56 
Forest and Stream 
TRAPPING THE THREE RIVER ZONE 
ACTUAL EXPERIENCES OF A TRAPPER DURING A PERIOD OF 
SEVERAL YEARS IN THE WILDS OF NORTHERN ALBERTA—Part Three 
By RAYMOND THOMPSON 
I N due time my partner re¬ 
turned from Edson with 
quite a number of new 
traps and some more 
groceries. A freighter by the 
name of Foote had been com 
ing up at the time Knowles 
left so he took advantage of 
the opportunity and brought 
this stuff along. We engaged 
Foote to haul some supplies 
(traps, grub and the canoe) 
on up to Kimberly Lake as 
this would save us a large 
amount of packing. The first 
four miles going north from 
the Baptiste is all one long 
hill and I had been fed up with 
packing the first winter. 
At Moose Lake, about half 
way between the Baptiste and 
Kimberly, we took a stove and 
some grub off the load, with 
the intention of packing it on 
into the lake, a distance of 
three-quarters of a mile off 
the trail, where Cy and I had 
built a cabin the previous win¬ 
ter but hadn't used it very 
much on account of lack of 
equipment. Kimberly Lake 
was full of ducks of every de¬ 
scription and as my pard had 
of us boys happened along 
there was a game of card? in 
store for us. The blind sister 
had a marked deck of cards 
which she played surprisingly 
well. Although she couldn't 
see a particle, her sense of 
touch had been developed to 
an amazing degree. 
brought a shotgun along we 
launched the canoe and shot a 
couple for supper. We looked 
about hopefully for signs of 
rats but saw nothing favor¬ 
able. There was a large beaver house 
A snowshoe rabbit along the Athabasca trail 
directly across the lake from the cabin, 
about two miles distant. There were no 
beavers in the dams on the small stream 
that fed the lake; Cy and T had evidently 
cleaned them up pretty well. 
I had learned considerable through my 
experience of the previous winter and 
determined at the outset to enlarge on 
our trapping operations so as to insure 
a good catch. In this country it is very 
necessary to have all the traplines one 
can well attend to, as the game at best 
is scattering and one must have a large 
number of traps with cabins at intervals 
of from ten to twenty miles apart. 
Whenever possible it is advantageous to 
run the various line c from a central 
point, but as this is not always prac¬ 
ticable, the cabins are often located on 
lines following the same general direc¬ 
tion, with side lines at intervals, tapping 
favorable country. On these side lines 
it is often necessary to “Siwash” or 
camp out, under rudely constructed 
shelters, but I can say from experience 
that a little of this goes a long way, 
especially when the thermometer is 
registering around fifty below zero. 
Our traplines, at the start of the 
season, were outlined as follows: We 
used Old John Anderson's buildings at 
the Baptiste Crossing for our head¬ 
quarters As intimated previously, our 
north line ran up to Kimberly Lake with 
a cabin half way at Moose Lake. At 
Moose Lake we had a circle running 
around the neighboring hills, it being 
our intention to make this trip in one 
day and thus avoid camping out. From 
Kimberly we had two sidelines, one 
running on north three or four miles 
and the other southeast to Beaver Lake. 
These latter lines were getting into the 
Little Smoky Country. 
We trapped from the Headquarters 
Camp down the Baptiste to where it 
emptied into the Athabasca, having one 
cabin near the mouth. Upstream we 
had a cabin on the mouth of Bear Creek 
and another near where the Hay River 
contributes to the Baptiste. In running 
this part of the line we often stopped 
at Rapelje’s, as they had located only 
three miles above us. It developed that 
in addition to bringing out his wife and 
blind sister, Mr. Rapelje had also been 
accompanied by an uncle, an aged 
veteran of the Civil War. This old 
man, whose name, incidentally, was 
Thompson, had a great liking for the 
game of Cribbage, and every time ei-ther 
Cfether. 
O N the first of November 
we put out a dozen traps 
all number fhrees, along the 
river toward the mouth. Al 
intervals there were a number 
of sand bars and these smooth 
stretches were pretty well 
tracked up by the various fur- 
bearers. All of our sets were 
made in the sand, which at 
that time was very dry. We 
buried bait, usually fish, di¬ 
rectly under the trap or be¬ 
tween two traps, set a feu 
feet apart, and the animal? 
in digging for it were reason 
ably sure to get caught. 
The day after we set the 
traps out down-stream we 
took a number up-river anc 
placed them in likely spots 
The third day we went ovet 
the first short line and took £ 
couple of nice dark mink? 
from the traps. One oi thest 
had sure been caught “right. 
It was at a double set, that is 
there were two traps close to 
This mink had jumped fair!} 
in the one trap and when the jaws ha( 
closed on both forelegs he had given ; 
spring forward. The chain had jerkee 
him up short and he fell, head-foremos 
into the second trap whose jaws crushes 
his skull. Poor little mink—he didn’ 
suffer very long, anyway. 
That same evening after we had eatei 
supper we went up to the fishing hoi 
to see if we had any bull trout. It wa 
getting rather late in the season am 
they had been biting but little. Fron 
this point we could see quite a way 
up-stream and Cliff noticed an anima 
standing on a small island and it looke< 
to us as though the creature was chew 
ing on something. We guessed tha 
thing to be a dozen different creature; 
ranging from small bears to cross foxe; 
We sneaked way ’round a back channe 
and came out directly opposite wher 
the animal stood. Here we could se 
that it was a large brush wolf in on 
of our traps. When he saw us comin; 
he did a most surprising thing—starte' 
digging the trap and pole across th 
narrow channel directly toward us! 
The pole to which the trap had bee 
fastened was a very heavy one and i 
was a puzzle to us that the wolf ha 
