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12-10-2014, 01:33 AM
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Gone Hunting
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: North of Peace River
Posts: 11,343
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Old trapping photos
I thought some of you might like to have a look at some old trapping photos.
I don't have many. Film were a luxury we couldn't afford very often.
I have a couple with me in them as well but I couldn't find them in this electronic maze. Maybe later if I can find them.
So here's most of the old trapping photos I have.
Dad's trapping partner with a few Wolves and a couple of Coyotes
Uncle Eldon with a Lynx.
Not sure who this is. All I know is that it was taken in front of Jack Loftgardners house.
Dad on the homestead. Those are beaver stretchers in the background.
Dad fleshing a Beaver hide, circa 1976 or about then.
Dad sewing the hide into a loop stretcher.
Dad and my baby brother. Circa 1964. The ever present beaver stretchers hanging on the old log shack. This is the house I grew up in.
The Dogs are Jype and Ripper. Funny I can remember that after all these years and I can't remember what I did yesterday.
Well, that's all I have for now.
__________________
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
George Bernard Shaw
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12-10-2014, 01:44 AM
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 718
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Excellent images Sir!
Thank you for taking the time and effort to bring such a poignant (In that things aren't quite such a way for the most part today) piece of your Family's past here to A.O. These are something special, much appreciated.
Thank You
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12-10-2014, 02:41 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Glendon
Posts: 238
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Thanks for sharing the awesome pictures Keg.
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Lead in the air is hope.
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12-10-2014, 07:22 AM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: In a house
Posts: 7,770
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cool
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12-10-2014, 08:16 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: North of you!
Posts: 680
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Thanks for sharing.
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12-10-2014, 08:56 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Calgary
Posts: 695
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great stuff!
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12-10-2014, 10:24 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: central Alberta
Posts: 12,630
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Thank you for sharing. The good old days. Wish they were still here.
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___________________________________________
This country was started by voyagers whose young lives were swept away by the currents of the rivers for ten cents a day... just for the vanity of the European's beaver hats. ~ Red Bullets
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It is when you walk alone in nature that you discover your strengths and weaknesses. ~ Red Bullets
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12-10-2014, 12:02 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Copperhead Road, Morinville
Posts: 19,289
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Great thread/pictures, Keg! I'd add to the pictures but my oldest trapping photo is only less than a year old.....lol!
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12-10-2014, 12:57 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 8,549
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Awesome Keg.
Thanks for posting up.
BW
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12-10-2014, 02:06 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 84
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Thanks for sharing.
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12-10-2014, 02:11 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: In a tree near ALTA
Posts: 3,061
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Great pictures, thanks for showing them,
I like the Savage 99 leaning against the log wall.
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12-10-2014, 06:53 PM
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Gone Hunting
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: North of Peace River
Posts: 11,343
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elkdump
Great pictures, thanks for showing them,
I like the Savage 99 leaning against the log wall.
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That gun is the first rifle my dad ever bought. It was in .250 3,000 Savage.
Later just called the .250 savage. It was the first cartridge that managed to exceed the 3,000 fps barrier, which is why they added the 3,000 to the name.
It was quiet an accomplishment in it's day.
The rifle was bought brand new in Edmonton in 1938. Dad was 30 years old and at the time he was working for Gainers Meats on the North side.
He bought the rifle to use on Moose in the Codotte Lake area east of the town of Peace River, which is where his brother Eldon trapped.
The cabin is Uncle Eldon's line cabin.
Dad shot his first Moose with that rifle around Christmas that year, but he wasn't impressed with the rifles performance on Moose so he sold it in the spring.
Because of his experience with that 250 3000, dad never bought another small caliber rifle for big game. For the rest of his life he stuck to .303 in one form or another. He did own a .22 mag he used for Beaver. I own that rifle now.
A few years after that photo was taken uncle Eldon returned to Nova Scotia where he and Dad was raised. Shortly after he returned he took ill and died. I don't recall now what disease he had but I remember that it was one of those diseases that we get inoculated for. But back then there was no immunization and a lot of folks died from it, including my uncle.
He died long before I was born. I never got to know him except through stories my dad used to tell.
Its kinda strange too because almost the same thing happened to me and my brother. Only he died of exposure on the trap line.
He was my best friend and constant companion. We hunted and fished and trapped together till I left home to go to high school.
I was in high school in Wetaskiwin when my brother died. That was on January 20 1973.
I will never forget that day.
This is Ben, the year before he died. As always, he's clowning around.
This time with a Weasel and Fisher that dad had trapped.
__________________
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
George Bernard Shaw
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12-10-2014, 07:28 PM
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Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 3,550
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this is a great thread...thanks for sharing
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12-10-2014, 07:48 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 957
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My favourite thread this year.
Thanks very much for it.
Very sorry to hear the story about your Brother.
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12-10-2014, 08:00 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: near insanity
Posts: 836
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Really like to read your posts Keg. Something I start to look forward to everyday. A Lot of great knowledge being shared. Thanks.
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Somewhere between ragged and right. Like a bus load of taxi drivers learning how to fly.
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12-10-2014, 08:02 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 76
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Awesome pictures and story, thanks for sharing.
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12-10-2014, 08:04 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 47
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Thanks cool pics
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12-10-2014, 08:23 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 8,549
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Better and better
Keg this thread gets better and better with each of your posts.
Thanks again
BW
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12-10-2014, 08:50 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Cochrane
Posts: 764
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Sounding like a broken record but it is s great post. Thank you.
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12-10-2014, 09:16 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 970
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From what I have read you have forgotten more about trapping and the line than I have learned. Great info great pics.
