Early Monday morning, Kevan and I were on the road to Vancouver. With several days of rain and bad weather, we wanted to be in the city in plenty of time, we’d left the ranch at 4:30am. We took the Hurley Road to Pemberton, without having to drive out east to Lillooet and then back west, we could be in Vancouver in five hours instead of six. 

On the Hurley, Kevan began to tell me about a trapper who lived in a cabin hidden in the trees beside the road. As if his words had conjured him, barely five minutes later, we could see a figure standing on the road-side, his bike leaning against a tree, his thumb out for a ride. Kevan stopped the truck and sure enough, it was Bill, the trapper. It might be illegal to pick up hitch hikers in BC, but Kevan and Bill knew each other so we loaded his bike into the back of the truck and continued on our way to Pemberton.

Bill has been living here in his cabin for eighteen years. He has a garden to grow vegetables, catches animals in his traps, eats the meat and sells the fur. Once a week, he goes to Pemberton for supplies, taking his bike in case he can’t get a ride. There is a creek beside his cabin so he always has fresh water. In eighteen years, he has trapped four cougars, he also catches squirrels, weasels and lynx. He told us he’d seen a few wolves a little further along this road but had never trapped them.

Bill told us logging in the area has drastically reduced the pine marten population as their preferred breeding ground is old forest. This means their prey species, chipmunks, have flourished, these may keep the mouse population in check, Bill has seen hardly any this year, yet there are plenty around the ranch. This is the lifestyle early European settlers in Canada and the US used to live, living from the land with only basic supplies, such as peanut butter from the store in Bill’s case. This life means Bill knows a lot about the law of nature, the impact of human activities on the animal populations and even what times most cars pass by so he can get a ride. The busiest times are early morning traffic to Vancouver, 10am tourists or evening returns home.

Trapping in Canada predated European settlement, First Nations people used the technique to provide food and clothes for much longer. Over-trapping lead to some species coming close to extinction, however laws now attempt to prevent this. Although native people are allowed to trap for food in any season, the Royal Proclamation (1763) and proceeding Acts restrict numbers caught. However, trapping can also be seen to have a conservation impact, by controlling population numbers. Natural species boom and bust cycles mean Bill and other trappers will be more successful at trapping specific animals each year. A different type of trap is needed to catch each animal, the trapper needs to know which animals are around and how to trap them to be successful. In Canada, over 70,000 people are employed in the fur trade, however in 2011, Bill was one of only 465 Canadians who stated hunting and trapping as their only occupation. Most of these other 465 probably don’t live Bill’s traditional lifestyle, though.

Although the animals Bill traps provide him with food, their pelts, which he sells to fur companies in New York where they are auctioned, provide him with an income, allowing him to afford the few supplies he can’t procure from the land.

We dropped Bill off in Pemberton where he would have to wait a few hours for the stores to open. Then, he would get his supplies and start off early to get a ride home. This would leave him time for a four-hour cycle ride up hill if no one would take him.

Charlie