Running traps with Dad

By Rebecca Lindquist

A couple weeks ago, when everything was covered with frozen fog granules, it reminded me of running traps with my dad. Most trapping seasons range from mid-October to early November. Dad trapped for muskrats, mink, otter, beaver, raccoon, fox and coyote.

There isn’t anything more exhilarating or breathtaking, than waking up at the crack of dawn, driving through the still countryside to check the locations where traps are set. Walking along tree-lined, abandoned railroad tracks that are covered with frost, with steam rising from them, as the sun slowly peeks over the treetops to warm them.

The mornings were so serene and in the quiet solitude, cows could be heard in the distance, softly mooing, while cowbells heralded their release from the barn after an early morning milking. Blue jays called, “thief, thief,” while chickadees called to each other.

I have such wonderful memories of the time I spent with Dad on these excursions. I felt so special, because he always asked me to go with him on the weekends, when I didn’t have school and he didn’t have to work. In retrospect, I realize I was his last resort.

My brother, Tim, worked a 3 a.m. bakery shift, and my sister, Bethie, babysat. I was chosen, because Dad needed someone along to carry all the additional paraphernalia necessary for a successful run. Willow trapping baskets weigh approximately 3 pounds empty, but when filled with trapping gauntlet gloves, additional traps, scent lures, a large thermos of water, a flashlight, pliers and tin snips, the shoulder straps cut through the layers of warm clothing mercilessly.

The gun probably would have been stowed in there, too, but Dad was fully cognizant of my lack of coordination. His reasoning for me carrying the basket, was because it was tiring to walk all that distance loaded down with supplies while wearing hip boots, necessary when setting traps in ponds or streams. To be fair, he would carry the basket on the return trip if we caught anything.

Dad was definitely born in the wrong era. He loved reading about Jim Bridger, an American mountain man, trapper and wilderness guide, who explored and trapped in the western United States, in the early 1800s. Dad’s life-long dream was to be self-sufficient, by building a log cabin, growing his own food, hunting, trapping to tan the pelts to make clothes and live off the land in the remote wilderness.

He was enamored with a trilogy of movies, filmed in the late 1970s, The Adventures of the Wilderness Family, based on a true story of a construction worker who was concerned for his daughter’s health and fed up with the hectic L.A. scene. He and his wife move, with their two children, to the Rocky Mountains and build a cabin.

The adventures include adopting various wild animal babies and the obstacles they experience living away from civilization. I learned to dread when the movies aired, as Dad would have to watch them EVERY time. In my opinion, the movies seemed far-fetched and somewhat unrealistic.

The mom sewed her own clothes and was frequently shown wearing a long patchwork skirt to perform mundane every day tasks. For instance, a long flowing garment, worn while cooking over a roaring campfire, seems appropriate and not at all likely to catch on fire.

Doesn’t everyone choose to dress up for a day of foraging in the dense forest, to collect kindling for the cook stove and traipsing through the thorn-infested thicket to pick berries? I know I do.

During one scene in the movie, the family is chased by wolves. How in the world can you expect to run and make a safe getaway, hampered by yards of fabric tangling round your ankles? The mom may as well have just flopped down on the ground and stuck an apple in her mouth, and let the buffet commence.

Then, the family adopted two orphan grizzly bear cubs. I’m not a wildlife expert, but it appears to me the cubs are not about to be amenable and meekly follow a human home. Unless they were hopeful of partaking of the mom buffet?

The family’s nearest neighbor was a grizzled old trapper who had raised a grizzly bear from a cub and that bear would wander over to visit periodically. Every time it stood up on its hind legs, the children would run to hug it.

Not that I’m skeptical, but I wouldn’t trust a wild bear, raised by humans or not, that wants to “hug” me. I was just waiting for it to go rogue and chew off their faces.

Dad sat enthralled every time he watched the movies, even though he had seen them a dozen or more times. I love how passionate he was about his dream and still smile when I come across one of the movies playing on TV. There’s something to be said about living such a peaceful and uncomplicated life, and I think I would enjoy it immensely.

Just don’t expect me to hug a grizzly bear or wear a long patchwork skirt.