Beaver

In the grant, after hiking seven miles carrying a gun, we finally got back to the cabin, and I was ready to dig into some work. Right then, Chris, one of the Alums, asks whether anyone wanted to come learn how to trap beavers. Of course, I couldn't resist that offer, so off I went, prepared to get a little muddy. It ends up, I should have prepared to get completely soaked, not just muddy.

The way that you trap a beaver with a leg trap in NH is that you need the beaver to drown once trapped, otherwise he will bite off his own foot. In order to make the beaver drown, you set the trap on a wire connected to a heavy metal plate on the bottom of the river. When he gets trapped, he will dive into the river and since the line is one way, he won't be able to get out. As you can expect, the metal plates are heavy and standing on a slippery slope, trying to throw one of those in is a trick. On my second trap, I didn't let go of the wire soon enough and ended up throwing myself in as well.

After getting the traps set, we decided to check them in the morning. Come morning and I had caught one! Chris said that he will teach me how to tan it, so I guess that I will get my fair share of skinning and butchering even without a deer!