now is either under the ice or with a leghold and a slide wire. If we get back next weekend and the water is still open at the dam near the house, we'll try the leghold and slide wire. If not, we'll be waiting until the ice is thick enough to walk on.

Dakota with the big adult male. He probably weighs in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 pounds.

Here you can see the kit closest to Dakota.

The last order of business was adding to the woodpile. We found a good spot on Clear Trail that has a lot of dead-standing trees that should be able to keep us in wood for quite some time. Only problem is, the only way to get there is by quad. You could get a truck reasonably close, but the quad and trailer would still have to be utilized.

Dakota taking a break from loading the quad trailer.

Until next time!