Ken the Kanuck
09-19-2005, 10:19 PM
Got back from hunting last week, didn’t kill any thing except some grouse.
We were about a 100 miles west of Quesnel in the northern Chilcotin. Saw moose, deer, black bear, timber wolf, grizzly bear, beaver, owls and hawks. Either the gender was wrong or we didn’t have a tag. But if you decide whether or not your trip was a success on bringing meat home, then you would be better off spending your money at the butchers and staying home. We hunted hard, about 10 hours a day, but a lot of time was spent looking around and just enjoying being in the bush. We were a little early as the rut hadn’t started and there were too many leaves left on the trees, a little snow would of helped tracking too.
After getting home just after dark ( about 8:30 ) it was time to start the fire. We used my buddy’s truck and camper, he would go in and put dinner in the oven and make a couple of ryes. By then I had the fire going well and the wood set for the night. After a couple of ryes and cigars those dinners sure tasted good. We were about 4000 feet high and you could could see the northern lights dancing in the sky.
But as per normal I wander off topic. This year I ran across a old trapper’s cabin ( I have attached a link for some pictures ). There are several things which I think might be of interest, it is about 50 miles from the nearest settlement, although a ranch or farm maybe of been closer as we were in the mountains I don’t believe that it could of been closer than about 25 miles away. This meant that whoever was using this cabin had to transport in his supplies by packhorse in the summer and walk back in the winter. There is a old fry pan hanging on the wall and as you can see it is pretty light, as is the remnants of the old stove in the cabin, I guess when you had to pack a few months supplies in it was best to watch the weight. Another thing I found interesting was the size of the cabin, inside it probably measured 6 feet by 8 feet and was about 4 feet high on one side and 3 feet on the other side. In this space he had his stove and a bench and bed. I have to imagine he kept any thing else he didn’t want chewed by the animals. I also imagine that he had to skin out his furs inside. The very smallness of the cabin attests to the severity of the winters in this part of the world, temperatures of 50 or 60 below were not uncommon. Funny enough though he had a glass window on his door. Another thing I hadn’t seen was the smoke stack from the stove coming out of the ground, I wonder if this was because he piled dirt up against the back wall for insulation or some other reason. That wood stove burning in such a small space must of created alot of smoke, he had devised a venting system which may of worked well. In one of the pictures you can see that he had put 3 sections of stove pipe in between the cabin roof and the high point of the wall. I imagine that he had a rag stuff in the end inside the cabin and simply pulled them out trying to balance the irritation of the smoke with the irritation of the cold.
You have to give the old timers credit, they were a tough bunch. What do you think our liberals would say if we suggested that a able bodied man on welfare spend the winter in a cabin this size, in the mountains trapping. I believe that these trap lines were 10 or 12 miles long, all to be traveled each day on snow shoes carrying the carcasses of the animals you had trapped, a rifle, a axe and a little food.
Nope I tip my hat to the old timers, they were a much better breed of men than many today.
http://photobucket.com/albums/v114/kennethroy/
Ken
We were about a 100 miles west of Quesnel in the northern Chilcotin. Saw moose, deer, black bear, timber wolf, grizzly bear, beaver, owls and hawks. Either the gender was wrong or we didn’t have a tag. But if you decide whether or not your trip was a success on bringing meat home, then you would be better off spending your money at the butchers and staying home. We hunted hard, about 10 hours a day, but a lot of time was spent looking around and just enjoying being in the bush. We were a little early as the rut hadn’t started and there were too many leaves left on the trees, a little snow would of helped tracking too.
After getting home just after dark ( about 8:30 ) it was time to start the fire. We used my buddy’s truck and camper, he would go in and put dinner in the oven and make a couple of ryes. By then I had the fire going well and the wood set for the night. After a couple of ryes and cigars those dinners sure tasted good. We were about 4000 feet high and you could could see the northern lights dancing in the sky.
But as per normal I wander off topic. This year I ran across a old trapper’s cabin ( I have attached a link for some pictures ). There are several things which I think might be of interest, it is about 50 miles from the nearest settlement, although a ranch or farm maybe of been closer as we were in the mountains I don’t believe that it could of been closer than about 25 miles away. This meant that whoever was using this cabin had to transport in his supplies by packhorse in the summer and walk back in the winter. There is a old fry pan hanging on the wall and as you can see it is pretty light, as is the remnants of the old stove in the cabin, I guess when you had to pack a few months supplies in it was best to watch the weight. Another thing I found interesting was the size of the cabin, inside it probably measured 6 feet by 8 feet and was about 4 feet high on one side and 3 feet on the other side. In this space he had his stove and a bench and bed. I have to imagine he kept any thing else he didn’t want chewed by the animals. I also imagine that he had to skin out his furs inside. The very smallness of the cabin attests to the severity of the winters in this part of the world, temperatures of 50 or 60 below were not uncommon. Funny enough though he had a glass window on his door. Another thing I hadn’t seen was the smoke stack from the stove coming out of the ground, I wonder if this was because he piled dirt up against the back wall for insulation or some other reason. That wood stove burning in such a small space must of created alot of smoke, he had devised a venting system which may of worked well. In one of the pictures you can see that he had put 3 sections of stove pipe in between the cabin roof and the high point of the wall. I imagine that he had a rag stuff in the end inside the cabin and simply pulled them out trying to balance the irritation of the smoke with the irritation of the cold.
You have to give the old timers credit, they were a tough bunch. What do you think our liberals would say if we suggested that a able bodied man on welfare spend the winter in a cabin this size, in the mountains trapping. I believe that these trap lines were 10 or 12 miles long, all to be traveled each day on snow shoes carrying the carcasses of the animals you had trapped, a rifle, a axe and a little food.
Nope I tip my hat to the old timers, they were a much better breed of men than many today.
http://photobucket.com/albums/v114/kennethroy/
Ken