Well, we got some beaver traps in this bag.
I'm gonna take them out and set them and see if I can't catch some beaver.
I need some trap and bait and,
and then I want some furs also and beavers like everything,
likes beaver, it makes the best trapping bait in the world.
Beaver are fairly smart animals, you know,
and they, they're very hard workers, they're also,
also very destructive.
They gnaw your trees down and dam everything up.
They put culverts up on the road systems and washes the roads out, you know,
and you can't get to town if you ain't got no road to go across.
Conibears are pretty simple. Basically the way they work is
beaver swims into it and
game over.
Pretty deadly.
Now comes the fun part.
It's time to go hunting.
I, kind of, like the beaver, you know.
I mean, they have a very beautiful fur on them.
You can make things with them and that and make pretty good money.
Kind of the way a lot of how this country was founded and stuff, you know,
with like fur markets and then trappers in the areas that people have never been.
You know, those were some tough guys back in them days.
The spot that I'm going to is kind of a spot that
I like to go hunting up past it all the time
and this right here is exactly what I'm talking about.
This is not good.
This is a prime example of what the, the beaver do here.
This is what the, the area they're trying
to flood there and this road could wash out,
you know, and then we'd be screwed.
Gotta get rid of them.
Port protection is a group of very stall art people, fiercely independent,
we don't poke our nose into everybody else's business but if anything happens,
it's not unusual for everybody just to drop everything
and focus on that problem and then take care of it.
Deplorable.
Deplorable. This time of year,
when you got sixteen hours of darkness,
if you're walking along here at night not paying attention
and your foot goes down into one of those things,
basically, your leg gets broke right about there.
So, it's definitely in need of some repair.
It doesn't make any sense to me to try pulling out individual boards
and replacing them because the one right next to it is probably gonna break
so I'm just gonna float a new board walk right over top of this.
In the community itself of port protection,
the boardwalks are basically the only way you can easily travel
between house to house to get your groceries and your supplies
or just to go visit your friends and neighbors.
Back in the old days before the boardwalks,
it was just basically mud through the forest.
It was real miserable so the boardwalk, it's an essential tool
for just getting your daily chores done around here.
Doesn't have to be perfect. I just need to get an idea
of how many boards it's gonna take.
Okay. I have a limited amount of boards.
If I make it three feet wide, it looks like I have enough to make the boardwalk
as it stands now.
Look at that, not bouncy anymore.
One board, quick and dirty. This is called smash and grab carpentry.
Get in, get out, make it safe.
Solid as a rock.
Hey. It is nice when something works the way you want it to work
and it's not like you gotta be rocket scientist to figure this stuff out.
I already feel way more confident walking on this thing.
I've been trying to avoid hurting myself just getting my materials here
and getting these laid out.
When it gets paper on it, then you'll be able to do cartwheels.
And we'll be off to the races.
Everyday life out here is a challenge.
It's not easy by no means,
but I'm actually in really good physical health for my age
and this place has made me that way.
Okay. I am home.
Yeah. I am going to make myself a pot of coffee here
and get the chill off and
I am going to get ready for deer hunting.
This bus was one of the best investments I ever made.
It's great because I can stay out here later hunting 'till, you know,
basically almost dark.
Disasters can happen instantly out there so
it's just nice to have a home away from home.
Okay. I think I have everything. Time to go.
I'm trying to imitate a, a Doe bleating
and that's what the bucks are looking for.
My tummy's growling louder than I'm bleat, bleating now.
Gonna go out and get myself some venison for the winter.
Hopefully, they're out getting some sun today
and I can sneak up on them when they're napping.
Give them a rude awakening, the lead burrito.
Usually the deer when they see you, they run and hide but now,
it's mating season and the deer aren't thinking of predators anymore.
They're thinking of finding a Doe and doing what they do.
I don't know.
I don't know how to put it nicely.
That looks like a wolf track there.
I don't like seeing wolf tracks 'cause that means if they're around,
the deer are usually gone.
Whenever I see wolf tracks, it scares the hell out of me.
