Gratitude and Expectations.....(with pics) :)

As of recently, I have become a fan of Ray Wylie Hubbard, one of the country music 'outlaws' from the time of George Jones and the like.  Though he is still making music, I came across one of his past tunes called "Mother Blues".  Within the lyrics of this song are the words,  "The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, ...well, I have really, good, days.....".  I mentioned this to Sarah, and she keeps reminding me of that idea at various times when I need to hear it....yesterday was a good example of just that, and I have to smile that she told me those very words as I was on my way out the door...


So, this weekend,  I had gotten the idea (speaking trapping now) to head to an area I haven't been back to since moose season last fall.   My thought was that if the nice weather kept up, I would cancel the after school study hall a day or two this week, and head out, traps in hand.  Yesterday, the weather stayed beautiful (above zero and sunshine), and I decided to carry on with the plan.  Heading out the door immediately after school, I raced home, loaded up my machine, added some oil, got that spiritual advice from Sarah, and I was off.  With gratitude for the opportunity.  :)  This winter has, if you have followed along, not been my most productive on the trapline, and outings have been valuable and few.  So I resolved to just enjoy, and not expect.

On the way down the river, I stopped to take a pic of an "ice sculpture", courtesy of the Yukon River:


I continued on, weaving around the clusters of ice that positively cover the portion of the river I was traveling down.  On that stretch, it is either a minefield of jagged clusters of broken ice chunks, or a flat, windblown sheet of bare ice.  At one point when I slowed down to check on some tracks and tapped the brake, I immediately fishtailed on the windblown ice, went into a spin,  and slid into a towering spire that I thought would surely give my back a jolt - but it was painless, and the machine didn't tip over, so on I went.

Upon arriving at my general destination, I began to feel the old familiar excitement I always get when out 'prospecting' on the trapline.  Giddy, almost.  When I cut the first set of likely-looking tracks, I swerved over and got a closer look...sure enough, it was indeed a set of Marten tracks.  He had come down off the bank and then leaped up onto an overhanging limb, hopping along in that meandering way they always seem to have.  Amused, I took some pics before following up the track to investigate.



Upon following him, I only made it into the willows about 50 yards before finding a couple other crossing sets of tracks.  Often, these can be tracks of the same marten, but either way, it increases your chances, and it was just what I was looking for.  I quickly placed two sets in , using the coni-mounts and hanging wings, with a little Klondike call for lure and an added bonus of nailing down a chunk of stinky moose scraps beyond the trap for eye appeal.   Unfortunately, this was my first stop and I felt like I needed to get rolling, so I didn't take pics.  On my next check I will take some - hopefully of a catch AND a remake - but no expectations, remember? :)

So on I went.  I began to approach a familiar beaver lodge I remembered from this fall, and about the time I was thinking "I should have passed it by now...", there it was.  I wanted to pass between the lodge and the bank, rather than on the water side of the lodge - because the ice in front of the lodge can be very thin due to the air bubble trails they leave in going to and from the lodge to the feed pile.  At any rate, even standing on these thin spots can be enough to go for a swim, let alone going over them with the added weight of a snow machine.  I headed over to my right, then, in the name of safety, and it was then that I looked down and had immediate brain failure.  I, somewhere deep down, knew what I was looking at.  I have stared at enough pictures of them to 'be ready' when I come across them. And yet, my brain was in denial.  It must have taken me thirty seconds to figure it out and get back to the land of the living.  Something had come out of the treeline, meandered over to the beaver lodge (off-camera to left in first pic below), stopped to sniff/dig around, and then came bounding off the pile of sticks to end up making tracks just off to the right of where my snowmachine ski now was.



The tracks were only minutes old.  And the Something that made them was none other than a bonafide Wolverine!!!!  The King of weasels!  My own personal (trapping) Holy Grail.  And there he was.  Or, should I say, had BEEN.  I don't think I have been that excited since youth.  It was almost like getting buck fever.  The giddiness level was rising as I grabbed my Wolverine bucket loaded with bait, 330, lure, wire, axe, and AR-15.....just in case he was slow enough for me to spot.  :)  Carrying all that stuff made travel through the waist deep snow difficult, to say the least, especially with my back situation - but I said to myself ,"Likely only once in your life are you going to come across Wolverine tracks this fresh AND happen to be carrying the gear to do something about it.  Bad back or not, you are not screwing this up....Any pain you feel due to this is WORTH it!!!"  ...and I still feel that way, as my leg tingles writing this...   Indeed, many people will not come across ANY kind of wolverine tracks in their lifetime, PERIOD.  So, off I went, wincing and post-holing in the deep snow and carrying what felt like a ton of gear for just one set...  But I had these tracks to keep the adrenaline flowing, and I was on a natural high:






I struggled along, following the tracks, heaving deep breaths but telling myself over and over that this is what trapping is all about.  You're supposed to earn it.  And then there's that advice about gratitude and expectations.  I wasn't expecting this, but I damn sure was grateful for the opportunity, and wasn't going to pass it up.

About a hundred yards later, I had worked my way into some deeper spruce instead of the willows out on the fringes.   When I got into this denser forest, the sign really got crazy.  Everywhere I looked, alongside the Gulo tracks, there were Marten, Moose, Squirrel, and Ermine tracks, and they  were crisscrossing and leading all directions.  A 'natural funnel' sort of spot, if you know what I mean.  More on that later...  at any rate, I had found the spot for my set. 

Here is a pic of the bucket, with trap set.  This is with the bucket set upright on the ground, looking straight down - not in position - just to show the set-up.


Here is a shot of the bucket in place, with supporting sticks in place.  Though I had begun wiring it in place here, I was not done completely, and of course needed to add more sticks to the cubby to block approaches as well.


Here is a closer shot, once the cubby building itself was done:


And here is a shot of the area.  Note the cubby at left.  In this pic you can see the Wolverine tracks (at right), as well as numerous moose, marten, ermine, etc.... as I was saying earlier - a natural funnel.


On the way out, I took this pic of the sunset out by the beaver lodge where the craziness began.  A great end to an incredible evening.
 

 Is this what happens when you keep your gratitude higher than your expectations?... I can only hope - because though I can't expect to ever cross paths with that animal again...and don't.....I will be laying awake at night for the rest of the trapping season, hoping that I get the chance to know what its like to be grateful to have caught a Wolverine in my lifetime.  I am already plotting where to put the next set to interrupt him/her on their next time through the area.....