464 



HOW FUR IS CAUGHT. 



The Pine Woods in Winter. 



In the month of February last winter I was delegated 

 by Forest and Stream to secure a little information in 

 regard to the modern methods of trapping fur, more 

 especially that of the smaller fur-bearing animals. The 

 public in general knows little of where the furs come 

 from, how they are caught, or what are the conditions of 

 their pursuit. To supply such information in extenso 

 would of course be impossible, and undesirable if pos- 

 sible; but it was thought that a trip into a region where 

 some of the commoner furs are regularly taken in some 

 quantity would prove of interest and would supply the 

 material for the ttory. Knowing that upper Wisconsin 

 and the Michigan North Peninsula furnish each year a 

 great many furs of the otter, beaver, lynx, marten, fisher, 

 fox, mink, muskrat, etc., I decided upon visiting that 

 region, the month of February being chosen because that 

 is the time when the most of the above furs are prime, 

 although of course every onp knows that trapping begins 

 as early as the fall and continues well on toward epring. 

 It would perhaps have been easier to make the trip in the 

 fall, before the woods were filled with snow and lief ore 

 the severity of a Wisconsin winter had reached its height, 

 but to make it at that time would have given no idea ot 

 some of the harder conditions of a trapper's practical life, 

 so of course the winter trip was decided upon, both as 

 being more typical and more intere sting of itself. After 

 correspondence with different dealers and trappers all 

 overthe pine country of the two States above mentioned, 

 I decided to go to Mercer, Wisconsin, near the northern 

 S ate line, and near the head of the muscallonge waters, 

 that point being on part of the Turtle chain of waters, 

 which make up to the divide separating the muecallonge 

 waters from the Lake Superior waters, and forming in 

 part the division line between Wisconsin and M'< higan. 

 At Mercer I learned of G. W. Back & Sen, who were 

 shipping a good quantity of fur, and I made in advance 

 an arrangement with them to take me out with them 

 over their trapping lines, so that I could see practically 

 just how they lived and how they worked. Perhaps the 

 simple story of our trip will serve well enough to show, 

 in a modest way, a little about the methods of the lur- 

 catchers of to-day, and will give something of a notion 

 of the difficulties of the much misunderstood calling of 

 the trapper. 



I was accompanied for a part of the trip by Mr. Charhs 

 Norris, of Chicago, whose auties as a traveling passenger 

 agent of a railroad take him much through th - country 

 indicated. M'e left Chicago early in February, and tak- 

 ing the evening train of the Northwestern Railway found 

 ourselves at about 5 o'clock of the next morning some 

 hundreds of miles further north, and in the heart of the 

 pine forests of that great region between the lakes and the 

 wild prairies of Dikota, a region which in spite of lum- 

 berman and angler, of iron miner and tourist, still re- 

 mains a desperate and impracticable wilderness, which 

 for generations yet will defy the patient and smoothing 

 hands of the man who reaps the cultivated products of 

 the soil. When we alighted at Mercer it was dark, except 

 for the white reflection from the snow. The pine woods 

 came down close to the railroad tracks, and the village, 

 of a few log houses, also huidled close to the iron rails, as 

 though afraid to venture far from that strong arm of 

 adventurous civilization. The snow lay very soft and 

 white and deep over the face of the world. The pine 

 treeB talked unceasingly, as they always do. Evidently 

 we were in a winter country. The thermometer was 

 some degrees below zero. It was impossible to help notic- 

 ing the great difference of the air we now breathed from 

 that we had left at Chicago. The atmosphere was keen, 

 but sweet and exhilarating as some rare tonic. Once 

 more I thought of the wisdom of letting a vacation fall in 

 winter and in a winter country, instead of spending it in 

 summer in some crowded so-called summer country, 

 where relaxation and not building up must be the natural 

 result,_ albeit desirable by contrast to the fatigue and fag 

 of business life. Our whole trip was proof enough of this 

 theory. I lost entirely the throat troubles and colds 

 which annoy the average Chicago man in winter, and 

 Norris, who had been weak and sick, came out feeling 

 well and vigorous. There is potent medicine and stimu- 

 lant in the frozen, balsamic, germltss air of the winter 

 pine woods. 



