Village Squire, 1975-01, Page 9average farm dog didn't care too much for
bush work. He cared even Tess after meeting
a porcupine or a skunk.
Charlie trapped mostly without a dog and
his first trap line had to be laid out with school
attendance in view. One simply couldn't
spend three or four hours trapping, say in the
morning, then drop into school and continue
one's education in the afternoon.
He laid out a line which started on the small
stream almost at his door, followed that to the
river, continued on the river for a mile or so,
then led back to the school on another creek.
Over all this was about three miles.
If he did his morning chores before
breakfast, he could leave early, spend some
time on the line and be at school by nine
o'clock. This was the fall trapping so no
muskrats were involved: their furs were not
prime until February.
A more experienced trapper would have
been content to follow the same traps home at
four o'clock but Charlie was ambitious, he
mapped out another line for the route home.
This went through a mile or more of
hardwood bush, then circled through a
swamp to somewhere near his home. Skunks
were the main object on this line.
Charlie knew about skunks of course but he
had never had a formal introduction.
Foremost in his mind was that an average
skunk pelt equalled an average day's pay in a
more conventional occupation.
He reasoned therefore that with perhaps
one skunk a day on fhe one line and possibly a
mink or coon every now and then on the other
he would soon be well on his way to wealth
and early retirement.
It took several days to get the line laid out.
It took much longer than he had expected to
find suitable places for sets and get the traps
and bait in location. There were all sorts of
things to remember. For instance, one
couldn't scatter traps along indiscriminately.
Tim had made this clear. Someone's dog
might get caught and this could lead to
trouble. Tim recommended extreme caution.
One should proceed quietly and be as much
as possible invisible both to animals and
humans. The fewer people who knew one was
trapping the better.
The first week of trap tending went by
without an incident. Charlie learned to get up
without being called and to do with less sleep.
There was also a certain exhilaration in that
early morning walk along the stream beds.
The small creeks are always the focus of wild
life from all around.
Frogs and their pursuers, the bitterns and
cranes were numerous. There was a coot and
a cormorant. He did not know their names at
the time. There were tracks of raccoon,
muskrat and sometimes mink along the mud
of the shore. He did not see any of these
because in the first place most animals move
around at night and in the second place he
was being much too noisy.
If one expects to see any wild animals in the
bush, progress should be circumspect. It is
possible to move quietly after some practice.
There should be some attention as to where
one steps, as in driving a car, it is necessary
to know what is some distance ahead as well
as that which is right in front. Above all the
eyes should be alert all the time ready to spot
something out of the ordinary or detect a flash
of movement.
8, VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1975
The human animals learns this slowly and
never completely but constant repetition will
make a man observant and skilful in this as in
any other occupation.
In his second week on the homeward trip he
made his first catch, a skunk. As he neared
the set he could see that there had been some
confusion. Leaves and small plants were
knocked around and when he followed the
trail of minor destruction, there was the
skunk.
He had dragged the trap which was
fastened to a clog or small limb into a hollow
where there was a clump of ferns. His small
beady eyes looked out from the brown foilage.
He wasn't afraid, just annoyed. At no time in
his short life had there ever been reason for
fear. He stamped a foot, elevated his tail and
prepared to annihilate this two legged
colossus.
Charlie took thought, he had heard from
supposedly well informed sources that skunks
could be dispatched in various ways without
the usual distressing consequences. A bullet
through the spine was one way. Tim had
advised that this was all nonsense.
"When you kill a skunk watch out for
trouble," he had said.
Charlie thought it was worth a try. He
circled to get into position. The skunk turned
too, arranging his batteries for a salvo.
Here was the beginning of a small tragedy
enacted many times in the woods. The strong
preyed on the weak. Nature was no pity and
neither had Charlie, he was part of the
ecology of his time and place. Later he would
BEFORE714.----"r"
TV was something
you just sat
and watched.
see the unfairness and cruelty of preying on
wild animals, now he was an animal himself,
part of a way of life.
He got in position for an accurate shot with
the rifle, the range was short, too short and
he had not noticed that there was a slight
breeze and it blew from the skunk to him.
He fired and the shot was accurate and
successful. The animal died almost immedi-
ately but not before there was a shot of spray
which dissipated quickly into a fine mist
filling the air with an odor of a hundred
thousand onions all peeled at once. It wasn't a
filthy smell, there are lots worse, it was just
shocking and overpowering. Charlie recover-
ed quickly, he hung the skunk on a sapling,
skinned it, then threw the carcass in a
woodchuck burrow and set another trap at the
entrance.
He went home happily. The first he met
there was Brother Ed.
Ed registered shock and dismay.
"For Pete's sake, what did you have to get
mixed up with a skunk for?"
"It was in my trap."
"Well that's just fine, what's ma going to
say when she smells you?"
Ma said plenty. She disrobed Charlie after
parting him from his precious skunk pelt.
"It's all over your clothes, what ever are we
going to do?"
She knew that Charlie was trapping and in
a vague way had resigned herself to some
unpleasantness but this was a shocking
introduction to the fur business.
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