How to get your items needed for 7 months to your camp
Trappers who spend most of their time in the bush throughout the year rely on friends to help out with things like picking up items on sale at Canadian Tire (every dollar counts, since gas and flights are mighty expensive!), filling and taking a few drums of fuel to the plane that’s picking them up in April or collecting mail etc.
How about communication?
Xplornet is no longer a viable tool for me in the North, but lucky for me, Starlink has stepped in so we can order items over the internet that are not available in the Yukon. But many parcels won’t be delivered to our postal box, so we’re glad they will be delivered to our helping friends’ houses in Whitehorse.
Four months is the maximum time that we are back in “civilization”—this is not a lot of time when having to organize supply trips back to the trapline.
Keeping it all together
For many years now I have been working with Excel inventory lists: I can see exactly how many kilos of flour, sugar etc. we have for the upcoming winter trapping season. Then in April before coming back to town, I head down into the cellar to count what’s left. Then we make a new shopping list right away and the first time we are back in Whitehorse we are shopping for next winter again.
This year, for instance, there is no more Fruit Punch nor Nesquick to be found anymore (glad I still have 3 tins of the latter in the cellar to make Nesquick pudding. Yum!). It would also get uncomfortable if, in the middle of winter, we’d run out of coffee, sugar or toilet paper! I always have a list on the go of the specialty items we’ll need like tools, replacement parts and the like.
We are in a fortunate place (geographically) to be able to supply our trapline by boat. It’s a long way upriver but still cheaper than having to fly everything in. We just did such a boat trip recently. We got up at 5 a.m., left at 7 a.m. and started out on the river at noon. The weighed and marked cardboard and Rubbermaid boxes were loaded, tarped and secured the evening before (we also know what’s in each box). It’s a good idea to know how much weight the boat can handle, otherwise one has to stop and unload something only to pick up later with the second load.
We also wear yellow safety glasses, hearing protection and life vests. We try not to go onto the river when the Spring runoff is still going on, at high water, because the sticks and dirt could plug up the boat’s jet intake. If that happens, then the motor loses power. Having to stop and clean it might mean 15 minutes less driving time. If some other trouble arises, like the fuel pump quitting on you, then there’s more time lost. One doesn’t necessarily want to camp out on the river, except if that was the plan all along of course. On the one hand it’s ok, since we get to enjoy a summer of light until midnight, but make no mistake; the mosquitoes and black flies will find you!
We carry rain gear, a change of clothes, a First Aid Kit and food. Don’t forget the paddles! Pack more than enough gas! There’s nothing worse than having to turn back or even becoming stranded.
We saw some amazing things on the river that week: blooming fireweed, Common Merganser, Canada Geese, a moose cow and calf, a belted Kingfisher, many sandpipers and swallowtail butterflies. The birds like the river to raise their young. We are happy when not getting hit by rain, thunderstorms or wind.
It can also be really difficult to “read” a river—meaning one can’t properly see the river’s main water flow—and therefore might drive into the wrong channel (a river changes every spring and all of a sudden you can drive by a new logjam or can’t use the channel used last summer). But the worst thing on a river is when the sun is low and is glaring off the water. Especially when going downriver as it could get dangerous when you can’t see very shallow spots. One could easily get stuck on a gravel bar.
I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it.
William Shakespeare “As you like it”
Making it home safely
We are very happy indeed, every time, when we make it to our location. We will walk up to camp, check for grizzly signs, open up the door and shutters and put up the mosquito netting over the bed. Then we will have a light supper of noodle salad or bread, cheese and smoked moose meat, then it’s bedtime. We usually unload the boat the next morning.
This blog post was first published as a column in Whatsupyukon.com.
If you want to know about the Air Charters we depend on, check out Alkan Air and Northern Rockies Air.