I mean, I'm out here alone.
It just really makes me uncomfortable to hear them in the woods howling
or I've even had them growling next to me.
They're very sneaky, stealthy critters.
I don't like this. There's something about it that's creeping me out.
Usually when I get this feeling, there's another predator around
and it's usually always dead-on right.
I'm not liking this.
Something tells me to get the hell out of there.
Here's a nice long stick man. Yeah.
And it might actually be able to glide right over top of this.
That's what I am thinking, if we can get it limb down,
it might not take much to get it to pop in the drink.
Yeah. But I have very minimal experience dealing with this kind of stuff, man.
I get my stuff off the beach.
Okay. Well, I have done a fair bit.
You know, I am a little gun shy. Gun shy.
So, as you can see, this is a very small channel
and it's the main thoroughfare we use to get back and forth
between point baker and port protection,
but windstorms knocked these down
and now they're interfering with passage.
You can usually make it through in a skiff
but if you're trying to come through on a big boat, it's problematic.
So, we're gonna see what we can do about getting some of this out of the way.
That's the plan.
But it's going to be a dangerous plan. Not ideal.
Not ideal.
Beautiful.
Good job, Billy goat.
So, we've got the, the main body of the log severed from the root wad.
Now it's just going to be a matter of trying to get it into the water
so we can get it where it's headed.
Gonna be one big heavy monkey, man, I don't know.
Might still have to whack another chunk off of it to get it to move, but.
Right. I don't know if I got the ponies in this skiff to do it, so.
Now it's time to give her a little tug with the skiff.
We're gonna go ahead and give it a pull that way
and hopefully she'll roll off and come out of the bush for us.
I'm just worried that we're not gonna up high enough but
we'll give it a pull and we'll see what comes loose.
Tide's still pretty low but no guts, no glory.
Heave hoe.
Me. I think I buried the nose in there.
Son of a bugger less snot.
Okay. Just give it a little tug that way
'cause if we can get the nose out in front of this rock,
then we can, yeah. Come on, baby, jump off the rock for us.
All right. Here we go.
All right. Watch yourself, Dave. Yup.
Kind of in the bite, I guess.
Yeah. I don't know.
- Yup. - Yup.
I think she's stationary now.
Well, we gave her our best tug at low tide here, I mean,
we cut off as many of the stubs that we could but she's just too catchy.
We did, we got such a downward slope here that every rock
we're trying to pull it against,
it's cutting up and this is hemlock which is the densest wood we have out here.
She is a heavy, heavy stick.
So, I'm gonna nip it off in half here,
and we'll pull the tip out and hopefully that'll give us
a little bit better angle for a pull. Just gotta persevere.
Okay. Are you clear?
Nice.
Well, that did what she was supposed to do the first time with a much shorter stick.
All right. Well, we got the light half.
Now this is gonna be the, the big ugly mother.
And a lot harder road to haul.
Hopefully, she will pop for us, but we will have to see.
All right. Let's give it a top see if it pops.
Do you want me to actually give it a good hit? Yup.
Okay. Hold.
Hold!
Gonna have to give it a little convincing.
Is it pinched in pretty good now?
I think just come up against it and it might pop it.
I'll try to give it a bump when you do.
There's a, a really good set right here.
See the trench he's got dug underwater there
and it goes up underneath the embankment here.
See all the roots that he's chewed up in there, skunk cabbage he's digging up.
Put a couple traps in this area and have pretty good success.
I'm gonna go grab my traps.
When I go into an area, I want to try to find the most likely runway
that the beaver are traveling in.
It's ready.
Usually I, kind of, using these conibear traps I like a little deeper channel
to where you could submerge the trap
and conceal it a lot better and then you just basically use guide sticks
to funnel them right into the trap and everything.
Pretty effective.
Throw a little beaver caster on there.
Beaver have what they call a caster in the back of them which is a type of a gland.
That's how they Mark their territory and that.
Pretty pungent odor and, and I use that for my bait.
Beaver came from a different pond and, and beaver are very territorial.
