The Shmit House

The old outhouse at the trapline has to come down. We'd managed to use it for a couple of years now but enough was enough. The porcupines have chewed down the front of the seat compartment and the squirrels use it as much as we do. The Styrofoam seat keeps your butt warm but it too has seen better days. I'm not sure how many years the old outhouse has been standing but the logs it was built on are quite rotten. The photos below show exactly how poor of a condition it is in.

Looks okay from a distance but then again, many things do.

Not a pretty sight.

So, when my good buddy Peter Milberry offered to give me a hand building a new one, I jumped at the chance. Pete is a wizard with wood and knows what he's doing when it comes to building things, and I mean anything! The plan was to build the outhouse in Pete's driveway where we had the headroom. As well, Pete has all the tools required. We would then put the outhouse together, take it apart, and load it into my truck. Then Dakota and I would haul in the walls, floor and roof to the cabin using my quad and quad trailer the next weekend.

After Pete secured me a door and a window (a high-tech aluminum door with a peephole and a knocker I might add), we were ready to build the outhouse. First we put together the floor and then we started building the walls, attaching them to the floor as we went.

Here Pete is installing the window into the wall.

Built in the garage, assembled in the driveway.

Almost complete and ready to be taken back down.

The next weekend, Dakota and I headed to the trapline with four walls loaded into the back of my truck. The load would have been too high if we'd added the roof and floor, plus I was worried about what Boulder Road might do to our load with how rough it is. The next weekend would see the rest of the stuff hauled up when buddies Ken Colwill and Ken Marlatt would be along for a little outhouse assembly and deck building, with a little bit of hunting thrown into the mix.

Here we have a wall loaded onto the quad trailer and ready to hit the trail.

A wolf track on the road to Cabin Trail.

The road down to Cabin Trail can't be driven on by a vehicle unless it's frozen. It's basically a road built over muskeg and impassable by vehicle during the warm months of the year. There is one pretty good mud hole on it that can cause some problems but on this trip, we managed to get through it just fine. I gambled on taking a new part of the road across from the mud hole but that almost proved to be disastrous, so the mud hole it was. We didn't have too many problems until we were on Cabin Trail, which also has a few mud holes and is much narrower than Cabin Trail Road. But a little maneuvering here and there, a few branches cut out of the way and one incident where we had to use the winch, and we had the walls to the yardsite.

The drop down to Cabin Trail from the wellsite where Cabin Trail Road ends.

We got hung up here and had to use the winch to get out.

Another hole on Cabin Trail but this one isn't too bad.

The walls leaned up against a tree and ready to be assembled.

Trappers spend a lot of time working on their trails, and in many instances, this work is ongoing. For me that's Cabin Trail. But many other trails always need clearing, bridge work, and just plain general maintenance. Knowing this, the Alberta Government offers the following passage from the Alberta Guide to Hunting Regulations: Many trails on Crown lands are created and maintained by trappers. To avoid interference with trapline operations, recreationists are urged to avoid motorized use of trails marked with signs indicating “Active Trapline,” especially during trapping seasons of November through February.

While I know some might consider a sign on a trail on Crown Land to be a sign to be ignored, it is still with hope that trappers mark their trails. There is nothing worse than somebody driving down your trail in a snowmobile, gunning it every few feet and leaving big divots in the trail that the trapper now has to navigate through. Considering we are on our trails from dark to dark during trapline operations, this can really slow us down, not to mention cause a wreck, as quite often trappers are looking around for sign and not looking at the trail ahead of them. With this in mind, I had a few trail signs made up that Dakota and I marked a few of our trails with.

The start of Clear Trail.

The opposite end of Clear Trail.

We are in a pretty remote area that doesn't see a lot of traffic on our trails; in fact, for the most part, never. But I feel better with the signs up anyway.  Dakota drove us out to the highway from the cabin, about an hours drive. I would be returning in a week with Ken and Ken to get the deck on and the outhouse put up.

At the controls of Big Red!

Until next time!