I got out trapping with Nick yesterday. He traps most of the same country that I did when I trapped marten near Juneau. I did it almost entirely solo. Nick had his brother run the boat for him while he got dropped off to walk up the beach and make 2 sets in the woods right near the beach at each stop.  His brother was out of town yesterday, so I lucked out and got to run the boat while he checked his traps.

The first check is usually the best, especially trapping how we do here. You may still get more marten in subsequent checks, but not likely as many. Futhermore, this stretch of beach dictates where you can set your traps by both the prevailing winds and the makeup of the beach. You can’t set on a beach if the waves may be too big to allow the checker to get on and off the boat at the beach, and you don’t set on a beach with rocks that are too big to walk up to the woods. So, you set this beach, make two or three trips to check the traps, and expect that you’ve caught the marten you’re going to get there this year. Then it’s time to pull your traps for the season, or move them to another location, which isn’t all that feasible due to the distance and exposure to other promising marten locations for the weekend trapper. Or in Nick’s case, you change your furbearer target, and go after beaver.

Like deer hunting on the major islands in Southeast Alaska, the harvest pressure from Juneau’s small population cause long term decline in the marten population.  We harvest marten and deer along the coast – marten usually within 50 yards of the beach, and deer not much more than a mile from the beach, for the most part. Except for Douglas Island and the road on Admiralty Island from Young Bay to the mine, the closest roads (from the logging days) are some 50 miles or more from Juneau. The wildlife harvested near the beach will be back-filled by the virtually untouched populations inland from the beach that are not subject to harvest by man. Population fluctuations are mostly influenced by such things as snow levels, and predator and prey populations.

I met Nick at the boat launch around sunrise at about 740 am to find a coating of ice on the ramp. The temperature is about 20 degrees.  We used our feet and a piece of 2 by 4 drift wood to break up the ice so his truck had traction to launch the boat. Once we got the boat into the water, there was a half inch of ice in the harbor, too. So more breaking up the ice using the pike pole, then tying off the boat and using the prop wash, and then pulling the boat back until the ice held it again, and repeat. An hour after we arrived, we were finally off.

The morning skies were clear and blue. The sun just coming up over the mountains behind town. I realized as we left the harbor and picked up speed that I’d forgot a facemask. I cinched my marten fur trapper hat down tight around my ears,  pulled my jacket hood up over the hat, tucked my nose under the front of my jacket, used the windshield on the otherwise open skiff as a windblock, and gritted my teeth.  We passed a lone troller as we rounded the island. It was my old friend Matt, out fishing for a winter king salmon on his commercial boat.  I met Matt when he towed me on the Dutch Master with his little double-ender El Nido into the Funter Bay dock when I ran out of fuel so many years ago and we’ve been friends ever since.

The seas were calm and we made easy time. We arrived at Nick’s set furthest from town about 30 minutes later, and I immediately recognized the country. I’d trapped this stretch of beach a decade or more ago. I remembered some of the sets where I caught marten. I remember another day I was setting out my traps on the last day of deer season at one location, and I’d taken in my rifle just in case.  I set my traps, then walked up into the woods about 20 yards and  blew on the deer call. A deer stood up in the snow about 70 yards away. I left the innards of the deer for the freshest bait ever, and had marten in my trap the next time I checked the sets in early January,  At another site on my line, I didn’t return to the boat in time and the tide went out from under it. I spent the next 8 hours in the boat or wandering the beach waiting for the tide to finish going out and come back in.  When the boat finally floated, I idled in the pitch black between rockpiles using the GPS to a spit on an island a half mile away, where I anchored the boat and hiked in to our cabin at midnight.

When I saw Nick coming back down the beach from the first set, I idled back to the beach. He walked out in the water up to his waist in his chest waders, pulled himself over the side of the square bow on his boat, swung a leg over, and flopped into the boat.  Like me, he set two traps at each location. A trap was missing from this site. Remarkably, the patch of woods where he set the trap was bare ground under the canopy, even after the 4 feet of snow we got a few weeks ago, so no tale of what happened to the trap was revealed in snow.

We headed down the beach to the next set. When I saw Nick emerge from the woods this time, I saw a furry tail in the 120 conibear trap he carried. When he got closer to the boat, I saw he held not one, but two traps with marten!  Wow!  The marten are fluffy and beautiful in their brown colored body and yellow throat patch in this sub-freezing weather. If the weather is warmer, they can look like drowned rats, with their fur all matted and tangled from the rain.

