Campfire Dinner

One of the funnest ways to prepare a meal on the trapline (before the snow falls) or while out camping is to use the campfire.  This is a great way to cook as it doesn't create a lot of dishes to wash, which in my opinion is always a plus! All you need are the ingredients, a knife and cutting board, some heavy duty foil and your campfire. Let me show you how I do it!
First, assemble your ingredients.  I used potatoes, carrots, onions and our favourite trapline food, Spam!  We use Spam or other canned meats a lot. It doesn't need to be refrigerated and it keeps through several freezings as it is left in the cabins over winter.  This was a new variety for us and was really good.

A Look Back

Back in 2011 I wrote a blog post on my other blog "Little Shack on the Hill" just as we were on our trip back home after 2 months on the trapline. I thought I would share it here as it gives a pretty good idea of  'a day in the life' at the cabin. Here is the link to it and I hope you enjoy!  Homeward Bound.

The above photo is the springtime view from the cabin at sunset. The sky is enormous up there and the sunsets are spectacular!  I never get tired of watching the colours.

Trapline Bannock- Recipe

One of my family's favourite things to eat when we are on the trapline ( an occasionally at home at the Little Shack ) is bannock.  For anyone unfamiliar with bannock, it has a very interesting history.  It is originally from Scotland, brought to Canada by early Scottish Fur Traders and is mentioned in early journals dating back to the 1900's. It was adopted by the Aboriginal people and became a traditional Native food.
Originally bannock was made from flour, water and fat. Flour was not always easy to come by in the early days, so other ingredients were used to substitute. Things like ground dried moss and cattails. Sounds yummy, right?
The bannock we use is not nearly so exotic.  I have been using this recipe for many years and have experimented with various addition.  It is the kind of thing you can change up depending on what your preference is.
Making bannock is one of the many things I love about cooking on the trapline. Living out in the middle of nowhere makes it difficult to get to a store. Bread is not an easy thing to transport on ATV or snow machine without it getting squashed! I do make my own bread in my wood cookstove out there, and at home at the Little Shack, but bannock is easy and fast and has a wonderful taste all it's own. It is great with stew, chili, soup, or slathered with butter hot from the pan!  I make extra so we can use them in sandwiches as well. I have added cinnamon, raisons and sugar to the basic recipe for a wonderful 'dessert' type bannock. Grated cheese with oregano or child powder is good too.
Let me teach you how to make Bannock and you can start experimenting yourself! I use a cast iron frying pan for making bannock, but if you do not have one, try what you have, but watch the temperature carefully. A thinner pan will require a lower heat.

BANNOCK

printable recipe

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

2 Tbsp. baking powder

2 tsp. salt

water

cooking oil for frying pan

Plans Change

Have you ever heard the saying "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans"?  Well, God must be ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) these days.
Our usual plans for Fall involve getting ready and leaving for the trapline, usually in the first part of October.  Things were going as we had planned...we had spent a couple of weeks visiting with our grown kids, grandkids and my folks on Vancouver Island, and returned home to the Little Shack the day before Trapper had an appointment for a colonoscopy in Kelowna. After that we would be spending a week getting the house and property ready to be left for the winter and packing to head to the trapline.  This is the part where God laughed.
Trapper's colonoscopy started out pretty routine. They found 3 polyps, removed them, and sent him on his way. I picked him up after they told him to 'walk off' the pain he was experiencing. It wasn't long before he knew there was something wrong.

My Trapline Garden

Although this spring we have experimented with planting potatoes and rhubarb on the trapline, I don't truly have a 'garden'. Usually, we only spend the cold months, so there hasn't been much point in planting things. But, as we are now beginning to spend a couple of the spring months getting work done on trails and cabins, I have been able to enjoy watching the wild flowers appear. I love discovering each new plant as it pokes it's head out of the moss and dirt. Here I share some of my photos from this spring.

Trapline Life Lowdown

Being a trapper's wife is not all glamour and glory. Lol! Far from it! In my 'away from the trapline' life, I'm pretty average.  I have a house with running water, washer/dryer, bathroom, electricity...But here on the trapline all that changes. We have 2 log cabins which we use. One is pretty small at about 15' x 10'. It has some crude shelves, a sink and 2 burner propane stove from an old tent trailer, a double size bunk bed, and an old puffin' billy wood heater. We use this cabin as a staging place for making the trek out to the main cabin. Here we can rest up for a day or 2 after the long drive North, organize our supplies for the haul in and also land here on our way out or for nights after a trip in to civilization. We've spent time this spring putting a tin roof on it as well as jacked it up to put new supports under it. It's now ready for next trapping season.

Our main cabin is where we spend the majority of our time. It is much bigger with separate rooms for living and sleeping. Here we keep our trapline clothes, a good stock of canned and dried foods, books, videos, and other essentials. We have a small generator here that is used to charge our 12-volt battery bank and run power tools when needed. We also have solar panels to keep things charged.