Beaver Trapping by TrapperGord

This last two weeks I have been setting beaver traps under the ice in northern Alberta, Canada.  Weather conditions up here have been especially rough this year with very cold temperatures, deep heavy snows, flood ice and strong winds.

It certainly could be a lot worse but since I started setting traps the temperature has bounced between -22 to -32 Celsius.  With a constant wind that brings the overall chill factor closer to -35-45C.  Under these conditions if a person isn’t careful it doesn’t take very long at all to freeze any exposed skin.  I always want to laugh when I hear a radio announcer say it is -25 but with the wind it feels like -35.  The truth is if you are outside and it feels like -35 and you are not properly prepared for the cold it will only feel like -35 for a short while and then it won’t feel like anything at all.  Until you start to thaw out and then that frostbitten flesh is going to hurt like hell.

Most of the beaver ponds I’m trapping are fairly shallow with about four to six feet of water in them, and because of the three to four feet of insulating snow on top the ice thickness around the beaver houses ranges from a just few inches to about a foot thick.  Most of these ponds are grassy sloughs so each winter the grass decays and it creates Hydrogen Sulphide Gas (H2S).  Over winter the water turns very black, brackish, and smelly.  The gas often creates open spots in the ice that are not readily visible under the snow until you’re almost on top of them.

The snow is so deep this year that while I can find beaver houses it is hard to tell if they are active.  My procedure at each new spot is to run my sled in a big circle near each house and then stop on my track the second time around. If i didn’t do this I couldn’t get going again due to the deep, heavy powdery snow.  Once I have a beaten down trail I take my needle bar, a six foot long piece of cold roll steel with a forged triangular chisel on one end and a ring welded on the other and I cautiously approach the beaver house probing the ice every step until I get to the house.  I then go around the house feeling with my feet and needle bar until I locate the beaver’s food raft.  I usually kick or shovel enough snow away to uncover part of the food raft and determine if it is vegetation from this past fall.  Once I know that the beaver house is occupied I shovel a trail around the house or clear snow away from a few points near the food raft.

Using my trusty needle bar I chisel openings through the ice large enough to set a trap through.  Nearly always the first time I open up the ice the water gushes out due to the immense weight of the snow pressing down on the ice.  I often wonder if reducing the pressure on the water makes it easier for the beaver down there to get around.  It’s just an amusing thought that often comes to mind while I’m standing up top in a few inches of black smelly water. If the ice is thin the warm water quite often enlarges the hole very rapidly and under a few inches of dark water any hole gets harder to see and a lot of care has to be taken to make sure that I don’t accidentally go through.

This last week I have mostly been making sets around the food rafts.  I am hanging Belisle Super X 330’s and Sauvageau 2001-12’s for traps with various fresh baits down in close to the food rafts. I have sales for the castor, pelts and carcasses which all together should give me a pretty good price for each beaver. Like everything with trying to make a living trapping it comes down to numbers.

The Beaver population has exploded in this area and have flooded hundreds of square miles with their activity. By mid March I should be running about 150 traps under the ice. Between chopping holes in the ice, skinning beaver and setting a few wolf traps I’m going to be pretty busy for the next couple of months. It’s a good thing that the days are beginning to get longer up here.