Trapping for the Love of it

Stan Beardy 31, Chief of Muskrat Dam is an enthusiastic part-time trapper. Stan says he needs to get away from the pressures of paperwork and decision-making (he is also an assistant to Commissioner Dennis Cromarty of the Nishnawbe-Aski Commission) and all the demands on a chief's time and attention. Stan goes out to a trapline about twenty-five miles from the village. He was taught by Allan Beardy whom he considers to be a "really good full-time trapper."
On a bitter winter morning at 8:30, Stan heads out. Accompanying him is Larry Beardy, a young man home for the Christmas holidays from Sault Ste Marie. Larry is in grade 12 and hopes to study electronics. He also hopes to learn something of the traditional northern pursuit of trapping.
When they start out on two skidoos, it is -36c. The sky is clear, an indication that it's not going to warm up very much. They head north, up the long arm of Muskrat Dam Lake to an area of muskeg and beaver swamp between Rat Dam and the village of Bearskin.
Stan and Larry begin checking marten traps along the way, travelling quickly down the Windigo bush trail, then off the main trail and into the thick spruce bush. Stan says he goes through a skidoo a year and the reason is readily apparent: if there is no trail, he simply rams his machine into the bush head-on until it gives way or he does. Great lumps of snow, branches, spruce cones, twigs and moss come cascading down on anyone unlucky enough to be following behind. After crashing full tilt into the bush for several miles, Stan leads the party on foot to a muskeg creek, whose current is strong enough to maintain open water. There, from under the thin ice, he pulls out a conibear trap with an adult beaver in it.
Stan drags the beaver through fine powder snow in order to dry the fur and then re-sets the trap.
Farther back behind a beaver dam, they retrieve an otter. Stan drapes it over his arm like a pet cat and takes off to pick up the beaver, attaches a cord from the beaver's hind leg to a front one on the same side and uses the cord like a tumpline to carry the beaver on his back. He puts the otter on his head.
Checking more marten traps, Stan and Larry laughingly reset the ones which are empty and dab a concoction on it which Stan calls his "secret marten formula".
The men find two marten and a mink. Conibear traps kill the underwater animals instantly, but the marten, mink, lynx, etc. are not so lucky. Held by the leghold jaws, they die of exposure and exhaustion, and are usually found curled up.
Their time in the bush is what most part-time trappers look forward to–open air, a good fire, hot tea and frozen sandwiches. Stan and Larry tear down the dead spruce. They soon have a fire roaring on the frozen beaver swamp and hot tea and roasted turkey sandwiches to revive them. Temperatures are dropping and the tops of the spruce are showing the bright red of sunset light as the men head home at full speed.
New Year's Eve at 6:30 P.M., the sky is already dark, the two men roll into Muskrat Dam.
"Pretty good haul for one day" comments Stan.
After ten hours in sub-zero temperatures, fifty-mile round trip by snowmobile and digging out at least seven traps with ice-chisel and shovel, he says eagerly, "Now when's that square dance going to start?"