DAYS WITH A BEAVER TRAPPER 
OBSERVATIONS OF A NATURALIST FOLLOWING A TRAP-LINE ALONG 
THE MOUNTAIN RIVERS OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA 
By HENRY BAN NON 
I N “A Naturalist’s Voyage,” Darwin 
says that if the love of the chase is 
an inherent delight in man — a relic 
of an instinctive passion — he is sure 
the pleasure of living in the open air, 
with the sky for a roof and the ground 
for a table, is part of the same feeling; 
that it is the savage returning to his 
wild and native habits. Gilbert White, 
in “Natural History of Selborne,” says 
that it is impossible, even by penal laws, 
to extinguish the inherent spirit for 
hunting in human nature. 
It was this inherent delight, or inher- 
ent spirit, that led me to go hunting with 
a beaver trapper. My ex- 
perience and observations have 
increased my admiration for 
the beaver, and have enabled 
me to better grasp what I may 
read touching this subject. 
Much has been written con- 
cerning the beaver and his 
ways ; his relation to discovery 
and exploration, and his in- 
fluence upon the development 
of America have been duly 
recorded. It was beaver fur 
that lured the early explorers 
into the unknown land west of 
the Alleghenies, along the 
streams that have their 
sources upon both sides of the 
Rockies, also, into Canada and 
the wilderness north to Hud- 
son’s Bay. What followed in 
the wake of these explorers is 
well known to history. 
In regions easily accessible 
to man, beaver are readily ex- 
terminated ; therefore, wise 
legislation has established only 
limited areas in which they 
may be taken. In territory 
where beaver trapping is per- 
mitted the open season is 
periodical. Such limitation 
maintains the supply. My ob- 
servations were made during 
an open season upon mountain 
rivers in northern British 
Columbia. Those rivers, with 
their whirlpools, rapids, glacial silt, and 
the bird life that abounds along their 
courses, recall Virgil’s description of the 
Tiber : 
“With whirlpools dimpl’d; and with 
downward force 
That drove the sand along, he took his 
way. 
And rolled his yellow billows to the sea. 
About him, and above, and round the 
wood. 
The birds that haunt the border of his 
flood ; 
That bath’d within, or bask’d upon his 
side. 
To tuneful songs their narrow throats 
applied.” 
( ENTERED upon the trapping grounds 
in the spring as soon as the warm sun 
had released the streams from their icy 
coverlids. There I found a new life, a 
new world, and a new people. The trap- 
per and I ascended the main stream to 
a tributary upon which he intended to 
close the trapping season which ended 
May fifteenth. On our journey we 
passed several trappers’ camps. The 
men were a sturdy, happy lot, living in 
various modes. Some lived in tents, 
others in little log cabins built for use 
only during the trapping seasons, and one 
outfit was sheltered merely by a wickiup. 
All had small boats and some had dogs 
that had brought supplies over the ice 
and snow to the trapping grounds. 
There were sourdoughs who had not 
been outside for a quarter of a century; 
there were men who had been in the 
first line trenches in France; there were 
prospectors trapping for a grubstake and 
there were Indians and half-breeds. Their 
camps were strung along the river for 
more than a hundred miles. There was 
a spirit of most friendly rivalry among 
them ; and each outfit that we met on 
our way upstream wished to know how 
many skins had been stretched by those 
below. What the market price would be 
was also a subject of much serious con- 
versation. Each was ready to help the 
other, and all were willing to extend ' 
hospitality to me. Their resourcefulness ' 
in contending with the forces of nature i 
calls for one’s highest respect. 
One night we stayed in a cabin occu- ■ 
pied by a trapper and his wife. As we I 
were quite late, we fired a rifle to notify I 
them of our approach. The response 
was a chorus from the dogs and the j 
cheerful glow from the. opened door of 
the distant cabin which was located in a | 
grove of large spruce trees, a short dis- 
tance from the river. The scene re- 
minded me of Remington’s picture of 
Antoine’s cabin. ' 
As the snow was still two i 
or three feet deep, and not 
sufficiently crusted by the frost 
to bear our weight, it took ; 
some effort for us to travel, i 
though the occupants of the j 
cabin moved with ease upon ) 
their snowshoes. We were i 
bade come in; and after sup- I 
per we spread our beds on the | 
floor for the night, while the ' 
trapper stretched a blanket be- 
fore his bunk that his wife 
might retire with becoming 
modesty. “We’ll fix this up 
like a Pullman,” said he. , 
Whether Pullman got his idea ' 
from a trapper, or the trapper ; 
got the idea from Pullman, I 
do not know. 
This man and his wife also 
put into operation the practice 
of another great corporation. 
They followed the teachings 
of the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pan}'^: the wife removed the 
hides from the beaver trapped 
by the husband, and dressed 
and stretched them. She took j 
far more pains with her work 
than did any of the trappers. 
As a result, her beaver pelts 
were as white and dry as 
drumheads and the fur was 
thoroughly cleansed. The 
Hudson’s Bay factor not only | 
complimented her upon her painstaking- 
work but paid her a little more than he 
did the others. 
During the recent era of excessively 
high prices for fur, British Columbia 
wisely prohibited beaver trapping. The 
prices were so abnormal that the tempta- 
tion even to exterminate was obvious. ; 
Convertibility into easy money is the ' 
most destructive enemy of the fur- 
bearsr. During a closed season I was 
in this same region. The few trappers 
then there were those who had gathered 
their winter’s harvest of marten, mink, 
fox, and lynx and were waiting the open- 
ing of navigation. Other game, such as 
geese, ducks and grouse was very tame 
because not persistently hunted. With 
