Our Wish For You..... This Coming 2012

May Your Fridge Always Be Full.....
Your Power Supply Never Cut Off......
The Health and Good Sense To Enjoy Each Day.....
          but just encase...... have candles, oil lamp, matches, an axe, and dried food.
HAPPY NEWS YEARS.....   TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS

Weather Warmer on Average of 6 degrees Cel. this Winter

 Trappers are good recorders of events.  Their calenders stack up year after year on the nail beside their chair.  Each day they record the morning temperature and what snow came that day.  Looking back over many years one trapper told us all "On Sched" that the daily temperatures this winter are 6 degrees warmer than normal.
Down at the Inklin River this is really noticeable.  This River is usually frozen over by now.  It is full of crystallized ice but it is still flowing ..... in some spot 5 km an hour in faster spots 12 km. an hour.

 Lots of deciduous trees down here along the River.





























A Good run.

A 3 1/2 Pound Rubber Mallet...

 When the lake is covered in overflow..... the mists hang over the valley.

 Bryan cleans the Tobbogan and all the skidoos after certain snow conditions.  This 3 1/2 pound rubber Mallet does the job right.  We can also hoist up the back end of the skidoo and race the track.

 From experience Vikki has learned to clip both her "Lynx Paw Snowshoes" together and then bungie them down.  Also the first aid kit is clipped to the snowshoes.  The big plastic scoop shovel is held on by really heavy wire. Those small under your hood snow shovels are like using a spoon. More than a couple of times, she has looked back to find things missing.

Getting Water...... at Walkers' Valley Line Cabin

 Now we could melt snow but we are going out to push the trail further and will be passing a Glacier fed stream....   no Beaver Fever in this water but it might be hundreds and hundreds of years old.

 Bryan fell through the bank but lifted his feet in time.

 It is not very often when Ishi, our puppy is exhausted.....   but after chasing the skidoo's for the day, she is pooped.  Bryan would stop and say "Get On"....   Finally the last 2 km she said "Let Me On That Skidoo"
This was the first night up there at the line cabin.  Only 1 feet of new snow.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Merry Christmas......   May all your trails lead home....
A special greeting to all those that have been following our trails for awhile now.  Especially John, Scottie Brian, George, Ken, Evan, Michael, Cathie, Mike, Steve, Stef, Randy, Gregg, Gary, Mark, Matt and Kara, Marlene, Bill  and all the rest.  Your comments are like friendly waves from a near neighbor.  A Big Hello back to you and Merry Christmas.

All We Want For Christmas Is To Get Back to A Cabin..... Any Cabin!!!!

 Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let It Snow!!!!!!!!   Continuous snow fell over the 2 days at about an 1" an hour.... winding up with 4' of new wet snow on top of the 4' that was already there.
We packed up old Hannah, our cat Bee and headed towards base camp, a 13 km trip.  "Miss Piggy" the 800 SWT had 3/4 a tank, "Poncho" the little Tundra 300 had 1/2 tank.  
The SWT was acting like a snowplow ..... the snow out 6 to 7 feet in front was moving.  Behind a trench 30" deep was left.  The snow was coming up over the hood... the head lamp was buried.
We had to shovel 3 feet of snow off 4 to 5 hills.  One 75 feet long and one 40 feet long.  This picture below shows the shoveled hill before we skidooed up.  Hill is at a 35% climb.  Bryan is 100 feet from top of hill.

 Bryan would unhook the Toboggan , take over weight Hannah out ..... try to get "Miss Piggy" to climb and then back up again.  Over and Over again.  The 13 km trip which usually takes an hour was now 5 hours and we were still 3 km away from the lake. We finally abandoned the Skimmer. 
At dusk we were still at a point where we could turn the skidoos around and go back to the line cabin, but there was the consideration of the fuel consumption.  Once we started to go downhill towards the lake we were committed to keep going down.   
Vikki thought for a few minutes that they might be curled up by a fire for the night under a tree  but Bryan said NO!!!!! we are going to be in a cabin tonight. Which one he didn't know.
As we started to loose elevation  the new snow fall was less.  Only a foot.  The going got better.

 Ishi ran most of 9 km.  Once we started to go down she was able to sit in the box with Hannah.  Good thing Bryan never travels without his trusty chainsaw.  It is wrapped in the used chicken feed bag to keep the snow out of it.   Two blow downs across the trail.

We made it to the base cabin that night.  It was the very best of Christmas presents. 

