Trapping is adventure, but it’s hard work. By the late 1940’s, Walter Arnold wasn’t a young pup anymore. He was in his 50’s, but the adventurer that seems to be inside most trappers at any age was still alive and well. In this story, Arnold and his trapping pal decided to spend the season out in some new territory. They had a blast, but it wasn’t all roses. Here’s the story.
Beaver and Fisher
First Published in Fur-Fish-Game December 1950
Walter Arnold
It was during the later part of September 1949 that my old friend Stan Howland dropped in to have a chat and while here mentioned that he and I should go up into some new trapping country and try our luck. When asked what he had in mind, he told me things of much interest, and the result was when he left we had it all planned. I would drive to Rockwood the morning of October 7th and meet him at his trailer camp, and then we would go places.
An Eventful Scouting Trip
Leaving home before daylight the morning of the 7th I drove the 50 miles to Rockwood, where I left my car and we got in to Stan’s Jeep, and away we went, bag and baggage for a five-day exploring trip. We drove about 60 miles right back into the wilderness, then unloaded, got into the canoe, and covered about 20 miles more over lakes and streams.
At dusk we very conveniently located an old trapping camp. Although it had not been used for some time, the stove was still in working order. We soon had things going our way – what a feed we put into us that night! Now Stan, like a great many other guides and trappers, knows how to cook. If there are others who can do a better job than Stan, they are mighty good at it!
We were up before daylight the next morning, and after tucking away a good breakfast, crossed the lake and were on our way deeper into the woods. We hit wild country all right that day and saw a great many spruce partridge along with the regular kind. We shot three partridge that day, and could have taken many more had we needed them.
It will be a long time before I forget that day. We traveled many miles, hunting fur signs all the way. We were much disappointed in the lack of mink and bobcat signs. We did find a few otter and came across some nice colonies of beaver. Before we realized it the day was about gone, and we still were a long way from where we had left our canoe. We already had started working back and now lit out in earnest. We were following down a waterway. Years ago a dam had been built by lumbermen and everything had been flooded for a long ways back, and now anywhere near the water there was nothing but alders and dri-ki. Back from that was just a hair-tangle of small spruce and blowdowns. What a hole it was. At one point we thought it best to work up around the dri-ki, keeping in the green growth. It was cloudy and damp, and we did not watch our compass too closely. After smashing around for some time, we cut back for the water. Upon coming out of the woods, we found that in an hour’s time we had advanced downstream about 200 yards. That was the first time I ever saw Stan real mad. He threw his hat on the ground and jumped up and down on it and swore, and I felt like doing the same. I don’t know just what we did wrong up there in the woods, but I do know we did one heck of a lot of unnecessary fighting blowdowns and hair-tangles.
After that, we kept in sight of the water, as we found it a bit better traveling right on the edge between the dri-ki and the green growth. Finally, we reached the place where we could look across to where he deadwater turned sharp to the left – the course we should follow – but there was also a back flowage of dead water that came to a dead end half a mile or more straight ahead, meaning we would have at least a mile of fighting brush, etc. to get around and back to the deadwater we must follow.
We climbed upon a root where we could look things over. It was a mighty tough looking proposition. I told Stan “I will never walk around that mess.”
“I don’t want to either,” he replied, “but what will we do?”
“Make a raft,” I replied.
“Have you and spikes or wire?” he inquired.
We had none. A hell of a pair of woodsmen we were.
“There is always a way out of any mess. We can make a raft somehow,” I said. “I have some long laces in my pants and some laces in my rubbers.”
“I have the same,” said Stan.
We went to work with our axes and soon had five dry cedar logs and cut some four foot pieces from small green hardwood trees. We put a piece under the ends of five logs and a piece over, and then tied them with the strings. We did the same at the other end of the raft, tying the logs as much as we could to the sticks. We still lacked strings, so I took off my belt for one, tied my two handkerchiefs together for another, and Stan donated his necktie. We now had the raft so it would hold together, but what it would do with two men on it, we did not know. We placed on a covering of green spruce boughs, which would help hold the logs together, and then worked carefully onto the raft and started out.
We remained on our knees and paddled very carefully with short, light poles, even then the logs under us kept moving about. We had about 150 yards to navigate. We knew that if just one of the strings gave away it would be no time at all before our transport would turn into five separate logs and two trappers would be trying to make shore the best way they could.