And you take a piece of the caster
and put it in the area and
he'll go out of his way to find it.
Yeah. He come swimming right into his happy home there
and he's gonna be in for a surprise.
Doing a lot of kneeling down and standing in the mud
in this part of the world when you're doing jobs like this.
I'm just trying to make this as streamlined as possible.
Obviously, this is a use-at-your-own-risk type situation
but if I can eliminate, you know, hard edges,
at least your toe will skip up over that
if you're stumbling along flying drunk in the middle of the night.
Just like a rock.
Now that the walkway is laid down I'm gonna get on with a handrail.
This trail here, they've been using that.
Hopefully the deer trail and not a wolf trail.
I want to walk in there, but it looks like it gets too deep.
I think I'm gonna move to another spot.
We got it.
That's some heavy wood, it's low floating.
Now the hemlock is gone,
we don't have to worry about a big boat coming through in the dark of night
and hanging up and causing a whole bunch of havoc to life limb and property.
It's up to us to take care of our, our ways and means out here and
glad this adventure turned out well.
Somebody come by here, I wonder why. Those boots are there.
Why someone would leave their boots?
And they had a hole in them. They were useless, but
you just never know why people do the things they do.
I have no idea why somebody would nail their boots to the tree and
you definitely need your boots to hike out of here.
I don't know if they're marking a spot but maybe they left them there
for big foot, who knows.
There's a buck in here. He's been rubbing his antlers on this.
There's piles and piles, there's fresh deer poop.
Out here.
Nothing.
All my favorite spots, nothing around.
Push on to another spot.
I'm trying to get that little section of handrail put back up.
If I was smart I'd just take a rope and tie it from one to the other,
put some yellow flags on it but I have enough material
I can actually pull off the handrail.
This is gonna be the base.
If you tipped over and fell through this brush, you,
it's shallow but you'd probably hit your head on a rock
and then drown if the tide's high.
So just an ounce of prevention.
Everybody out here does the best job they can with the tools they have
to help their neighbors.
And in this case, I am helping the whole community or anybody
that uses this section of boardwalk, you know, after dark especially.
This is close enough for Sam carpentry to get the job done and it'd be safe.
It's definitely not, there's no advanced engineering going on here.
A couple of forty fives put in, in places really make things rigid.
It's the rigidity
not to be confused with frigidity.
Other than the spring in the board itself, not bad.
Not bad.
I'm gonna be putting a layer of mineral
surface paper down on top of this boardwalk,
essentially it's super heavy tar paper with gravel embedded in it.
It's extremely durable and it's definitely non-skid.
Not the easiest stuff to cut in the world.
You can't make yourself slip on that stuff.
The mineral surface paper is gonna ensure that everybody out here, you know,
does the best job they can.
And that is the last staple,
so I get to kick my heels.
Done.
It turned out pretty damn sweet for a quick job, everything's tied together.
I need to get my tired ass back home and continue.
I got date with a brand-new chainsaw.
So I know there was at least one good-sized spruce down on memorial there.
Yeah. I'd definitely like to go take a look at that.
See if there's anything we can be done about it.
The way this wind and swell is pushing, there might even be some stuff
stowed up on humpy creek shore there.
Terri metcalf is wonderful person.
She's been a big part of my life since I was a young boy
and I consider her like an auntie.
And Terri's boat is not under operation.
She can't go out and get firewood. So
myself and Dave are gonna lend her a hand.
Her beach is one of the main places that we gather
to hold a little revelry. You know, she's got a nice
amphitheater that we've, we built down there for our musical get-togethers,
and don't want to see her going cold through the winter.
- Look at that. - What do you see?
That log on the beach.
It looks all right, unless it's cotton wood,
it's pretty bright but I don't think so.
I hope that's not cotton wood.
- Uhhhh! - What do you think?
- I think she's spruce. - Nice.
Yeah. We can get that out of here.
Yeah. Let's do it right now and then we can anchor it.
Yup.
Yeah. We found a nice freebie.
Good volunteer, laying on the beach.
We're gonna try to get it out of here.
