A Beaverin' excursion...

First, I would like to say that we have often been asked "How do you take Ada out in the cold?" It has been thirty below here lately most days. So, this morning, we prepared for the long snowmachine ride by having Sarah bundle up the Mooshkabear. What does Ada Moo look like when she's bundled up for a ride in the back of the snowmachine? She looks like this:


LOL!

So anyway, we saddled up and ran down to St. Mary's, where we would cross the Yukon and check four beaver lodges for a total of seven sets. The trip was actually horrible. Nothing but windswept ice (hardly any snow) all the way. We were actually worrying about the machine overheating it was so bad. Bumpy, hard, unforgiving ice, ready to throw you over on your side at any time. For 25 miles, one way.

The beavers started out by really not cooperating. The first lodge (two sets) was a goose-egg. Damn! Two sets set off, and one had a stick in it, so we should have had 'em. At the second lodge, nothing on the first set. Crap! Got to the fourth set, and, the trap was set off, but felt like nothing there, as we were pulling it up. Then, a head appeared and I struggled to get out the camera. The following scene unfolded:






WOW!!! He's freakin' huge! I thought. Sarah was kidding about falling down, but not entirely about the exhausted part. Once you shovel off the snow and re-chip the hole in the ice, it's work to pull out those piglets. Especially when they weigh 50 lbs! That's right, 50 lbs. Plus! :


That's a basswood fox stretcher he's balanced on for the weigh-in. It weighs no more than 2 pounds max, and that's on the high end. And as you can see, the scale says it all:





Awesome! It was a great day for memories, even though we got skunked on the rest of the sets. We came home with a lot of marten and lynx bait though, so it was productive. Another great day on the trapline. I will try and add more details tomorrow - it was a long day. Check back in for the stories, I will try and get them on in the pm if I can.....

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..."...

Well, things have been slow here, mostly due to weather...and partly due to gas prices. A tank of gas in the snowmachine costs about $75.00. Gets you about 9 miles per gallon or so. Anyway it looks like I'll be working as a sub for the next two weeks, and so the action may be slight, because the weather for the next 24 hours is supposed to be INSANE! ..and now I'll be trapping nights and weekends only until Christmas break. Right now it's white-out conditions and 35mph+ winds steady. Roof is creaking on the house.....not stuff I'd like to be out in at night.

At any rate, I finally got out with the duo from TrapperMan: Family Trapper and Trapper Max:


Went out to harass some beavers with those two and man what a learning experience. Was a full day from 7:45 AM when I warmed up the machine and headed about 20 miles to St. Mary's to meet up with them, until I got home around 9:10 PM. Sideways blowing snow throughout the day, at times visibility was about nothing. Got some frostbite on my nose that I didn't feel until the ride home. The skin is peeling but not as big an area as the last time. :) At any rate, we kicked out some sets alright, even though I probably slowed them up with all my questions. Pitching in was nice though..felt good to be doing it right instead of not knowing, like my fall beaver exploits. We set entrances to the houses. Which may sound simple. It's NOT.

First, you find a beaver house that is active. (fresh feed visible) Then, you walk around the house hitting the ice with a pick/chisel/spud bar. When you break through the ice with the pick and a geyser of air/water bubbles forth, you have struck gold! The travel of the beavs from lodge to feed pile makes the ice thin in a line, and hence the easily breaking ice. Then you have to chop a hole in the ice big enough to get down under the water and find the entrance hole (s) in the lodge. That done, you set the trap (330 Conibear) onto a pole and lower it down, placing it over the hole.


Push slush into a mass all around the pole to hold it upright and in place, and do the same with blocking poles, if necessary due to the individual set.


Cover the hole with cardboard and then a layer of snow on top of that to insulate, and off you go to find the next hole and do it all again. Did I mention this involves a LOT of chipping ice/shoveling snow?... :)

To put it simply, the method is highly successful. Here's an extraction:

That's what it's all about BABY! Marten Bait extravaganza!!!

And the coolest thing about the catches is this: When you pull the beav out of his/her watery domain, you roll it around in the snow/cover it up:


The snow is so dry that it sucks up ALL the water off the beaver, and he is then BONE DRY!


Works like a magic trick. Cool Stuff! The results from 13 sets were: 5 Beavers and one Female otter! Put them back in and wait another two days... Back with more trapping when the weather breaks...