Believe it or not, we made it. Just in time, too, as the rawhide strings we had used were already slipping their knots when we beached the contraption. It had not the speed, the grace or the durability of the Queen Mary, but had served its purpose as well. It was after dark that night when we finally reached camp. We were cold, tired, wet and hungry. I prescribed a bit of medicine that warmed us up, and soon Stan had on the table a feast fit for a king. After the supper dishes were washed, we sat around the stove, drying out our clothes and making plans for the next day.
After a tasty breakfast of fried partridge, we took off the next morning in a different direction. This turned out to be a fine day to travel, and we had not mishaps. Again we found mink and ‘cat signs very scarce, a few otter and some nice beaver colonies. We saw a pretty sight at one colony. There was a dam up the brook from the house, we had brought the canoe in and as we paddled up past the house there were three beaver outside and they swam up ahead of us. All three, one behind the other, scrambled up over the dam into the small pond above. They looked good to us. We found beaver in that locality that were actually living on spruce, cedar, and of all things, green fir. That’s right, we actually saw where beaver were eating green fir bark. No poplar or hardwood anywhere near the water.
Next morning we hit into another section trying to find some sort of a trail or road that would take us several miles across that hell-hole to the headwaters of another stream. We never did find a hole through, and did not have time to cut our way through. There was one trail we found and followed, but it soon came to an end at a nice big spring where they used to get water for a lumber camp many years ago. Someone had camped there the year before, probably fishermen. A few empty beer cans were in evidence nearby.
Stan said “Well, we’ll have a nice drink of water out of this effort anyway.” I had just been looking into the spring, and my answer was, “I don’t believe I will settle for water” and reached down, pulled out a beer can, pulled an opener from my pocket and flipped off the cap and handed it to Stan. You should have seen the look on his face. Here in one of the wildest sections of Maine and at a spot where, on average, a human being is not seen once in two years, we found beer on a hot day when we really could appreciate it! Yes, there were two cans. They were corroded some on the outside, but like new inside. We thank whoever it was that left them there – they are not there now!
We ran into one thing that day which amused us. In traveling up one small deadwater, we came upon a previous year’s feed pile of alders, etc, which beaver had collected, and it was all piled up against a big set of roots of a big tree that was hung up in mid-stream. About twenty rods above that, we came upon the house. We figured that the fall before, the beaver had gotten themselves a winter’s supply of food, and then a flood came and swept it all downstream. We could imagine those beaver tearing around up there after their food had departed. Again we saw scarcely any mink or ‘cat signs, but located a few more beaver.
Scouting for Beaver
Next morning we headed for home. We had now decided that there were not mink and ‘cats enough along with the otter to make it profitable for even one trapper to operate, but we were impressed with the signs of beaver. As there were several townships in that region which we did not believe would be overrun with trappers, we decided that we would come back in December and check up more fully on beaver, and then come back and trap during January, providing the lands would be opened to beaver trapping.
During November, I worked here at home part of the time and put out a few traps, picking up a small amount of fur and three bobcats.
On December 10th, Stan and I went back to Rockwood and spent the night in his trailer camp. The next morning, with the temperature at 10 below zero, we hooked the trailer camp to the Jeep and started back over the lumber road. The coupling broke after we had been on the way a couple of hours, and we had to use a logging chain and some haywire to fasten the trailer to the Jeep. The roads were very icy, and we sure did have a day of it. We finally reached our destination, and at dark had the trailer set up where we wanted it and proceeded to get supper.
There was a sudden change in the weather, and the next day it was raining. We put in most of the day building a dingle onto the front of the trailer and cutting firewood. The next few days, we spent what later proved to be mostly wasted work cleaning out trails and checking up on two old trapping camps we thought we might use. We spent nearly a week on this trip, found more beaver, and saw a lot of new country. This looking over new country is always interesting work, and time just flies by.
A Change in Plans
Now the Maine beaver trapping laws are such that one is never absolutely sure of just what will be opened up to beaver trapping. We had reasons to believe that the land we had been prospecting would be opened up, but this was where we guessed wrong. When the announcements came out, we found to our dismay that we had put in our time on a section that was part of the unopened territory. The township on which we had set up camp had few beaver and was opened, and the township that had by far the most beaver was closed.