All right. Three, two.
That's good. Leave it here and then throw me your line.
I got a dropping tide right now, got a pretty slow rolling surge.
But if my boat was to go sideways while we're fiddling around with this log,
we'll be camping for a few hours, and
I don't think any of us want to camp for a few hours, so
we're gonna try to get this log out of here as quickly as possible.
Go for it.
Like a pro.
Give it a bolt.
Well, that's a nice little stick.
Didn't even take too much to get it out of there.
Even a blind sea dog finds an acorn every once in a while.
It's a nice stick.
We want to get it out of there before it gets up on that reef, though.
Yeah, yeah. You ready to jump in?
Yup.
Nice.
Well, this isn't a lot of wood for Terri yet.
We'll trot along down the beach and see if we can't find another
likely volunteer.
Brand new saw.
It's about halfway through its break in so I gotta kind of be gentle with it.
I'm gonna try to get a few rounds of firewood cut here but
I had miscalculated the tide or wasn't paying any attention to the tide.
Got that damn boardwalk done and now it's time to do a few chores around here.
Firewood's kind of like the never-ending story.
If you don't enjoy it, then you need to move someplace else because it's quite the,
quite the battle to keep the house warm but it, it's gotta be a battle you enjoy.
As you can see, if I don't want to have to put on my hip waders,
I gotta beat this tide, the tide's gonna come up all the way,
I'll be standing in a foot of water here in an hour.
So I've, I've got a finite amount of time to get these rounds cut
and get them up out of my way before I can split them.
It took me a number of years to get my firewood process dialed in.
I can yard the log up next to the spot where I cut it,
then I can lift it up next to the log splitter
and then it goes into a basket and then from the basket,
it goes right to my front door, essentially.
It's a pretty streamlined situation and there's very little bending over,
packing arm loads of firewood.
Well, better hurry.
Don't want to have to put my hip boots on.
Well, I'm coming in to check my beaver trap that I set yesterday. I,
if I don't have anything in there, I'm just gonna pull the trap
and then set it where I know I'll catch something.
Let's see here.
Yeah. I didn't really have much faith in this set.
I'm just gonna pull it and move it.
It takes a lot of practice and know how to catch a beaver.
They're pretty smart animals.
They'll flip your trap over and spring it and then go right across
and take a on it and they're pretty cagey at times.
I think there's a little better spot.
A spot that we'll catch something.
The first night hopefully.
I got another spot that I know where there's some beaver at,
it's on a different road though.
Ooh, this isn't real good.
I think that nobody's been through there for a while.
Need a chainsaw here.
I didn't bring a chainsaw so I don't know if I'm gonna get through here today or not.
Ummm.
Dang.
So this is actually a really good area in here.
I was hunting with curly one time and he got a big ass buck right in over here.
Very nice one. So, maybe I'll get his brother.
Be as quiet as possible.
Ope, I hear him, I hear him running.
Damn it!
Straight down, I'll never get him out of there.
I've seen a buck. It was a little spike
but there's no way I can even get down there to even get,
to get down there to get that thing back up here.
It ain't happening.
, let's get moving, man.
Got my blood pumping, that's for sure.
There's couple of little sticks. That's a big one.
Yup. That's kind of right, I mean, we can get over to this side of it,
- making, giving it a jerk. - I can do that. Yeah.
If we, if we put a bunch of wraps on it.
Okay. Well, it's worth taking a look at.
Now we're gonna move fast, I'm gonna drop you off, and then, back up.
Holy crap. Yeah. We're not moving it.
Not worth it? She's way big and old wood.
- We're not moving it. - Okay.
She's big, wet, and heavy so let's find a bunch of little sticks,
we'll put them together and hopefully, that'll work out.
That ain't much of a stick but it's dry at least.
So every little bit helps.
We need more.
Well, whenever you're beach logging, especially when there's any kind of surge,
it's always almost necessary to have a two-man crew
so you can have one guy working the beach,
one guy working the skiff and what that does is it helps alleviate
the trauma of the boat actually up on the shoreline, especially if there's surge.