Stimulus enough there surely was to make us eat a 

 hearty breakfast, after we had found the long, low log 

 house of our trapper hosts, one of the hall-dozen of 

 residences of summer guides and trappers which made 

 up the town. It took us but short time to get acquainted 

 with Mrs. Buck, who was frying sausage, and Mr. Buck, 

 who was stringing a snowshoe, and Fayette Buck, a stal- 

 wa>t boy just about to tvach 21 years of age, who was 

 also snuffing the sausage afar off, and with Frank Brandis, 

 who was soon crawling down out of the loft which made 

 the upstairs sleeping apartments in the log house. Bran- 

 dis, as we learned, was one of the three equal partners 

 in the trapping lines. Mr. Buck, being somewhat dis- 

 abled by long sickness, did not run the long lines, but 

 tended a short line of sets for lynx and fox, which took 

 him comparatively few miles from home. Fayette, prac- 

 tically the head of the family in hustling and hard work 

 joined Brandis in running a line which extended its two 

 arms far over into t ie State of Michigan. I was pleasf d 

 to hear that we should have to travel in all about 100 

 miles and return to cover the full lines of traps then at- 

 tended by these three. All of this, of course, had to be 

 done on foot and on snowshoes, and all supplies would 

 have to be taken in in packs on our backs, except what 

 supplies had beentxken into the line camps before the 

 closing of navigation at the advent of the snow season. 

 Thus we were to see winter trapping in one of its very 

 hardest forms, devoid of the ameliorating conditions of 

 boat or horse transportation. 



Snowshoes and Winter Wear. 

 In regard to the means of locomotion, I found that the 

 Norwegian slci, which I had hoped to find practicable, was 

 useless in that country as a practical shoe, except on the 

 beaten sled track of the lumbering road, or upon the level 

 surface of the ice-covered lakes and streams. On the lakes 

 I could go quite away from my companions, who were 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



using the web shoes: but in the timber and brush, where 

 the hills were short and choppy and where there was much 

 down timber, the web shoes proved themselves altogether 

 superior, and indeed the only practical shoe. My skis 

 were objects of much comment in that country, and I 

 found that the residents knew little or nothing of that sort 

 of s-hoe, the environment having produced the proper de- 

 velopment in the web shoe universally used by the trap- 

 pers, lumbermen, and indeed everybody who travels in 

 that country in the winter time. I had until that time 

 never word a web shoe, and of course bad read all kinds 

 of. things about the awful difficulties of learning to use 

 them, and of the terrible pains accompanying their use by 

 the beginner. I found all thi} much like other bugbears, 

 with very little to it. We did fifteen miles the first half 



WISCONSIN WINTER COSTDMI. 



O. W. Gayner. 



day I ever wore the webs, and I was surprised to find how 

 easy it was to learn the step — 'ar easier than to learn the 

 use of the ski. 



As to clothing, we found that the country had evolved 

 its own proper and distinctive garb. The pine country is 

 a country of wool. The heavy Mackinaw jacket, flan- 

 nel shirt and heavy lumbering stockings make the best 

 possible wear for that climate. The feet especially de- 

 mand the best of car?, and we found the practice of wear- 

 ing several pairs of great stockings a very commendable 

 one. The pine woods man thrusts his trousers in his long 

 stockings, and pulls on over these only a low rubber shoe — 

 not an arctic, but a pure rubber shoe, made without any 

 heel step on the floor irside, and usually provided with 

 rough corrugated soles. This shoe is sometimes fastened 

 by a strap over the instep, but is more usually worn with- 

 out any fastening, the full woven stockings filling it up 

 so completely that little snow can work in at the edge of 

 the shoe. Oa the rough wool of the stockings the snow 

 has little effect, and unless the snow be damp they keep 

 the feet dry and warm. The trappers of that region use 

 the garb as above described. A few use the moccasin on 

 the web shoe when the snow is dry and frozen, but I 

 could not learn that they did this for any reason so much 

 as that the rubber shoe is harsh on the lacings of the 

 snowshoe. The I idians use the moccasin, and from what 

 I saw of it in that country I should say the moccasin 

 without other covering was a very sloppy, troublesome 

 and dangerous footwear in thawing weather, though very 

 fine when the weather was dry. 



Transportation. 

 No doubt many readers have noticed the different 

 methods of transportation employed in different sections 

 of the country, each according to the necessities of the 

 land. On the plains the wagon may be used. In the 

 mountains the pack horse becomes a necessity, and the 

 diamond hitch is invented. In the pine woods not even 

 the horse can go, and the man must be his own pack 

 horse. I had renewed occasion to wonder at the loads 

 that a woodsman can pack. It is no unusual thing for a 

 timber cruiser to start with a pack of 801bs. when out 

 "looking land." The guide and trapper who traverses 

 the pine country must learn the same facility in carrying 

 heavy packs. Fayette Buck, though still but a boy, was 

 a man in stature and strength. I think his pack when 

 we left for the line of traps weighed over 60lbs. Brandis 

 packed as much when occasion came. The man who 

 cannot carry these weights on the snowshoes, no matter 

 what the condition of the snow, cannot successfully run 

 a winter line of traps in that country. Let my lady who 

 nestles her cheek against the soft fur of her boa m the 

 cold winter days, reflect that upon some other winter 

 day, perhaps colder, some sturdy trapper, with a load upc n 

 his back amounting to almost as much as her saddle hone 

 would like to cany, set out into the deep pine woods to 

 live alone for a while, in search of the little fur bearer 

 which at that time was wild in the snowy wilderness and 

 wearing his own best and warmest clothing. And let my 

 lady's husband, who has read that trappers are a lazy set 

 of fellows, read Forest and Stream, and so barn that 

 they are anything in the world but lazy. Methinks they 

 might often teach my fine gentleman a lesson or so in 

 manhood. The world is big, and men have different 

 tastes. Some love the woods, where the air is clean. 

