Trapping trips are fun. Most avid trappers have planned a trip or two out of their ordinary trapping area at one time or another. Some actually do this every season, travelling to a different state to help satisfy their sense of adventure. In this story, the two Walts (Tozier and Arnold) spend an entire season hunting and trapping in the backwoods of northern Maine. For Tozier this was a unique adventure. For Arnold, well, it was what he’d done for years. I remember my first trapping trip. A friend and I went up in the Uinta Mountains of northeast Utah to trap marten. It only lasted several days, but the sense of adventure helped fulfill some of that deep down desire most of us trappers share with those old time mountain men.
Backwoods Trapline
Walter Arnold
First published in Fur-Fish-Game October 1946
“What fools us mortals be” said Walt Tozier, looking grimly toward the mountains as we drove out of my yard, car loaded with supplies and canoe. This expression of his rang true on more than one occasion during the next few months. After driving eleven miles and paddling four or five, we would climb into the notch of these mountains with supplies and equipment. Two loads for each of us. We would carry one until tired, then return for the other. Now and then we would pause to cut brush and blowdowns from the trail. It was about an hour before dark when we pulled into the Old Notch Camp with our last load.
It was now evident that we would not spend the winter in that camp as we had planned. The windows were gone. Some of the logs in one side had rotted and fallen out and quill pigs (porcupines) had eaten up most of the floor and table. We didn’t camp there that night, just waited there for morning to come. Trying to lay on what had once been a good bough bunk, we talked things over that night and decided to move on next morning, seven miles further in, to what used to be our home camp when Bill Gourley and I were trapping together. (Incidentally, Bill is now running a nice set of summer camps and doing well.)
At daybreak the next morning we cached part of our loads and were soon on our way. The old trails were full of brush and blowdowns, but we made camp in good time. The camp itself was in fair shape, but furnishings were ruined or stolen. There was no stove, but we had a washboiler one with us, and plenty of pipe to set it up. We soon had things cleaned up, a little wood cut and fresh balsam on the bunk. It seemed so much like home that we hated to leave, which we did at one o’clock in the afternoon, returning all the way home and arriving long after dark. Previous to this I had made two trips into Third (another line cabin) and had that camp ready for trapping time.
In the early morning hours of October 25th it had snowed an inch or so, and we started stringing steel, setting out separate lines and both reaching Third that evening. I saw a litter of otter playing that day but resisted the temptation to shoot, as I knew the .30-30 would not do a pelt any good. Figuring they did not belong in that section I hated to let them all go, as I might never see them again. This proved to be the case. Someone somewhere probably took some nice pelts from that litter during the fall and winter. We took otter, but I am sure none of these.
The following day we pushed through to the home camp, which we call Comfort, setting up the few available traps we had in this back country. We were short of traps back there well into winter. It was a struggle to keep going as everything now had to go in on our backs, with us trying to run a trap line at the same time. There was extra food, clothing, two rolls tar paper, bedding, dishes and what not. Anything we took via Third to Comfort meant packing all of 25 miles. When we went direct through the notch it was 15 or more. We remained two nights then returned home via Third, picking up two foxes on the way. We found mighty few fox in the big woods, but that did not bother us, as our dealer had gently broken the news that they were not worth trapping. We made but few fox sets and pilled most of these while the season was still young.
On the 4th of November, Walt started for Third. We were quite sure we were to be successful in getting the back township opened up to beaver trapping. He was to take up his Third line and pack what traps and other supplies he could through to Comfort. The next morning I left for Comfort via the Notch with a heavy load of supplies, and we both arrived at camp late in the afternoon. He brought in a fox and a coon, while I had a $35 mink and a coon. I had also dropped a big deer in its tracks near the Notch. After dressing it I lashed a hind quarter to my load, so we now had meat to help with the food situation. We spent a couple days prospecting for beaver, finding three colonies and were sure there were more in the places we did not have time to look over.
On the 9th we made tracks out, and arriving at my deer, Walt took a hind quarter and the head so we could get it tagged, then I left him and swung east for Third, where I spent the night. At daybreak I was homeward bound and at one o’clock came in with an otter, fox and coon.
On the 12th Walt and his son Dave went through to Comfort with heavy packs. I was busy for a couple of days on my Third line, working out some short cuts, and on the 14th I left home and covered the entire distance via Third to Comfort. I lost a coon and found a nice mink and fox. We were finding more coon in the big woods than I’d ever seen there before. In other years, I would work an entire season without seeing a sign of one in that country. Walt and Dave had not been idle while I was gone, and they had the pelts of a mink, coon and fox. They had worked up a nice supply of stove wood, banked the camp and added a fresh layer of balsam to the bunk. As I had work awaiting me at home, I came out the following morning. Walt and Dave staggered in long after dark the next night. Dave had shot his first deer that morning, a nice seven point buck. They had dressed it and taken the hind quarters, packing them 13 miles that day. Of course that left more meat for us at camp.