You know, it's a, a lot of jobs out here.
Take more than two pairs of paws to do correctly,
or to do efficiently at the very least
and this is definitely one of them.
So we may be ruggedly individual
but a great deal of our tasks out here
are team sports.
You know, I think we're actually getting a pretty good run for Terri there.
Nothing grand but always better a little in the kitty than nothing.
Ew, I hear some wind in the wire.
Sounding pretty, pretty damn serious.
Think this might be our last adventure
before we try to make our way back into harbor.
Straight out. Go straight out.
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. Yeah.
Think we'll gather up what we've got here and head back for harbor.
Not bad, though.
It's something, there's something.
Road's blocked, big old spruce tree blew down.
Looks huge.
Well, I guess if I'm gonna get any beaver traps set
I'm gonna have to pack my gear in there. And outta here.
Well, look at that, I, I beat the tide.
Kind of get these guys in position.
These are big rounds.
She's not a small log.
I just need to present this guy so I can get two and two.
I like hunting with a friend but, you know, you,
you ruined your odds there, you know.
I end up talking too much and making too much noise,
and then you gotta split the meat too.
I want the whole damn deer for myself.
Well, it was a good haul day.
Yup. Not a bad morning's work.
No, not at all.
Ought to keep Terri from freaking out too bad as the frost starts dropping.
She can breathe a couple breaths at least a little easier.
Got it.
Well, once I get these tied up, back up somewhere secure,
we'll start working on processing them.
See where he's bringing the clumps of sawed up here.
He got trails going every which directions.
This is a good spot here. We're gonna
get a trap set in there.
There.
There we go.
Putting a little caster up there.
That caster stinks.
Setting traps in the rain's kind of a good deal
because you're spreading human odors around
throughout the air and rain helps to wash it away.
Try to get them funneled in here somehow.
Couple more.
He'll come over here and what he'll do is he'll get down there
and the stick will force him to dive
and he'll dive right into that trap.
He won't even know what the hell hit him.
That'll call him right in here, man.
He'll, he'll come charging into that.
Wondering what, who in the hell is in his food to stash.
Now it's I guess just get the hell out of here and let this rain wash my scent away
and hopefully we'll come back a little later and have a beaver in there.
Clear, everything it's clear.
Don't want one of those to drop on your toe.
I could pick up small rounds and toss them up here
but I just can't move those big ones.
It would be the end of me if I tried lifting one of them things up.
This winch is getting old, but this must be close to eight hundred pounds
because it's what the weight is rated for.
But for the amount of time, it takes to do this.
It's, it's a god send to have some power.
That's a week's firewood easy once I get her in the basket.
Beat the tide.
Now I can just relax because the easy part's coming up.
Right about there.
Houston?
Sammy's screwed.
My hoist just gave up on me.
This thing's been around the block a few times
and either the capacitor went out
or something's out in the switch, something failed on it.
It'll, it'll go backwards, but it won't go forwards.
Which leads me to believe that the capacitor is shot
which I don't have one of them in my back pocket.
So I'm gonna have to try to manhandle these things up there
which could be very interesting but I have a plan.
Hope this thing doesn't get away on me and end up in my basket,
that's not the correct size.
There we go. Not too bad.
Not as bad as I thought, so.
But normally, I just lift them up and set them on the thing.
It's sure picked an inopportune time to die
with the rest of this big log to do.
I need to spend at least two hours a week down here doing this.
This is about as good as it gets in this part of the world is for getting
your firewood next to your wood stove.
When I hoist this up on that deck, it'll be just through my front door and it's like
twenty-five feet to the wood stove so that's ideal.
You, you don't want to have to go out to your woodshed,
pack wood back in your house, you should always have at least a week or two supply
sitting right next to your door.
Well, it looks like this basket's ready to go.
The tide's up at least a foot from where I was standing down there
but no harm, no foul.
Have dry feet.
Seeing deer tracks in the saw dust.
That's a big.
There's a big buck here, look at that.
I think he's too smart.
