The first sighting of a Yukon Delta moose...and more beavers...

December 13, 2009 was a good day in many ways. I awoke and started out on the trip to St. Mary's under a beautiful sunrise. There had been a night of dense fog immediately preceding this day, and every bush and tree and blade of grass was thoroughly coated in a thick sheath of frost. It made a branch look like a buck's horns in velvet (well, except for the white part ... :) ), and a bush would look like some underwater coral formation:


Riding around in such a winter wonderland is an awe inspiring experience. The views and the sights one experiences are like none other. It was the kind of day where you realize you are in a special place. Though my video camera does not capture it, truly, I thought the short clip below might give some resemblance of an idea. The movie has two parts - the first is the view of the valley below me and the Yukon river as I began the descent down into Muskrat Slough (that's pronounced "slew" - another of the English language's cruel jokes) I must admit though, to see it in person put this movie to shame. Even the truly great pictures never quite can convey the moment...though we, and they, can try. At any rate, the 20 mile ride to St. Mary's was all for the beaver trapping. :) I arrived and once Len got everything together, we headed out. And that is where the second part of this clip comes in. Not long after crossing the Yukon, we ran across a calf moose. Though he was a looooong ways off, he appeared agitated at our presence, and so I didn't even shut off the snowmachine, in order to not lose the opportunity to film him briefly - so, sorry about the putt putt noise, but when you only have seconds - well, it is what it is:



This under-ice beaver trapping is a serious undertaking. Just checking 13 sets at six different beaver houses will take hours to complete. At each set trap we experience the following: 1) Get to the set. 2) shovel the insulating snow off the hole. 3) remove the cardboard that was under the snow, insulating the hole. 4) Grab the ice pick and break through the ice, which thanks to the insulation, is not as thick as it was the first time... 5) break the set poles free of the ice. 6) Poke around under the water to find the beav, if there is one. 7) Once you find him, you keep poking to judge about where he is frozen to the ice (they float once expiring, and then freeze to the ice - on the BOTTOM side, hee hee...) 8) Shovel off the area of ice that you think is over the frozen beav 9) Then chip more ice in the outline of the frozen beav, dislodging him/her. 10) Pull the beav out of the water 11) Roll them in snow to dry them off (see last beaver post) 12) then, you get to reset, meaning the trap, then covering with cardboard, shoveling on snow, etc. 13) That's ONE trap checked, about 25 min. later...got the idea? :) ...and now you head to the next one. At any rate, what I am getting at is that it is a full day endeavor, and so this next clip is in the dark. It is the short and dirty of it though - just the 'removal of the beav' part, as I figured the rest would be boring. This is the moment you do all that work for - and in this particular case, it was a little beav after all. They do add up though - in Sunday's check we got 8 beavers from 13 traps. Not a bad ratio. Here 'tis:



Now, at the time of this post, we still haven't seen the Northern Lights yet, but on the way home Sunday Night, I got to witness a spectacular meteor shower - (blue-green, flaming, shooting stars is what I would describe them as) Truly a great day to be out in the Alaska wilderness. I couldn't help but smile all the way home as I thought, "..Most of the rest of the world is fast asleep, and here I am riding a snowmachine twenty miles across frozen lakes, sloughs, and tundra, under a spectacular light show, probably riding right past moose, lynx, etc - after a day of beaver trapping..." I could just hear Travis Tritt's voice in my head - "...It's a great day to be alive..."...