Wrapping up 2009

The last few days we have been keeping pretty busy. Yesterday we decided to make a trip out to the main road to pick up mail that had been left there for us. We decided since we were going that way anyway we would open up a section of the old road by cutting out the trees that have fallen across it. There was 8km of fallen alders and pine trees with only a few good stretches in between... We started off cutting a wide swath and throwing the trees out of the way, then daylight was burning out fast and we still had not made our way out to the road to pick up our mail. We will have to go back again and clear more because by late in the afternoon, if we could go under it, over it, or around it - we did. Just over half way through we cut the limbs off a big pine tree that had fallen over and shovelled snow to make a bridge. From there on it was clearer sailing as someone had already been in once with a snowmobile from the other end so trail was cut. They must have been running out of time too because they did a lot of going under, over and around trees too! Along the lake for a few kilometres we followed wolverine tracks. He bounded along the road, went down on to the lake and up into the trees, there must have been a method to his madness that only he knew.

This morning we took the kids and checked a small section of the trapline near the cabin - about 16km round trip with the snowmobiles. There was a lot of wildlife activity, but nothing in the traps, save for one that something else had beat us to. Judging by the tracks - it seems a fisher may have cleaned our marten out of the trap. They are similar looking animals, both from the weasel family, with the fisher being a lot bigger. The owner of the trapline we are trapping said they are very scarce, though used to be higher in number. It had a similar track to the marten - only quite a bit larger. We also saw a cow and bull moose in a cutblock - in the same place they were the last time Tim had been through there. From what I have read, several moose will live together in a common area in the winter, abundant with food, called a moose yard.

Tim was surprised last week, when at the end of the trapline, 55km away, there was a set of snowmobile tracks coming in from the other way. They just did a loop and turned back around. It was likely a resident of Takla Landing, perhaps another trapper opening up the end of his line. Still a shocker to see another sign of life in the absolute middle of nowhere!