There were ten or a dozen townships in the same area which were all opened up – a vast stretch of land, probably about 500 square miles. However, a man traveling the trap line on foot in the winter does not cover too many square miles of territory without a good line of camps. There was only one camp besides the trailer that would be of any use to us, but we decided to see it through and do our trapping and prospecting at the same time.
Getting on the Trapline
The morning of December 27th, Stan made the trip up to my home from Milo, hauling his big equipment trailer behind the Jeep. Among other things on his trailer was a big motor toboggan which we had planned to use after snow enough came to level up the old logging roads. (Author’s note: Developed in Michigan in the 1920’s, Carl Eliason’s motor toboggan was what many consider the first snowmobile. As the name implies, it was a simple toboggan with a small motor that turned a track. It was just the beginning of a revolution in backcountry transportation that would bring massive changes to trapping and other outdoor pursuits.)
We never did get enough snow to use the machine, so another of our plans went haywire. After my trapping gear was loaded on, we really had a load. The first 50 miles were not bad, but then we ran into roads of glare ice with no sand on them, and for 50 miles more were never quite sure whether we would make it. Chains on all four wheels helped a lot, but even then we had some close calls.
About dusk we were still six or eight miles from our trailer camp. Going down a steep hill, the Jeep began to slide, and the heavily loaded trailer behind started pushing it right off the right hand side of the road. It just about had us on our way down over steep hillside through brush, small trees and rocks, when it came to a stop. A small rotted stump had saved the day for us. We both got busy with axes and build a corduroy road under the Jeep and extended it well out in front. We worked fast, but made sure it was solid. We were not sure that even that would do the trick, and it was with misgivings that Stan finally got in a very slow start ahead. It was well we had built the corduroy string, as the wheels were almost to the last stick when they pulled into the road. Taking no chances, Stan eased the load to the bottom of the hill before stopping for me to get in. It was dark when we reached the trailer camp and we were very thankful to be there with all our equipment and nothing damaged.
The next forenoon was spent in cutting wood and getting everything in place around camp. After lunch, Stan went over to one small brook and I over another, and we followed them to their sources. Meeting at camp that evening we found that neither had located any beaver. Both had seen lots of several year old signs.
The following was a very cold, winter day. We hunted up a trail which took us to a pond three or four miles away and saw plenty of fisher signs. We circled the pond and also followed the inlet to nearly its source, finding no beaver. We then went down the inlet and here found a colony of probably a pair of beaver. We never did get these two, as a flood drove them from their house and we never did locate them after that. From here we continued on through to the main road and about four miles from camp. Again that night we pulled into camp after dark.
It required most of the daylight the next day to pack supplies and traps into the camp we planned to use, which was some miles from the trailer. There were a couple of small colonies we saw that day, but we had known about these before.
By the 31st we were really getting desperate and hit out in a different direction. This day paid off as we found four outfits – not large ones, but nevertheless they were live colonies. That was a bad feature about the country up there – the colonies ran small. Two different houses we found housed only one beaver each, some of the other places only a pair. In other parts of the state one often finds from five to eight in a house.
Beaver Season Opens
On January 1st the season opened at 12 o’clock noon. We were not sure whether we would have competition or not, so decided to set up the best looking and easiest to access places first. I went through to camp in the morning and Stan remained at the trailer to be on hand to set up a couple or three places not too far from here. At 11 A.M. I was in camp and about ready to eat an early lunch when a plane came buzzing in. I stepped to the door and could see it circling over a flowage not over a quarter of a mile away. We had figured that a plane could not take off from there if one ever did land, but as it circled very low several times I had fears of competition. Finally the pilot decided it was not safe and flew away. It sure was a relief to see that plane disappear over the hills as I knew there were not enough beaver to make it profitable for even one outfit.
At 12 o’clock I picked up a couple of traps and some bait and stepped right out onto a small flowage within eight rods of the camp and put in two sets. After that I took a bunch of traps and some bait and went down and crossed the flowage the plane had circled. I continued down the outlet a short distance to a colony we had figured would be easy marks. How wrong we were!
