Adventure on the Trapline

This took place 2 years ago after we had been at the cabin for 2 months and were heading home. I shared this with our Facebook friends in bits and pieces, and my father in law was kind enough to save it all and make it into a single document. (Thanks, Ken!)

Our last full day here. Looking forward to home, showers, flush toilets, and mostly seeing family! But...we will miss our wilderness home too. The peace, quiet and simplicity of life here is something hard to find these days. As I type this, we are in the midst of a 'snowfall warning'. We've gotten a fresh couple inches so far, with more coming down. Hoping it doesn't add any problems to our trip out tomorrow. Off to pack things away out of mice-harm, give the chickadees and whiskey jacks all the leftover perishables, and then clean. Love to all!

Moose Meat!

Every couple of years while we are on the trapline, the Trapper shoots a moose which will last our dwindling family at least a year, if not more.  We have shared the meat with our grown daughter's families this past year as well. Game meat is so much better for you than store bought, not containing any growth hormones or other crap! It is super lean. This means we usually cook it slowly and with moisture. It can be tough, so we marinate and tenderize. You learn to cook it differently than beef.
Because we get our moose on the trapline the weather dictates how we deal with it. Most years it has already started to go below zero and snow is on the ground. That means we can't hang our moose to age the meat, which needs to be done in a fairly controlled environment to be sure it doesn't spoil.  If it is already below freezing we need to get it cut up and packaged before the whole thing freezes solid and we end up with one big hunk of frozen meat.  This happened one year when the Trapper shot the moose and then had to leave it for a few days before we could go get it. It got really cold and we ended up with 4 quarters of frozen moose meat we had to deal with. It was not fun. We tried cutting it several ways and ended up using an electric chainsaw oiled with cooking oil. Not very good for cutting steaks. In the end we had a lot of ground moose. Good thing we like ground moose!
Our last moose is now almost gone, and as we weren't able to go to the trapline this fall due to the Trapper's medical issues (link to that post) we are in the process of doing something we have been meaning to do for awhile. Grinding up the scraps. When we butcher the moose on the trapline (we have NEVER paid someone else to cut up our meat) we do it all in our cabin. No running water, with only the power we gather from the sun or our generator. We have it down to an art. We spread a clean tarp over the coffee table, down onto the floor around it. The Trapper has already cut the moose into manageable sized pieces, usually quarters. Which, for those of you who are unfamiliar with butchering, means cutting it in half across the middle both ways. Each quarter contains a leg. From these quarters we first have to remove the hide and as much stray hair as we can. I dislike this part the most. The hair on a moose is thick and stiff. I don't like hair in my meat! So I am meticulous about cleaning it off.  After we have it as clean as we can get it, it goes into the cabin. Then we begin the process of cutting it into smaller pieces. We begin with roasts, then steaks, stew meat and finally, whatever doesn't make it into those categories gets put into plastic lined milk crates to freeze for dealing with later.

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.