Nick takes a spare set of traps with him when he checks his sets so if he connects on a marten, he can bring the marten back, trap and all, to let it thaw out first so he doesn’t damage the fur trying to remove it while it’s frozen. He replaces that trap with the spare one he carries with him. The next set was another double!  Wow.  We now had 4 marten in the boat and some 30 more traps to check. We were both wondering how long this success could continue.

It didn’t take long to know we weren’t going to get a double at every set. Or even a single. The next 3 or 4 sets had nothing. Nick rebaited these and added more lure. We started getting a marten here and there again, and by early afternoon,  had a nice pile in the boat. Three of the last four sets were in spots a bit exposed to wind coming out of a mountain pass. I managed to find a spot to get him into the beach and back off again, and he got all his traps checked.

It was mid day, and we had the option of checking his shrimp and crab pots. My feet and hands were cold by now (Nick was, if anything, overheated from his workout). Nick wanted to get home before sundown, as his driveway ices up and makes it tricky to get his boat and trailer back to it’s parking spot. So, we decided not to check the pots. And that was a good thing, as the Coast Guard needed something to do. With no other non-commercial boats out on the water, they came by and checked us. A young Coastie – obviously not an Alaskan – asked “you boys out for a joy ride?”. I controlled my laughter to think we’d just take a ride in an open boat miles and miles from town in 20 degree weather. I  said “No, we’re trapping”. That peaked the crew’s interest. All of the boat crew were 20-somethings and interested in what we were doing. Nick handed one of the crew our paperwork and showed him our life jackets and other safety gear. As that crewman filled out paperwork, Nick showed the rest of the crew the marten and the traps and answered their questions. Nick said he gets checked about this time every year, since he’s the only one out and about. When the Coastie’s left, we were now really glad we hadn’t checked the pots, as we were going to get in close to nightfall after the delays of chipping ice at sunrise and a friendly check by the Coast Guard late in the day.

Matt was still fishing when we came back by him, so I pulled the boat alongside to show him our catch and introduce him to Nick. Matt is born and raised in Juneau, and I knew he’d enjoy seeing the marten, and the comraderie of the only other boat out on the water he’d see that also happened to be a friend. He said the Coasties hadn’t checked him and figured it was because he was a commercial boat. Might be they already checked him another time.

We got to the ramp, got Nick’s boat on the trailer, and I waddled my way to the car in my winter garb and boots. I was soon home and as always, the warmth from the woodstove never felt so nice nor the coffee taste so good.

Photo: Nick Orr

I have a scoop “grain” shovel and a sleigh push shovel for moving snow. I mostly use the scoop shovel since you can’t throw snow with a sleigh shovel. Roy was here from Haines, America on his way to Florida and a new hip. He and Brenda got stuck here with us in Juneau for several days during a 4 foot dump of snow. He helped me shovel off the roof, and both of our shovels broke in the process. We repaired them, but I knew I’d better get another set because winter is just starting.

Every store in town was sold out of shovels. Home Depot said maybe they’d get some in at the end of the week, but they weren’t sure.  So I thought I’d better airfreight some down from Anchorage, as another foot of snow was on the way. I found Home Depot there had plenty, so I asked my nieces and nephews and Peace Corps friend Roxanne in Anchorage if they could pick them up for me and get them to Alaska Air Cargo, and all said yes. Since there’s minimum freight charges for freight (e.g., you get charged for 50 lbs whether you send a pound or 50 lbs), I thought I’d put a post on Facebook and Craigslist saying I was going to bring some shovels down and see if anyone else was interested so we all could share the freight charges and make the freight cost per shovel manageable. I looked on Alaska Air Cargo’s freight cost estimator, and, as best I could, guessed what the costs might be based on shovel size and weight. The sleigh shovels were $50 at Home Depot, to which I added $25 in freight cost, and the scoop shovels were $44, to which I added $16, so the totals would be round numbers of $75 and $60. Hopefully I wouldn’t lose my shirt on this.

I put the posts out and the phone started ringing. Immediately. Whenever I post for something like this, I clearly state to call me, and many today just can’t. They’ll send me a message. Which I don’t respond to, because I’ve found over the years that many of those that message don’t follow through. Some people tried messaging first, but then started calling when I didn’t respond, while others followed the directions and called straight away.  In 20 minutes I had orders for 22 sleigh shovels and 5 scoop shovels. I took the posts down as soon as I could – while I was still on the phone with the last caller. I did not expect there to be that many, that quickly, and I didn’t know if the Anchorage family could handle so many shovels in their vehicles, etc.