The first setback was when I started to measure out 25 feet for sets. There was the main house, and near that was a small feed house. Then there was the main dam, and up from that possibly 100 feet was another dam. With houses and dams scattered about and with the law not allowing a trap within 25 feet of a beaver dam or house, I soon found out that I was up against something. There was very little ice, so I could not travel on that, and about every place that looked good for a set would be within the 25-foot limit of something. I spent most of the afternoon at that place, and finally got in two or three sets that would not run me into court. One was an open water set in a pretty good place.
Next morning I took a peek at the sets in front of the camp, then went back down to the sets I had made below the flowage. In the best set, I found a 63-inch beaver. I dispatched and stashed him under a log to be picked up later in the day. This was the only beaver we took from that colony for the season. I guess taking that one in open water scared the rest. Furthermore, we could not get sets into some of the places we wished to. We probably left three beaver there.
Turned Around
I started out across country to a colony two or three miles away and spotted a trail so I would have little trouble getting through in stormy weather. I set up this place and started back, paying no attention to my spotted trail. Right off I ran into a small brook, and could see there had been beaver on it. I followed this up to its source before leaving it, finding where beaver had been a couple years before, but nothing there now. Then I struck out across country in what I thought would be about the right direction for the big flowage below the camp.
After I had traveled a long distance, I realized I was in a type of country I should not be in. I know now how it happened. In following the small brook I had borne off to the right a lot farther than I had realized. Looking at my compass to make sure I was not turned around, I kept going, figuring I would eventually strike an old road or hit the brook that came from the flowage.
I eventually did hit the brook, and as I found out later, right near an elbow where it stopped running east and turned north. Had I been a bit farther to the east, I would have missed the brook completely and gotten into a real mess. It was quite a walk back up the brook before I came to the cached beaver, and it was after sundown when I got to camp. I threw some wood into the old bull dog and got a fire started, picked up the water pail and went to the spring for the night’s supply of water, and a quick check of the nearby traps I’d checked earlier. Sure enough, a big beaver had been caught during the day and was drowned. I came back to camp dragging a big wet beaver instead of a pail of water. I’m willing to do that anytime! Before crawling into the sleeping bag that night, those two beaver were skinned out, pelts fleshed and put on the boards.
The Weather Rules
Next morning I awoke to the sound of pattering rain on the roof. The old camp really did need a cleaning out, and this was a good time to attend to that job. After lunch I slushed out over the trail to the trailer. Stan had set up five colonies and had covered a lot of territory in doing it.
It was still misting the morning of the 4th, and water was dripping from the trees. We visited Stan’s nearest set and found one beaver. In the afternoon I returned to the mountain camp and picked up a fisher on the way. From the first we would throw in a fisher set here and there in a hurry, but more on fisher later on.
It turned very cold and cleared off during the night, and the next morning the mercury was around zero. I made a fast trip around to my sets with no success. During the thaw the beaver had come out from the open water and had been back in the woods cutting their own wood, ignoring anything I had fixed up for them – guess they didn’t like my cooking!
It was slick traveling and I was back in camp at noon. I ate a quick lunch and struck out to check on the headwaters of the small brook that ran past the camp. About half a mile from camp I started to walk an icy log across a narrow deadwater. Halfway across, my feet flew out from under me and I sat down upon the ice so solid that I went right down through it. By the time I had struggled out I was soaking wet from the waist down, and my arms were dripping wet. It was snapping cold and I beat a hasty retreat back to camp. There was still fire in the old bull dog and I loaded it with dry wood. It was soon roaring and puffing like a locomotive going up Benson Grade. I removed most of my clothes and hung them on wires over the stove to dry. I had little left on. A little later I was prancing around camp at some work and in walked two beautiful – no, I mean in walked Stan. He took one look and said “So you got it too?”.
“I certainly did,” I replied. “You speak as though you did too.” He had, and had been forced to return to the trailer, changed into dry clothes and spent some time getting warmed up and drying his wet duds. He’s decided to come in and see how I was making out. He had picked up another beaver.
At daybreak the next morning we were on our way into the country I had started into the day before. We looked that over with no success and continued on. We did a lot of chasing around, even climbing a mountain. Noon found us about five miles from camp, down on a big bog and at a small live beaver house. We were not sure whether there were one or two beaver in there. We decided to set it up and leave it for a week and maybe clean it up in one trip. This we did – a week or so later we made the trip in there, had a medium beaver and the house had gone dead. We pulled the traps and were glad to get out of this place with one trip, as it was a long rough trip in there for just one colony.