Heading Up To Walker's Valley tomorrow

Tonight we checked the weather forecast and for the next two nights it is going to be near -1 cel. at night and so our supplies down in the crawl space and the chickens should be fine.  All of us are going up to the line cabin for the next couple of days.   Vikki , Bryan, Hannah, Ishi and Bee. 

Cabin Bound......Vikki

 Still not enough snow for Vikki and the dogs to do with Bryan.  He's gone back up to the line cabin and will probably come back Friday.
Vikki had drawn this picture of their pansies last summer and now with 4 days of not having to clear off the kitchen table.... she is doing some oil painting.

Ishi's New Snow Suit

Ishi gets cold...  She doesn't have an undercoat yet and after a bunch of running she starts to shake and it isn't even that cold yet.  Vikki sorted through the rag box and couldn't find anything that wouldn't get real wet fast.  We had this vest which was a little too small for us and so with lots of thought and the trusty old sew machine....and some saved buckles...   She is now fitted out.

Ishi stayed in the box behind the skidoo until she was out of the back land and then Bryan let her run.  She can cover the land in no time at all and loves it.  She would race beside the skidoo just having a ball.  Vikki watched them by telescope as they traveled along the lake shore. Bryan said he would put her into the box every mile or so for a break but then she'd want out again to run.  Upon returning by to the cabin she was still not puffing and you could tell she was ready for more.  Oh... to be so young again. ps Thanks John for the nudge to continue on.... that is exactly what Bryan said on the SBX.

Fur Council of Canada and Furisgreen.com

In the opening statement of the Fur Council of Canada...  it reads
A Canadian Heritage Industry in Harmony with Nature.  When we buy and wear fur we support thousands of people living on the land and maintaining the centuries-old artisanal skills and knowledge.
This is a non profit information group.  It is well worth checking out their web site for more information on the subject of Furs.  They have an interesting part called furisgreen.com 

Why We are Trappers of Furs...to Lars Kullberg of Sweden

We're really sorry you live in a world that's been destroyed by human kind for thousands of years.  You should not be comparing your situation in Sweden to ours in Canada.  You have no idea of what you are talking about and for that matter neither do a lot of the people who live in large cities.  When people lose personal contact with the land , they tend to get this great big Green inclination to save it,  when in fact 95% of Canada is uninhabited and does not need saving.
We have the best record of any country in the world for looking after our public land and it's inhabitants, be they floral, fauna and humans alike.  We have almost no endangered species and if they were endangered, they would certainly be protected.  We did not kill off the Buffalo, the Passenger Pigeon, The Trumpeter Swan or the Natives, and the list goes on and on.  Canada is relatively new as compared to other parts of the world and it's rule makers had experience on what had happened in Europe and the US etc regarding land and floral and fauna and they made better rules to protect all of the above.
My point is, we in the rural area of Canada do not have the guilty conscious of the rest of the civilized world.  We have been trapping for 450 years in Canada on an on going and steady bases.  If you look at the number of pelts harvested, there has been no decline.
Our trapline is 1300 square kilometers.  You can walk North for 200 kilometers and not hit a dirt road.  You can walk for 1,500 km south and 110 km west and no roads.  We are the only ones who can trap this large area.  In the U.S. a trapper could trap anywhere.  This led to lack of accountability which Canada did not want.
People in cities have their Hench men to do their dirty deeds for them.  They mostly live in a glass bubble and are protected from getting their hands dirty.  In a lot of cases they have lost touch with reality.
All animals whether it is chicken, beef, fish or a fur bearing animal die of unpleasant and violent death. Humans reached their level of status in the world because of being a top predator.
Wild land has a carrying capacity.  Most of the animals that die each winter are not - so called weak or sick.  They are the young and inexperienced.  These are the targets of trappers.  A large portion of our small fur bearing predators die in their first winter.  They don't learn in time how to hunt their prey (mostly rabbit and mice) in the deep snow of winter which is 7 months.  That's the ones a trapper takes.  To come up with the silly conclusion..... If there is so many dieing why take any?  This would be the obvious question.  The reason we trap is because it is a renewable resource, if managed properly
Harvesting the surplus animals stabilizes the population and as young juvenile male predators are without a home territory and driven from one area to the next with the threat of death from older established males,  these young males are the targets of trappers.  Trappers monitor their catch.  Record and avoid female established areas.  They are constantly moving to different areas, leaving large areas alone.  We know that trapping can go on indefinitely with no loss of numbers for the fur bearers.  Can this be said for Plastic and cotton clothing.  Some person gets a little stain on them and they are hucked into the garbage.  These used to be cut up and used for rages, woven rugs or quilts but most people are too lazy to do that now.  They think it is beneath them.
Wool sweaters used to be unwound, reballed and made into socks or mitts.  Not any more.  Just threw it away.
Fur gets made into something you cherish and love.  It keeps you warmer than anything.  When it is no longer good for wearing, it is cut up and used for smaller things like boot trim, collars, gloves, mitts, boot liners, throws, etc.  You don't see fur in the land fill.  
If you think you're Green because you sort your garbage and put it out on the curb.....you need to rethink what you are buying.  Garbage cans full of food waste that used to be feed to your pigs, chickens, dogs etc.  Nothing went to waste.  The so called recycling uses more energy and manpower than it returns, but it makes the consumer and the seller feel good. 
People should buy local vegetables if they can't grow their own. But really there is no reason for anyone not to have some sort of garden.  Buy sustainable products.  Don't over consume and for goodness sake don't throw good stuff into the land fill. 
If we all were of your mind set, who would be the hench man ..... the butcher, the logger, the undertaker, the oil driller, the farmer, the miner, the fisherman and the list goes on and on.  All the good people who do your dirty work for you.  I know there are too many people for us all  to live Green, but you would be hard pressed to find a greener person than  this trapper who does all of his own dirty work including butchering the moose and digging the potatoes and feeding his scraps to his chickens.
So maybe it's time you give your head a shake, instead of trying to shake ours.