I put my order in to Home Depot for the shovels, along with a roll of Gorilla Tape to tape shovels together if necessary. The kids could get the shovels right then (Sunday) but couldn’t deliver to air cargo the next day til after work. Roxanne, who just retired, said “I’m Retired”, and said she could get the shovels right now and take them to air cargo the next morning. She won.

She called the next morning from the terminal to say that the agent said if I shipped “General” freight, that it might be 5 to 10 days for it to get on a jet from Anchorage to Juneau. Huh?  I’ve shipped moose meat from Bethel to Anchorage to Juneau, and it has beaten me home!  How could it be this long?  Then I figured – must be others doing what I’m doing. The agent said if I shipped “Priority” it SHOULD go out sooner, but could also get bumped. Again, huh??? Why is the fee 30% more and might not matter?

Roxanne then asked for a manager. Roxanne told the manager she was shipping the shovels to me and a bunch of other Juneauites desparate for them – and not to a business. We needed to get down the shovels down here as we already had 4 feet of snow and another foot was on the way. That was all it took!  The manager was originally from Juneau!  So I paid the Priority rate for the shipment and hoped for the best.

I’d taken everyone’s name and phone number down and told people to expect the shovels Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending on if flights made it in, etc. We got another foot of snow on Monday, but the shovels made it in on the morning flight on Tuesday. Bless that manager!  I’d put chains all around on the truck tires and plowed the driveway so I could leave for the airport. Then I texted the group and said I’d be at airfreight in about 45 minutes if they wanted to get their shovels there, or they could pick them up at our house on Douglas Island when I returned, and took off. It took the full 45 minutes to get to the airport, as I only travel at 30 mph max with chains on, and I ended up taking off the front chains as soon as I got over the bridge into town, as tires on all four chains was too much on the mostly snow free Egan highway to the airport.

When I got to air freight, it was a mob scene. All the head-in parking was full, and now there were trucks parallel parked on either side of the roadway in front of the freight office. I thought, crap!  Everyone is here picking up freight like me, and there is going to be a line out the door. But when I got inside, there was no line. Just one other customer. As I waited with my agent to pull up my order, a man came in and asked, “Are you Mark?”  “Yep”, I said. Then it hit me: all those people lined up along the road were there to get their shovels!  All but one of them beat me to the airport.

I paid for the freight and pretty soon, people were helping me open the boxes and then throwing cash at me or taking down my venmo information until I finally took a breath and realized I better start keeping track of all this. I stopped handing out shovels for a second until I got everyones name and their order and marked down if they gave me cash or venmo. Within a few minutes, everyone had their shovels and it was like it was Christmas and I was Kris Kringle. People seemed so relieved.

When I got home, I contacted those who wanted to get their shovels at the house. They, too, showed up within minutes. Pretty soon, all the shovels were gone, except for one I delivered today to a woman who didn’t dare drive her little car out the snow covered North Douglas highway.

I added up the cost of the shovels and the freight. I collected $1,320 for shovels and an additional $614 for freight. My freight charges were only $600, so I thought- crap, I’ve got a surplus of $14. I sort of felt guilty about having $14 extra dollars. But WAIT!  The gorilla tape was $12!  I can live with a $2 surplus. Which, of course, won’t be at all once I compensate Roxanne with some kind of gift, as she’d never take money.

The most gratifying part of the whole thing was that one of the new shovel owners sent me a message later thanking me for getting the shovels down here, and especially thanking me for not taking advantage of the situation and gouging people with the cost of the shovels. Nice.

Now, time to get back to the shoveling.

Today I’m enjoying one of the things my Dad passed on to me, and that’s putting up firewood. It’s a year-round, part-time commitment to buck and split wood (still by hand in my case, for as long as I can), then stack it to dry. I like to get at least a 2 or 3 year dry on our wood here, since it’s so damp all year. Part of the satisfaction in the process is when I start pulling firewood sticks off the pile at the start of woodburning season and it’s nice and dry. I could probably get away with a 1 year dry, but then I wouldn’t be out cutting wood as often, and that’s part of the addiction, I guess.

