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THE LURE OF THE FUR TRAILS | |
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SOME MUSINGS OF A TRAPPER
By E. J. DAILEY
MANY times, as I sit before the glowing coals of a campfire, in some far-back wilderness, I have asked myself this question: What is the great attraction that draws thousands of trappers away from home and friends, takes them through countless dangers, causes them to endure great hardships, and in many instances to give up their lives all for the collecting of a few pelts on some backwoods trapline? Surely it cannot be the high rate of remuneration that the sale of a few sundry pelts bring in. Take the case of Old Rube Marlow of New Ontario. Old Rube has followed the far-back trails for half a century. I know that he is an expert trapper; timber wolves or marten, it's all the same. If he goes after one, its pelt sooner or later hangs in his fur shed. Old Rube has raised a family, and has a home in the clearings where he tends a little garden and gathers feed for the family cow. But as soon as the frost begins to show in the early mornings, Rube begins to glance kind of wistful-like toward the north, where lies millions of acres of forests, clear through to the Hudson Bay. But as good a trapper as the old man is, he never has accumulated any great amount of the long green, probably enough to keep him in his last few years, and bury himself and his now aged wife at the end.
Back in the Adirondacks lives a lone trapper who goes by the name of Shadow; a name given him by lumberjacks for the reason that he can travel the woods at any time of year without making the slightest sound. Shadow has a snug camp near the head of a deep ravine. A beautiful spring comes out of a crevice in the rocks close by and there is always a tinkling of music, as the waterfalls over a ledge nearby. I have enjoyed the hospitable shelter of this cabin at 'many different times.
Shadow is a well-educated person. His English is good, and he is a man that would attract more than a passing look in any station of life. One night as we sat in front of the cabin in the early fall, I said. "Shadow, why don't you ever go out to civilization and get acquainted with life as I am sure you once knew it."
"Well, Professor (a name given me by trapper friends, though not on account of any superior knowledge I am sure), you are right. I once lived in a large city in this state, at least I existed there. Money was the only thing that mattered in that cursed place. When I was still under twenty the shallowness of the people 1 met disgusted me. The few woods-people that I know think that I am either a criminal hiding from the law, or else some poor man who lost his faith in women, through the fault of some individual, but they are all wrong. It's the love of nature that keeps me here. A few good traps are all the companions I care for. Give me a hard day's work trailing some longwinded fisher or cat, and I am satisfied."
"Don't you ever go back to the old life at all?" I asked. "Only once," he answered. ''I had a nice lot of furs that spring. For some reason the sable were more plentiful that winter than usual. Over in that stretch of green timber back of Mountain Pond I got some of the most beautiful skins that I ever had seen. The fur was of a very dark shade, very thick, and as silky as they could be. I'd got more than my usual amount of fisher that winter too, and with a few cats and otter, not to mention the mink and weasel skins, I had, as I said before, a nice lot of furs, and I decided to take them to New York, instead of selling to the buyer out at the village. So I set out one morning, with a heavy pack, and in due time, as the books say, I arrived in New York. I disposed of my furs for a good price at that time, and thought I would stay over a while.
Everywhere I went there seemed to be more trouble than joy. Even the birds in the parks sang in a mirthless manner. In a week I was terribly homesick. At night I lay awake listening for the soughing of the wind through the pines, but instead there was the usual clatter of the big city life. The lure of the long trails soon got me strong, and I meandered back to the friendly shelter of Old Baldy (Bald Mountain), and here I hope to spend the rest of my active life."
These are only two instances of this kind. There are thousands of others. I once asked "Injun Joe" why he didn't leave off trapping and go out to the city and look himself up a squaw. "No good," said he. "Me go one time. Heap noise. Everybody hurry. No get anywhere. Me like woods. Trap."
Even in the farming sections of the country as well as in the clearings and in the grazing centers, I find that this state of feeling still exists. Here is a skunk and muskrat trapper in the northern part of this state. He is an expert repairman on automobiles and tractors, and during the summer months he draws big wages from the garages as "master mechanic," but when the leaves begin to turn brown and gold, Mr. Mechanic ceases to instruct others how to adjust carburetors, leaves his hundred-dollar-a week job, and goes to pinching toes of skunks and muskrats for probably ten a week.
Forty years ago, a young man came to the Adirondacks. At that time this section of the state was a vast wilderness. The young man trapped in the winter and worked at any job he could get in summer, and every dollar that he got was invested in far-back timberland. Friends told him that he was crazy, saying that his land was too far back, and there would be no way of getting his timber to market In a few years' time a railroad was built into the section in which his purchases had been made. Sawmills began to operate. The young man soon cleaned up a fortune. Today this man is worth a half billion dollars. He owns large hotels, clubhouses, dwelling houses, stores, and much timber. But —. Every winter he and his sons spend most of the winter on the trapline. These boys could be enjoying every luxury known to the wealthy. I happened on them at a pond twenty miles back from civilization, last year. One of them had packed in a canoe half this distance, over a blind trail. I stayed over night with them in their lean-to. We talked not of financial or social things, but rather of otter sets, fox sets, traps, packs, guns, dogs, etc.
Sometimes I find a man who has heard the call of the fur trails, and is unable to heed it for some reason. I met such a man two years ago. He was a cook in a far-back lumber camp, but on account of an injury to his limb he was unable to follow his vocation of a trapper. 1 was out all day on a fisher's trail and I was far from camp and I dropped into the cookhouse to get a bite to eat. I threw my pack down on the floor and he heard the traps rattle. He looked up like an old war-horse. "How's trapping'," he asked by way of opening conversation. He gave me a good supper, all the time talking of his trapping in the Michigan woods, and I could see a great longing in his eyes as he glanced occasionally at his crippled leg.
Before I left, which was the following morning, he told me that while he couldn't walk far, he had been a short distance back of the camp, and that in a certain place where the lumber company had lost a team of horses in an accident, that many foxes and some other furbearers had been feeding off the carcasses. He said that he had no traps with him and that he couldn't go back now as the snow was deeper, and that I could have the set. It was away off my regular line, but after looking the place over, I could not resist the temptation to set a few traps, and I might add that I got three foxes and a sable here later.
One thing is certain: when a man gets into the trapping game he is there to stay as long as his health permits, and the trapper's health is usually about as good as it could be,
Hunter-Trader-Trapper. October: 1921,
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