Trip To The Top

While on a trip up to what we call the top of the mountain, Paul and I with Monique(his sister), Tarron, Graycen, Aron and Delaney and took a few pics.

Paul on his sled

After a trip to the top, Paul took the boys up there too.

Texting in the Bush

Out here we do not have cell service, but ingenuity we do.  Paul's parents, sister and her kids came out for a visit for a few days and we have had a great time visiting.  The kids decided to send a message to their dad via Northern Texting Service... see message below

We sure do wish he was here.

Nice Rack Hey?

Just yesterday we headed out to our trail head for a "Block Party" weiner roast with some of the people from the valley.  The plus temperatures that we have been having are nice but they are also playing havoc with our plans to go out to the valley.  So yesterday we met our friends at the trail head, where we connect to the main road.  We have made a fire pit there for lunch stops on mail day and our friends who came to visit from the outside use the spot to park when they come in.  Anyway we have been using the lake to travel since our trail is hard packed and frozen and does nothing for our sliders on the sleds, (even with our little trapper sleds we can smell them heating up) so the lake offers us more area with snow.  We usually stick near shore and yesterday was no different.  As we zoomed along in typical Yamaha Bravo fashion, I noticed a set of horns right near shore.  They measured 43" and looked as if they had dropped from the sky, there was nothing else there but a pelvic bone.  The kill had probably happened in November or so and the animals have either hauled the rest away or this was hauled out on to the lake when the snow was harder.  Anyhow we were quite happy with our find.

Also yesterday, Sasha decided that she wanted to drive her little 120 sled out to the weiner roast, so we thought that was fine and I pulled a skimmer that we could load her sled on if she got tired.  The fire pit area we made is about 25 km from the cabins and the determined girl that she is, she drove the whole way.  It was +7 when left home, so about all she had to worry about was sore thumb.  We were pretty proud of her.  We visited there for 3 hours or so, then headed back and she made 'er back here no problem.  That was her first solo trip and she did awesome.

Here is us going for mail  2 weeks ago.

On The Line

The last couple of weeks in February myself and the kids had a chance to go on the trapline with Paul.  Our beautiful weather gave us an excellant opportunity to see the areas that he was trapping this year.  The first trip we made, we went with him to the "Top of the Mountain Trail" and we couldn't have picked a better day.

The sky was about as blue as a sky can get and as you can see the sun was shining, which hasn't happened much this winter.  Our 3 little trappers had the time of their lives, loving the chance to see what exactly dad did when he was out on the line.  Then a week or so later we went with Paul to pull traps, since the season for most of the animals that we are trapping was ending.  This trip we decided to stay at one of Larry's cabins at 20 mile and stay a few days to break up the trip.  We had 160 km of line to cover and with the kids we figured that we should do it in 2 days.  We loved the little cabin, it housed the 5 of us perfectly and the area was so nice to be at, we could have stayed longer.

This trip took us behind Larry's the first day, and it was new country for me to cover.  I always think that it is so amazing when we travel to the back country like this and see signs of some trapping Larry did years ago. We can tell where his old trail was and even where he put some of his sets.  He of course, didn't have a snowmobile to haul his butt around as we do, he relied in his dogteam and snowshoes to cover the same territory. 

The second day we travelled back up to the top of the mountain and we were seeing fresh wolverine sign a good part of the way near the top.  Both Paul and I new that there was a set ahead that housed some bait and was set especially for a wolverine.  We saw the tracks go to 2 or 3 marten sets and then simply walk by.  As we approached we saw something that I didn't think I would ever see...

A wolverine was right there in front of us, amazing.  Both Paul and I had never seen one until coming here, since we have not caught one of these at our trapline in Alberta.  We have wolf, lynx, marten, weasel, squirrel, mink and fisher, but wolverines no such luck.  This was pretty exciting for us, never mind the kids, they are pretty lucky to see all these things at their ages. 

Well that pretty much topped off our trapping season, there are still a few animals open, but we are pretty happy with our outcome so far: 4 wolverine, 2 lynx, 150 marten, 2 weasels, and lots of squirrels.  We heard the wolves this morning, so maybe that will be the next bg thrill, to see or hear from more of them.

Company from Home

We got our first visitors from home Wednesday and the kids were soooo excited to see faces that they knew from back home come all this way to our neck of the woods.  We had a quick visit from my uncle back in December, and that was equally exciting, but this time the visitors were able to stay.  Four friends and relatives of ours and Tim and Martina came in to go sledding with Tim and Paul.  We went out for our usual mail day expecting the guys to arrive any time in the afternoon, and that they did.  Three of the four guys have come here in the past with Tim and Paul to go sledding at the claim cabin and were surprised to see what an easy trip they had ahead of them this year.  In years past they unload on the side if the road and load their sleds and skimmers and take off breaking trail in all sorts of deep snow conditions.  Sometimes they were even forced to unhook, take what they needed for the night from the skimmers and just try to get to the cabin so they could get some sleep.  Wearing snowshoes while driving the sleds because if you had to get off for some reason you sunk past your waist.  This year was quite a different story as the trail they are using is the trail we use on a weekly basis. And this one is not neglected in the least from the Drag Queen and is very nice to travel.  So within minutes we were all packed up and headed to our home.   They ate supper with us then moved on to the claim cabin for a few days of fun.
This mail day I also put in a grocery order and found out that my kids can actually get excited over fruits and veggies.  I have been trying to use up the frozen and canned that I brought in along with supplementing that  supply with a little fresh stuff from the store  But we all know that fresh is the best, and when you are over 3 hours from the nearest grocery store with an ample supply, we tend to go without a little more than I would have back home.  And taking it home here is a different story when travelling by snowmobile.  We have 3 of the good 5-6 day coolers that we warm up in the cabin overnight, then we put hot water bottles in them to keep them warm for the trip and to keep the produce from freezing before we get home.  And this grocery order was primarily produce and a little dairy, so I didn't want to see anything get ruined.  We were just talking about an article that one of us read that said 40% of produce bought is thrown in the garbage at home.  Well I can honestly say, not here.  The wasting of such a precious thing does not happen at our house, the kids have been eating nothing but the fresh stuff since we got it home.  They devoured the strawberries as soon as they spotted them and I could wash them, then moved on to the grapes.  I think I'll have to put in orders for freshies a little more often! 

A Few Projects Paul Has Been Working On

These are the 2 drags Paul has built for him and Tim to pull behind their sleds.  The "Drag Queens",

 make the trails smooth like highways.

 

Here is the Teeter Totter

These 2 benches for around the campfire were made from a curved tree hanging out over a bank.  Pretty nice work.

Over 1000

Well I have offically put 1200 kms on my sled so far this year, and Paul is over 4500 kms on his.  Paul's higher numbers are due to the trapline days, when he goes out checking and I stay home with the kids. 
We, along with the friends from the valley, finally punched through the trail we were working on and have used it already a few times in the past few weeks.  It was a lot of hard work but worth it, now we can come out on part of the road in the valley near our friends house.  We are then about 15 miles from town.  We moved our truck to near that spot and have it to travel the rest of the way to town and make our many visiting stops that we do on mail day.  The kids like the break from the snowmobiles and enjoy the truck time.
Speaking of mail day, Martina and I were staring wide-eyed at some of the other ladies mail.  On some of our recent visits with them, we couldn't help but notice their gardening catalogues.  And low and behold, they are already receiving their orders.  We are so envious of them.  Most of the ladies in the valley have quite nice garden spots and with a farmer in the valley, even have black dirt and manure!  
We have one more week of trapping for marten, wolverine and a few others, we are at 147 marten and 3 wolverine now.  All the other numbers are the same.