Danger that Winter
We spent the next few days prospecting, with little success, and tending the sets we did have, averaging about a beaver a day. After the two duckings we had taken, realizing the unusual warm weather and rains had made the ice dangerous everywhere, we decided to stick together as much as possible. A lot of beaver trappers took their annual bath in January that season. Some did not get out of it so lucky, either. Two of them in a plane got caught in a snowstorm not many miles from us and came down head-on onto the ice of Moosehead Lake, going right through, plane and all. Their bodies were recovered a few days later. Another up north of us evidently left his motor running and slipped into the propeller. Days later a search party located him and brought his body out. (Author’s note: Here Arnold is likely referring to trapper Bill Szabo, who was found dead near his plane on Brailey Brook near Baker Lake. Stories of the crash can be found in Jake Morrell’s books interviewing Maine warden pilot Gary Dumond – “Gary Dumond Remembers” – and legendary bush pilot Dick Folsom – “Dick Folsom, Bush Pilot”).
Another well known trapper was out prospecting when something went wrong and he came down in the woods, demolishing his plane. He crawled out, shaken up a bit, walked five miles back to camp and headed down river. In a day or so he was back with another plane and at it again. Oh, there is a lot more to this trapping business besides setting traps and skinning out pelts.
To Home and Back
It started to rain again the night of the 13th, and the next morning the snow was all off the main road, leaving just glare ice. We had planned to come home for a day or so. The woods were much too wet to travel, as the brooks and low ground were flooded. We got into the Jeep and slid, slued and skidded over 100 miles home and arrived at my house right in the middle of a good smart thunderstorm, which is something seldom seen up here in January.
We had made plans so that Stan returned to the trailer the 16th by Jeep, and the 17th I used my own car to drive back. There had been a six inch snowfall that night, so I found the traveling a bit better, but even then I went off the road once in meeting a truck. The crew jumped out and practically lifted my car back on the road. Stan was out when I arrived, but came in about dark. He had been out to look at some fisher traps, and found most of them frozen in from the flood. One had been in working order and a fisher had gotten caught and escaped.
Stan also had been off the road the day he came in. He had come around a sharp turn in the narrow road and down the icy hill was coming a big Canadian taxi. He saw that a smash up was in the making, so stepped on the gas and headed the jeep for the woods. Into the brush he went. The taxi finally stopped and came back. Stan always has tow chains, axe, saw, etc., and they went to work, building sort of a bridge under the Jeep, and soon had it back on the road.
Trapping Again
On the 18th we tended beaver sets and got two of the flat tails. The next day we went to the mountain camp and picked up two more. From then until the 24th we did more prospecting, locating one more colony and gathered in four more beaver. The night of the 25th found us again at the mountain camp skinning out a nice fisher and one of the best beaver for the winter. On the 26th we helped a coworker yard out some of our beaver carcasses, which they wanted for study. It was a wet day, and the temperature got up to 65 degrees at our trailer camp. Snow simply vanished. It cleared and turned cold that night.
The next morning, the 27th, we boarded the Jeep and started up the road to the top of a mountain to look at a set up. We saw one big car in the ditch going up, but no one around it. We looked at our traps, finding nothing. When we got back to the Jeep, we noticed car tracks in the frost on the icy road, and Stan remarked “Someone has started down the mountain without any chains on…wonder who that could be.” I replied, “Don’t worry, we will find out.”
We did not go far before we came upon two young fellows looking the car over which had skidded and piled up in the alders. We tried to help them out, but decided we needed more tools, which were at the trailer camp. On the way to camp we met the owner of the other car and found that he had laid out all night, nearly froze, and had no food. We took him back to camp and gave him a feed, then went back. He did not know at the time he had laid out all night within a few moments walk of our trailer camp where we had a good fire and plenty of food. We did a lot more work and finally the first big lumber truck in a couple days came through, and with their help the troubles were soon over. What we did not run into up there during the months was just not worth mentioning.