I remember when my Dad started getting firewood. He’d started a new job in his 50’s that didn’t require him to be at work all day, everyday, like it did when he owned the Olean House Restaurant for a couple decades. I was about 13 I’d guess. Like most of the old houses in Bolivar, ours was about a century old, big, poorly insulated, and heated by natural gas. Mom and Dad had insulation blown into the walls and the attic to better hold the heat in. Then Dad had a double 55 gallon barrel wood stove built. The stove was in our dirt floor basement, with a chimney going up the side of the house, and the heat from the stove simply went up the ducting already in place for the gas heat system in the house.

Dad loved getting firewood. Mainly because it got him into the woods again, where he hadn’t spent much time since he was a kid growing up hunting and fishing in Blasedell. When we co-owned the restaurant, he might get in a fishing trip to the Georgian Bay in Canada once a year to my Aunt Ruth and Uncle George’s cabin, but that was the extent of his outdoor fun. Now he went to the woods every chance he got. He also formed new friendships with it – all of them outside his earlier circle of mostly restaurant folks and AA. He traded firewood for a new chainsaw from Dave Sisson, who had started a Stihl chainsaw dealership in town, and went is now one of the biggest dealers of all kinds of small machinery in the whole area. Then Dad became friends with a small time logger, who would sell Dad the tops of the hardwood trees he harvested for $25 each. After my brother and I grew up and left the area, he got a firewood cutting buddy close to his own age and they helped each other.

Early on, we split wood with a “sledge and a wedge”. It was kind of tedious work but satisfying, and I liked it. Dad eventually got a wood splitter, which was much easier for him to use, and allowed him to split enough wood to sell to pay the expenses for getting in his own wood. That lead to more friendships with those customers. If I was home and splitting wood for him, I still split by hand, as I found the wood splitter too tedious and slow, even though it may actually have been faster than splitting by hand. And of course, could split all day. I don’t get the same satisfaction using a wood splitter, and still continue to split by hand. Splitting by hand makes the whole process last longer, and that’s a good thing. I’m not in a hurry to get it done, and it’s satisfying to see this year’s wood stack get a little higher and deeper each day. My right shoulder is starting to argue with me about splitting by hand, so I’ve learned to split with my left shoulder in the lead, and I’ll keep at it as long as I can.

Like my Dad, firewood has spawned friendships for me, too. Several years ago, a  neighbor down the road – in his 80’s at the time – had a load of rounds dumped in his driveway, awaiting splitting. I had a full woodshed, and I was still itching to split more wood, so I asked him if he needed his wood split to keep me in a favorite exercise. He said “Mark, I can’t believe you just asked that. I recently had my shoulder repaired. When the doctor said what are you going to do now that your shoulder is repaired and rehabed, I said split fire wood!  The doctor replied that you can never split wood with that shoulder again.”  The surgery may have made his shoulder better, but the shoulder could not withstand wood splitting.  So, now I had more firewood splitting to look forward to. Splitting is by far my favorite part. Bucking up rounds to split and stacking the split wood are just necessary evils to allow me to do the splitting. So when my neighbor said – “all I want you to do is to split the wood – I’ll stack it”, well that just made the job all the better for both of us. It would usually take me 3 or 4 sessions of splitting to finish all of his rounds, then I’d be done til the next year.

Then, one year I saw the rounds and told my neighbor I’d be down to split, and forgot about it for a few days. Next thing I know I see him down there splitting wood!  What are you doing, I asked?  You know you’re not supposed to split wood with your repaired shoulder. “I figured out how to split one handed with my other arm!” he said. And I totally got it!  I left him to his devices. Now he uses a wood splitter, and still putting up his own firewood. I see him at the pool now that I’ve started swimming over the past year, and he’s sort of my model of how to take yourself into your 90’s and still get after it.

We’re in a real doozy of a cold snap in Juneau. The coldest for the longest period I can remember. There’s not many things as satisfying as sitting next to your wood stove with the fan on top going full speed and lots of dry firewood next to it, at the ready when the stove runs low. When I come in from the cold at 0 degrees with the wind blowing and that blast of heat hits me when as I walk in the door, it’s a good feeling. I’ve often wondered how I’d fare if I had to live in a warm climate or I was unable to get in firewood the part of the year when I’m not hunting or fishing or trapping or berry picking or putting up kelp or sea asparagus or smoking and canning stuff. Hopefully, I won’t get to find out.