The first faint streaks of dawn saw us on our way back Sunday the 18th. I went by way of Third, but we would travel together for three miles. It was just getting to be good shooting light when we came around a turn and there stood a large doe. She made no effort to run, evidently knowing that she was protected on the Sabbath (Sunday hunting has long been illegal in Maine). Finally we started on and she hopped down into the woods. Walt was peeved as he was still gunning for his deer, and to rub it in more, he had another encounter with deer soon thereafter.
On the next trip we were walking along the banks of a river when I heard an extra loud splashing. I looked up to see four deer, including a big buck, in midstream, struggling belly deep in the icy water to make the other shore. I called to Walt and he started to swing the old .30-30 on the buck, when I happened to think, and asked “How are you going to get him after you shoot him?” He lowered his gun. “Jumping Boot Feet! That’s right. We will have to walk around five miles to get him.” We were too busy to spend half a day trying to locate a deer that might be dead or might not.
Now getting back to our trip, we were both planning to do more work on our trails that day. Looking back now, it seems to me that all we did was to cut trees and brush out our trails the whole fall and winter. However, this day soon turned bad and by noon it was raining hard. We both made time.
I found the remains of a rabbit in a bobcat trap, a cat having gotten ahead of me and evidently still eating when I came along. I reset the trap, leaving the rabbit remains as they were, in hopes to outwit the old fellow if he came back. When I reached Comfort, Walt had just pulled in and was kindling a fire. I had not even taken time out to eat lunch. I have traveled many days without stopping for lunch. An hour or so around noon I am hungry. but it soon wears away. But what a supper I put away that night! We discarded our wet clothes and were soon listening to the patter of rain on the roof as we sipped a good hot drink that whetted our appetite for the big feed of steak and potatoes which was to follow. No fur today.
We spent the next day doing some cruising and passed the bobcat set just mentioned, and instead of a big bobcat we found one not much larger than a rabbit. However, the state would pay $15 for its tail, so it was all the same to us. It started snowing that night and a wet sticky snow kept spilling out of the heavens all the next day, clearing sometime during the next night. There was over a foot of this sticky stuff and every tree and bush was completely covered from the ground up. Thousands of down trees and bushes plugged our trails. More work with the axe.
As soon as we could see to travel, we were out together on the 21st, headed back over my Third line. Over in that back country there are millions of small, slim spruce anywhere from five to twenty-five feet tall, and nature sees to it that the branches of these and other trees and bushes grow longest and heaviest out in the open trails. So when the snow tips them over, it is always into the trails they go. At times it is much easier traveling right through the thickets where there are no trails at all.
We both carried axes and were forced to cut and hack our way through thousands of these trees and bushes that confronted us that day. As soon as the sun got up into the sky a bit the snow started melting and drenched us to the skin. After we worked past the mountain and started down grade toward home there was less and less snow, which meant better traveling, and the last three miles we carried axes in our packs. We made home after dark, and two leg-weary trappers we were. A coon and two mink pelts were our day’s pay.
We now knew that December 1st would bring legal beaver trapping on our back township. We returned through the notch with all we could carry. The snow was just the right depth to make it terrible traveling with or without snowshoes – we tried it both ways. We had wide roads part of the way, but as we neared camp we were forced to hew our way through. There were places where it was hard to tell where the trail was, and the last mile found us using flashlights. I have trapped many years, but never a season was I made to work like I have this past one. Two more mink pelts and a coon made it worthwhile that day. Mink were really scarce, but we were working long lines and going after them and picked up more than we had expected. We also picked up our first white weasel, and from then on put out a lot of No. 0 traps for these little fellows. I had quite a bunch of these traps which had been cached in a cave for 12 years, over near Comfort. The weasels were worth catching. Our best price for one lot was $2.75 each for damaged, kits, small and large. Without much extra work we picked up over 50 of these during the winter
We now had a pretty fair supply of food in camp. We used powdered milk and liked it as well or better than evaporated. Sugar was scarce so we made this up with molasses, which we both are very fond of. The three gallons of kerosene would furnish plenty of light to work on beaver pelts during long evenings.
On the 28th I came out over the Third line, pulling all traps. Walt remained in. I had to be satisfied with two weasels for that hard day’s work.
On the 30th I left home hours before daylight in a roaring blizzard. I was following an old logging road for a few miles, which was being used a lot by hunters, and it was icy. The fresh snow made it as slippery as an eel. I had a very heavy pack and ice chisel, and in the dark it was impossible to see anything through the flying snow. As I had no adding machine, the times I went flat were never counted. I do know that days later I was still sore from my falls. I covered about four miles before daylight. There was then snow enough to prevent slipping with snowshoes, so I strapped them on. The snow kept piling up and getting deeper. I expected to meet Walt this side of the notch to relieve me of part of my load, which was now getting heavy. I reached the notch, pushed down through the thicket to the valley below, and covered a mile of that before we met. He had left Comfort with good intentions, but a couple miles from camp got his eye on a big buck deer, which he killed. It being freezing weather, he finished the job by dressing the deer, cutting it up into handy chunks to carry, and hanging them up in trees to be picked up later. This explained his delay. We made camp by mid-afternoon and soon had something hot for aching muscles. Before long we were feeling fit for the opening day of beaver trapping. We now had a foot more snow, and from then on received more and more of the fluffy whiteness and practically lived on snowshoes, breaking out trails the rest of the winter. Walking down snowy isles may sound romantic, but – well I guess we were not in the mood!
