It’s great sport to go beavering on 
a stream like the Athabasca along in 
May, drifting downstream in a flatboat 
or on a raft, camping wherever you see 
beaver signs and working up small 
streams that appear favorable. A 
dozen number four traps is about all 
the nomadic trapper can handle and 
do justice to each set. It takes time 
and study to set for an old beaver 
when he’s simply roaming about. 
vANS aE professional beaver trappers 
figure on shooting a fair percent- 
age of the beavers taken—thus is plea- 
sure and profit combined. To be suc- 
cessful at this phase of the game calls 
for skill with the rifle and a degree 
of patience characteristic of the In- 
dian. An hour or two before sundown 
the trapper hies to the vantage point 
where he can see the different parts 
of the pond or stream at which a beaver 
is apt to appear. Sometimes he won’t 
have to wait more than a few minutes, 
but often darkness will approach be- 
fore he is rewarded by the sudden ap- 
pearance of a dark head on the calm 
surface of the waters below him. 
The report of a rifle, echoing over 
the still waters, is generally sufficient 
to drive all beavers within hearing dis- 
tance to their retreats, and very rarely 
will the hunter get more than one shot 
for all of his patience. Hence he must 
make that shot count. It’s a good idea 
to shoot the animal in the head, thus 
doing no damage to the main portion 
of the pelt. If you do happen to shoot 
one in the body, sew up the cut while 
the hide is green and it will dry with 
no evidence of damage. A rifle of some 
power should be used, and although 
we have killed the beaver with a .22 
it is not a good practice to use such a 
small weapon. A .25-.20 is ideal for 
the purpose, but a larger 
rifle ‘with steel-jacketed bul- 
lets will do just as well. 
North country trappers don’t 
figure on taking arsenals 
into the bush with them and 
rarely do they have more 
than one rifle of any size. 
By using the one rifle for 
every purpose they become 
accustomed to its peculiari- 
ties and their rather un- 
usual skill may be attributed 
to that and the fact they 
know nothing of “nerves.” 
TRAPPER is used to 
seeing all manner of 
wild animals and_ hence 
doesn’t become excited when 
he levels his rifle. 
We read where one man 
says to never go out with 
the intention of shooting 
beavers unless it is foggy. 
Very well, very well indeed—in coun- 
tries where fogs and beavers abound. 
But how about it in the north when 
you won’t see a solitary fog for a 
month of Sundays! That’s where we 
writers make big mistakes—assuming 
that because certain conditions require 
certain practices, such conditions and 
such practices exist elsewhere. I’ve 
killed beavers in a foggy country and 
trapped them up north. One thing I 
found—when the moon is full and the 
sky cloudless you might better stay at 
the camp, for the beavers, instead of 
coming out early, will wait until the 
moon is high overhead. A beaver is 
hard to “shine” with a headlight, or 
at least hard to hit with a bullet even 
if he is shined. 
f Bate spring is the best time for trap- 
ping beaver. In the North the furs 
are good until the first of June, for 
there is ice in the streams until later 
than that sometimes. The trapper’s 
biggest difficulty in spring trapping is 
this—locating the animal. When the 
spring freshets get in full blast they 
often wash away the beaver’s dams and 
the animals do not even attempt to re- 
pair them at that time. Practically no 
repair work is done in the spring. The 
beavers have no particular job on hand, 
they can stop anywhere, on any stream 
and get a square meal from the fresh 
green willow, etc., and in consequence 
they are really nothing more or less 
than tramps. They are given to wan- 
dering and we may expect to find them 
in out-of-the-way places. 
Pa ats it pays to be out early 
in the morning, for often the beaver 
works from slightly before dawn until 
sunup. I’ve packed an outfit up a lit- 
tle stream, a hundred miles from no- 
where in early spring, camping there 
and trapping beavers until my grub 
played out. Often I’ve lived on beaver 
tail soup, beaver mulligan and beans, 
for a week or ten days at a stretch. 
The days were long and the nights 
short and cold. Sometimes a wet snow 
would make life miserable, for rarely 
did I have any kind of shelter except 
what I made of brush. I was up be- 
fore dawn and out over the traps just 
as soon as I could see to make my way. 
Sometimes I’ve caught two beavers in 
the same trap the same day, taking 
one from it before sunup and the 
other around sunset. The nights were 
so short I had to sleep in the mid- 
dle of the day, when it was warm. 
Sometimes I had a small blanket and 
of course had to keep a good campfire 
going at nights. With my beaver car- 
casses I made sets for bear; deadfalls 
that crushed the life from the largest 
bruin of the woods or flattened a cub 
flatter than the proverbial pancake, the 
elephant stepped on. 
I was alone, save for my big pack 
dog. The larger beaver ponds swarmed 
with wild waterfowl—geese, ducks and 
coots of all descriptions and now and 
again a great white swan paid me a 
visit. 
ie was the wildest country imagin- 
able, and if man had ever trapped 
those beavers previously there was no 
sign of axe or fire to prove it. On one 
big pond there were four occupied 
lodges and three semi-occupied ones, 
and this in spring when the beavers 
usually wander. This was at the head 
of a stream that flowed into the Atha- 
basca and its source was a big marsh 
a hundred miles back toward the Cana- 
dian Rockies. That was life! 

A tree partially felled by beavers. 