 Some prefer the city life, where one perpetually parallels 

 the gutter, if he does not walk therein. To cling to the 



[Nov. 30, 1895. 



sweet pine woods, some men follow trapping in the win- 

 ter time, because there is little else to do then. In the 

 summer they guide and row for other men who can't do 

 that sort of thing for themselves. 



There does not seem to be money enough left in the 

 trapping business in these regions now to make it an ex- 

 clusive calling. The Bucks in the summer time have a 

 summer fishing resort and a line of boats from the rail- 

 road up the river to Turtle Lake and all the adjoining 

 waters — a veiwgood place to go, too, for muscallonge and 

 all sorts of fish\ .As soon as the last of the summer fishers 

 and the fall deer hunters have gone they begin putting 

 out their lines of traps. This is before the snow has fallen 

 to any great extent and before the waters are frozen. It 

 is possible at that time to use boats for taking in the bed- 

 ding and supplies for one or two of the main camps, and 

 of course the trapper clings to his boat as long as he can. 

 In spite of the most favorable conditions, however, the 

 great bulk of the traps must be carried in on man back. 

 A load of sixty to eighty traps, together with the omni- 

 present axe and the necessary food, constitutes a con- 

 siderable proposition, but the trapper must be able to take 

 it all cheerfully. 



Sorts of Traps. 

 I should at this time say that the deadfall and the art- 

 ful wooden traps of all sorts, which we see described in 

 the trapping guides, are practically things of the past as 

 to actual use to day, at least in all the country anywhere 

 near the railways. In Wisconsin and Michigan one does 

 not now hear of a deadfall, except the large deadfalls set 

 forbears. There is progress in trapping as in everything 

 else, and nowadays the steel trap is relied upon 

 altogether. I went prepared to make some pretty pic- 

 tures of ingenious deadfalls and snares, but none of my 

 trappers had any such things, and in the 200 miles or so I 

 traveled on the trapping lines I never saw any sort of trap 

 except the steel trap. 



The Laying of the Line. 

 Let us say then, roughly, that the trapper is going to 

 rely entirely on the steel trap. He decides where he is 

 going to lay his lines, of course not intruding on any other 

 trapper's country, in which case there would be compli- 

 cations, He will cling to the cr_>eks for his mink and 

 otter, having before this time paid good attention to the 

 rauskrats on the streams and lakes of his territory. He 

 will follow up the streams, setting a trap here and there, 

 perhaps one in each half mile, perhaps one in two or three 

 miles. Then he will swing out over some divide or along 

 the ridges, scouting for sign of marten or fisher, which he 

 knows will be apt to cross there. On these high ridges he 

 will drop a few traps here and there, depending on the 

 sign he sees. He may see a bit of country where some 

 foxes are working. Then he follows some game trails 

 into a heavy thicket or bit of windfall, and discovers that 

 to be a good place for a lynx, He wanders on, his pack 

 growing lighter as he leaves his traps — which latter he 

 does not scatter promiscuously, but with the most conser- 

 vative care and deliberate judgment. When night finds 

 him he may be twenty miles from his home camp or his 

 central line camp He figures that it will take him about 

 that long to run the traps, after they are out, each time 

 that he comes over the fine; so he builds him a rough 

 s ielter at that point, in order to have a place to sleep when 

 ne comes in there tired and cold at the close of some win 



SNOWSHOE COSTUME. 



The Forest and STBEaM Man. 



ter day — when my lady is out sleigh riding in the city 

 in her furs. If he is in a hurry, and not sure that he is 

 going to leave his line of traps down long, he does not 

 take much pains with his shelter, It is often only a lean- 

 to of boughs built against a log, or an open-faced camp 

 made of pole and pine-needle thatching. 



A Tale cf Two Fires. 



In some cases the trapper make3 a permanent hut of 

 logs and boughs well out on his line. He cannot pack in 

 a stove very well, and he has no rocks to make a chim- 

 ney, yet he must be warm when he cornea to this camp, 

 say forty miles from the home cabin, perhaps with some 

 furs in his pack besides his tea and beans and blanket; 

 he cannot carry many blankets, though the thermometer 

 be far below zero in this bitter winter land wh^re the fur 

 grows good. So he makes a sort of wooden tepee out of 

 logs, with a hole in the middle of the roof and a den 