Although the beaver season would last until February 7th, we had by this time cleaned up most of the beaver we had found, or figured we had any chance to catch. We started to pull up sets we knew would make no more catches and getting the traps out to the main road. We decided that if any snow came and got packed to the ice so it would be anywhere near safe traveling we would close the lines and get out of there in a hurry.
Fishers Caught and Lost
On the 28th of January we went up a stream and took up the traps at the colony that had been flooded out sometime before. Returning to the trailer, we ate lunch, threw our packs on the toboggan, and hit the trail for the mountain camp. About half a mile from the camp there was a crotch in the trail, one trail going through rough country a short cut to camp, the other an old road we used when we had the toboggan. On the rough trail, we had a fisher set. Stan took the short cut to look at the fisher trap, and I took the toboggan around by road. I was some distance on my way when I heard a yell. I answered and he yelled back “Come up here.” Leaving the load, I struggled up through the woods and found Stan at the set and there was a big black fisher lying on his back, watching us. It was one of the few fisher I ever saw that showed no fight. He really seemed to be a clever old fellow. We dispatched him and continued on to camp.
The 29th was the heart breaker. We started across country on one of our longest lines. First we came to a fisher set, made by using a big stub, probably 20 feet long which had been placed so that it ran up from the ground on a slant to a smooth hardwood tree so the end protruded out about a foot to the other side. That left room enough to place a bait on the end and the trap close to it. The chain had been fastened down on the back side of the tree so the chain would just reach up and allow the trap to set on the log or stub. The trap was all of seven feet above the ground so that when a fisher got in, he would drop off the stub and hang down, yet would not reach the ground. The idea sounded fine, however we found that Mr. Fisher had gotten in, dropped down and scratched the back of the tree up in good shape and somehow managed to get back upon the end of the stub and pull out of the trap.
A mile or so beyond that we ran into better luck and had a beaver, but half an hour later we came to another fisher set, a cubby with plenty of brush, where a fisher had been caught and got out. Two fisher gone in one day. That hurt. Later in the day we pulled out another beaver. We had made a good day’s work, but were far from happy. We really took a licking on the fisher part of the business. From the first we understood they were not going to be worth trapping, and soon after the season opened we heard that one of our friends had caught one, shipped it in, and the buyer returned it, stating he was not interested in fisher. Yet after the season was over, we met some Canadian buyers who not only wanted them, but paid a good fair price, enough so that I know now had we gone after fisher and made sets with balance poles as we should have and taken a dozen, we would have received more money than from a dozen beaver. In fact, I am sure had we done less chasing around trying to find beaver that were not there, and really gone after fisher, we could have taken more than a dozen. The past fisher season was the first we have had in many years, and was for only one season. There will be no more until the legislature provides one.
Finishing Up
On January 31st, we came out from the mountain camp for the last time and all traps were now taken up except a couple of colonies by the main road. There was a very light fall of snow during the afternoon. The next morning, February 1st, we packed up and pulled out for home, taking up the last of the sets. In the last one we pulled out our 25th beaver of the season. Not a big catch considering the time and work we put in, but we did have a lot of fun, plenty of good food and many interesting experiences. There were the otter that would play around us, the pet moose birds, and all the little things that were continually happening.
Stan is an interesting trapper in that he does not intend to fool around with any beaver. He knows how to make his sets, and if a beaver starts fooling around, that is the end of him. There was one colony we found where the water was quite shallow and very muddy. We cut out the holes and I started cutting poles and other wood needed for sets, and Stan was putting them in as fast as I could produce the material. The water was riley when the last set was made and it had to be put in by guess work. When we returned several days later we pulled out one beaver. At the last hole, we pulled out the pole and there were just the nails on it that had held the bait on. Those beaver were so hungry for something besides green fir and spruce that they had taken every bit of the wood off. Stan looked at it and I got a kick out of it. I said, “If we had waited a day or so longer, they would have taken the nails.” Stan blew up. They wouldn’t do that to him again, and they didn’t, either. He really went to work on that set, and when he left he knew there were no sticks over his trap. The next trip we had the beaver which we believe was the last one at that place.
Well, that is all history now. This fall I plan to hit my old trapline again. What will happen then? Only time will tell.
Enjoy this article? It’s part of a book I’m putting together on the works of legendary northwoods trapper Walter Arnold. Email me at [email protected], and I’ll let you know when the book comes out!
Leave a Reply