Thanks
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12-10-2014, 10:55 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Birch Mt to Fort Vermilion
Posts: 937
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Great pics and story to go with it, really enjoy hearing
of the past in the north country.
Found it interesting the Wolf pelts in summer. Did they not sell them
to a fur buyer, or kept the pelts for their own use?
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12-11-2014, 06:45 AM
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Gone Hunting
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: North of Peace River
Posts: 11,343
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jim summit
Great pics and story to go with it, really enjoy hearing
of the past in the north country.
Found it interesting the Wolf pelts in summer. Did they not sell them
to a fur buyer, or kept the pelts for their own use?
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I believe that photo was taken in the spring, just after things turned green.
And that would have been in the 1940s
Because travel was so time consuming it was normal for a trapper to spend the winter trapping and then haul his take to town to sell it in the spring.
Back then roads didn't exist up here. Travel routes were wagon trails through the bush.
Those wagon trails would be a mess in early spring making travel next to impossible, plus rivers had to be forded (no bridges) which made travel difficult at best for many trappers, until things dried up a bit.
I remember the first real road in to Carcajou, which is where we lived back then. They started construction in 1964, they reached the flat in 1966.
The flat was what we called the river valley. It was rich soil and when the first settlers arrived it was natural prairie ground, all be it a very small prairie.
It was such areas that the first settlers developed for farming, (homesteads) because there were no trees to clear. All one had to do was plow the ground and plant a crop.
No one had brush clearing equipment back then. farm equipment had to be pulled in by horses or shipped down the river on the D.A. Thomas. The D. A. was a paddle wheel river boat that run the Peace River for many years.
It was retired a few years before I was born. Last I heard the motor (steam engine) and boiler from the D. A. were at the Provincial Museum in Edmonton.
A lot of trappers would ride the D. A. to their trapping area in the fall and then catch her on her first trip south in the spring, to get to town to sell their furs. That was usually in late may from what I remember. Stories I heard.
Hence the fur in hand with green grass and leaves on the trees.
__________________
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
George Bernard Shaw
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12-11-2014, 07:28 AM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Grande Cache
Posts: 594
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Great thread, love reading stories like this of the past.
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12-11-2014, 08:43 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 8,549
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KegRiver
I believe that photo was taken in the spring, just after things turned green.
And that would have been in the 1940s
Because travel was so time consuming it was normal for a trapper to spend the winter trapping and then haul his take to town to sell it in the spring.
Back then roads didn't exist up here. Travel routes were wagon trails through the bush.
Those wagon trails would be a mess in early spring making travel next to impossible, plus rivers had to be forded (no bridges) which made travel difficult at best for many trappers, until things dried up a bit.
I remember the first real road in to Carcajou, which is where we lived back then. They started construction in 1964, they reached the flat in 1966.
The flat was what we called the river valley. It was rich soil and when the first settlers arrived it was natural prairie ground, all be it a very small prairie.
It was such areas that the first settlers developed for farming, (homesteads) because there were no trees to clear. All one had to do was plow the ground and plant a crop.
No one had brush clearing equipment back then. farm equipment had to be pulled in by horses or shipped down the river on the D.A. Thomas. The D. A. was a paddle wheel river boat that run the Peace River for many years.
It was retired a few years before I was born. Last I heard the motor (steam engine) and boiler from the D. A. were at the Provincial Museum in Edmonton.
A lot of trappers would ride the D. A. to their trapping area in the fall and then catch her on her first trip south in the spring, to get to town to sell their furs. That was usually in late may from what I remember. Stories I heard.
Hence the fur in hand with green grass and leaves on the trees.
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Keg you need to write a book about this. Your writing skills and story telling abilities are second to no one.
Thanks again,
BW
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12-11-2014, 12:41 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: central Alberta
Posts: 12,630
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BigWoodsMan is right Keg. You most likely do have a book full and best of all you have pictures to relate your stories to. Save some of your stories for the book.
The thing is that most young people today can't even fathom the hardships and triumphs of those past times. You have come from some of the biggest transitions in time...From the newhouse to the conibear. From your full moon in the honey closet to the first man on the moon, from the radio days to the computer age, from trail to pavement.
Those times become forgotten if they aren't written down. (hint hint) I would enjoy coming to your book signing at a bookstore.
just in fun...
(You mention going to school in Wetaskiwin back in the early 70's... any stories about the live bands and dances at Mameo beach? haha )
__________________
___________________________________________
This country was started by voyagers whose young lives were swept away by the currents of the rivers for ten cents a day... just for the vanity of the European's beaver hats. ~ Red Bullets
___________________________________________
It is when you walk alone in nature that you discover your strengths and weaknesses. ~ Red Bullets
Last edited by Red Bullets; 12-11-2014 at 12:55 PM.
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12-11-2014, 01:00 PM
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: moving to quesnel
Posts: 3,013
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thanks so much jim
__________________
Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.......Ben Franklin
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12-11-2014, 01:07 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Calgary
Posts: 695
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awesome of you to share the story and photo of your brother
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12-11-2014, 03:34 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 9,813
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Great thread Keg. Your brother sounds like he was a lot of fun. If you feel like sharing some stories of you and your brother please do, I bet you could write a book about you and your brother growing up in that era.
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12-11-2014, 04:54 PM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: In a house
Posts: 7,770
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Great stuff here Keg. I think a book would be a great idea if not for us but for your family before all the stories dissapear over time. My wife scrapbooks mine so I imagine 200 years from now people will have a good read and some interesting pictures to look at.
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12-11-2014, 05:05 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Stony Plain.
Posts: 2,495
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This is an awesome thread. Some great pics and stories.
__________________
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
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