Whales, Canadian Seals, Rare Earth Metals, Fish Farming

It all comes down to whether or not it is sustainable.  Right now Whales are not sustainable so there does not seem to be any reason to continue killing them.  It is just not right.
Canadian Seals are not endangered.... there are plenty of them.  In a world a 7 Billion people, there has to be diversification so that the whole world can eat.  Not everyone can eat meat.  Not everyone can eats vegetables.  If some of everything that is available is used, leaving the population  a sustainable number the world can go on. Seals eat an awful lot of Atlantic fish.   If there is a market for Seal meat and Seal fur it adds to the world feed and clothing problem, and leaves the Canadian Seal at a reasonable number and gives the people in that area of Canada a living.  We are in favor of Canadian Seal hunting.  The PR people use a film clip from back in 1970 and it offends anyone who sees it.  But things changed... white seals are not hunted now, only large adults.  There are controls and rules, like any business. Recently Ashley MacIsaac, a world renowned Cape Breton fiddler confronted PETA.  Talking to reports he said there a 3 million extra seals than can be naturally sustained.
Rare earth metals.  Now is this sustainable?  All these computers, robots, cell phones etc.  People think nothing of getting the newest model and then throw the rest in the storage.  We've heard that a company now wants to mine the moon for rare earth metals.  Just how does one justify that cost.
Fish Farming....   Norway is forbidden to have Fish Farms in their own country because they are afraid of it killing off the Atlantic Fish.   Our British Columbia, Canada government allowed Norwegian Fish Farms to come to the B.C. coast, which is proving to be very wrong and should be shut down.  Fish farming of Salmon here in Canada is not sustainable in the fact that it is killing off the natural Salmon in our viewpoint.

It's Raining...It's Pouring... The Old Man is Snoring.

" This was the best decision I've made all year"... Bryan said as we looked out at the rain.  It is plus 4.8 Cel. and been heavily raining for 7 hours and does not look like it wants to stop. "If it had been like this yesterday I would have ____ my pants".  Bryan would have been stuck on the other side of the lake... his only recourse would have been to walk around the lake or go back up to the line cabin and suffer cigarette withdrawal.

Wolves Kill Wolverine.

 There was blood everywhere on the trail.  At first I thought it must have been a Calf Moose but then on looking closer the intestines were too small.  I found the top and bottom jaw and part of the front skull... all the rest had been eaten.  It was a old female Wolverine.  She got caught right out in the middle of a large alder patch and had no trees to climb.  We would have thought a Wolverine would have been able to hold it's own against a wolf but with 2.... it lost.  There was not a hair left.

 Down on the Inklin River a Common Merganser was fishing in the river.  The current is quite strong but this bird had no trouble.  It would dive down and come up. 

The Wolves also tried to get into the back of the Wolverine box.  They don't like the looks of the front but they sure tried digging into the back.
Came back to camp with 6 Marten from the Walkers' Valley and Inklin Trail.