Daylight the next morning found us in action, Walt snowshoeing in one direction, while I chose another. The day was spent in making beaver sets, mostly under ice. This is slow, hard work, but we had razor sharp axes and chisels, which helped a lot. We had a couple of weasels to skin that evening and retired early.
The next day was a continuation of the first, though Walt pulled in with a beaver, which gave us a bit of extra work that evening. Again we hit the balsam early, thanking our Creator that we had such a cozy winter home back there in the mountains where the hoot of the old owl was the auto horn and the roar of the wind in timber spruce made up for the absent trolley car sounds.
We were still making sets on the third day, making more than necessary. In some places we tried to plug every available spot, so if competition arrived we would have most of the best places. We each brought in a beaver that evening. Bringing in beaver does not mean that we always brought in the whole carcass. In most cases the hide is ripped off in a hurry, fat, meat and all right on the spot and this is cleaned and scraped at camp.
On the 4th we worked together, making a few more sets and hunting for new colonies, which meant more trail breaking and fighting our way through thickets. I agreed with Walt that evening as we approached camp when he said “This is what I call rugged work.”
On the 5th we inspected about all of our sets and when the day was done had added three more beaver to our collection. We no longer had fox traps out, and the mink season had ended December 1st.
The following day I picked up another beaver and Walt contributed a few more weasels. That night it started to rain, and the next morning it was still pattering down upon the roof. Usually we like the sound of rain on the roof, but it was not welcome this time. We made the best of it and spent the day doing much needed repair work to the floor and bunk, and now had camp in fine shape. It cleared and froze during the night and the next day we were hitting the trail home, feeling that this trip had been worthwhile.
The next trip was not as productive, as we took just one beaver. They evidently did not like the way some of their friends had disappeared, and had become suspicious. It was this trip that Walt had a moment of elation turn suddenly into one of despair. He approached an open water set which was there more for otter than for beaver, but there sat a good sized beaver on the shore and plenty of signs where he had been tearing things up. Seeing Walt, he gave a lunge for the water, and as he brought up on the trap chain the wire holding it gave way. Away went Mr. Flat-tail, trap and all. Walt did not sing his “Jack of Diamonds” song that evening. However, about six weeks later he came in very happy one day with this same beaver. All is well that ends well. We also picked up an otter and quite a few weasels.
The next trip netted only two beaver and quite a few weasels. Our luck seemed to run in streaks, as the trip of January 11th bears out. We were traveling together on our way in. About four miles from camp I left Walt and swung off to the right to hit into my line and look at a few traps handy to camp. We had nothing when we separated, but when we met at camp three hours later I had a beaver and two weasels, and Walt pulled in with another beaver and three weasels. The following day we went right out and brought in two more beaver and a big bobcat. A few days later Walt matched my bobcat with a nice prime otter – all big money pelts. The first lot of beaver, ten in all, sold for an average price of $67.50 each (Author’s note: according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, those beaver pelts would be worth more than $900 each in today’s dollars!!!).
We had some competition, but not too bad. As we started to work into the east side of the township we met up with two other trappers working it. Thereafter they stuck to that side and we worked our side and never saw them again. From what the Chief Warden told me, they took about the same number as we did. However, from where they were camping they could have been working other open territory out of our reach in another Township. We took 23 beaver and cleaned out all of our colonies but one. We took two from this and the rest left and went up the bog a mile or so and lived in the bank some place. We cut many holes through three feet of ice and put down many different kinds of bait, but nothing was ever touched. During a thaw they came out, (we figured there were two) and cut some fresh brush and dragged it under the ice and away. We made sets there but nothing came of all these efforts.
There was another colony where I took a beaver the first trip and then they were through. I even cut small holes through the ice and poked various kinds of tender branches and even heavy wood through, setting no traps, but they kept away from everything. Then in January came a thaw and one night they dug out from under the ice and came up through a snowdrift on the shore, went back and cut a lot of brush and dragged it in. I arrived on the scene before it froze over and placed three traps on the bottom, then covered the hole in the drift with poles and balsam boughs, and topped this with two feet of snow to prevent the water from freezing. This worked, and about every two weeks I would dig a beaver out of this hole. What tangled messes I found there. The last one, a big male, was taken the last day of the season. It was a nice way to end the season. I also had taken a small one in a baited set nearby around the middle of February. All told, five were taken from that house, which cleaned the colony.
The season closed March 1st, which suited us all right as there was not much left to trap. Of course the season had been closed for some time on other animals, excepting bobcat, and there was only one of those left that we knew anything about. We came home, sold our last pelts, rested up a bit, and then returned to clean up and cache our traps and do some gumming.
Find this stuff interesting? I’m working on a book – a compilation of the works of Walter Arnold, the legendary trapper from the Maine woods. Stay tuned, and contact me at [email protected] to reserve a copy!
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