He didn't get that big being stupid.
I mean, look at that, he's a big boy.
He likes this sawdust. It must feel good on his little hooves, his big hooves.
This is getting pretty frustrating.
I'm not seeing anything.
I'm hiking all over. I'm getting tired
and it's kind of turning into a bummer trip.
I'm just gonna press on and that's the only way I'm gonna be successful
is to continue and keep trying.
I'm gonna get one sooner or later.
I always do.
Man.
Whoa.
Yard art, cool.
Damn, that's a nice rack.
That's one to be proud of.
Well, that's going on my wall, lucky for me.
That's really cool yard art.
Boy, I'd love to see this guy living out here, man.
That's a nice buck, nice rack.
I got something out of all my hard work today.
I got some wall art. I'm hoping finding this beautiful set of antlers
is gonna be my good luck charm at my next hunt.
I'm gonna get that mega buck like this guy.
People pay good money to get there antlers to be a perfect mount like that.
Very cool. It's mine now.
Finders keepers, losers weepers.
Mother nature.
She changed the weather on us again.
It's starting to snow here.
Beavers don't care too much.
I'm sure they're all set for the winter.
Let's see here.
Trap looks undisturbed.
Too much human scent around it right now, I think.
I think my casters still up there.
Nothing came into it, or down by, near my other trap there.
Just really hope I got something in there.
Hopefully they came in. A lot of times though they won't, you know.
I mean, it takes a couple of days for the human scent to wash away
hopefully it rained enough that it did.
Let's see.
I do believe we got a beaver.
There's his butt.
The traps are pretty deadly. Yeah.
It looks like a big daddy beaver,
definitely a big mature one.
He's an old-timer.
I can't even pull him up here.
Well, now that I got this guy here, you know the road will be a little safer
and I'll take him home and skin him out, you know,
make something out of the hide eventually,
probably eventually tan it.
The meat I might even make a stew out of it, I don't know.
And then the, the rest of it there, I'll just probably use for trapping bait.
But now I got a lot of, a lot of work ahead of me before this beaver's done.
This guy's probably forty-five, fifty pounds.
I'm pretty good with the outcome.
It was kind of a little bit iffy there at start but, you know,
we, once we got lined out it, it all came together.
I'm pretty, pretty stoked about it.
Good way to start the winter, first beaver of the year.
How'd you like waking up to the sound of dueling chainsaws?
My gosh. Hi. How you doing this morning?
Hey, this is, this is wonderful.
- You're welcome. - Yay.
Found a few dry sticks for you. Yeah.
I knew you were having a hard time with your skiff not,
- not operating correctly so. - I know.
It's set me on the beach all summer pretty much.
That's a dandy.
It's like you're gonna give me an inadequacy complexes.
I'm looking for big firewood.
I love this. This is beautiful,
'cause I was actually trying to not burning too much wood.
Is your, is your crawler working?
- My crawler's working. - Good.
I'll help. Cool, cool. Okay. What did.
- Pick a log. - Pick a log.
Nobody can ever say that Terri metcalf is some feeble old woman.
She's a champ, man. She came down there with a saw bigger than both
mine and squibb's and she bucked into the largest log that we had.
She's got a lot of spirit, a lot of spark
and it really makes me happy to see her in action.
That's all right.
It's like Tetris.
Wee!
Well, feeling a little bit better about the, the frost line coming around?
I'm overwhelmed, so to speak.
I can get this from here now. I mean, I am so thankful.
You do plenty for us all, Terri.
Happy to help.
Terri is family. I am really relieved to have helped her.
She was really stressed out about this.
Good hanging. It's no joke
when you're out of firewood in the middle of winter.
Yay, thank you so much.
Okay. We'll catch you on the fly. Thank you.
The reward was right there just in her expression.
Yeah. I, I'm not used to having people work so hard for me.
Well, full speed ahead like you said,
days are getting shorter, no time to burn.
Take care.
Good to be home.
Man, that's a nice rack.
I sure wish I could have found a buck with a rack like that on it today.
He's a beauty.
I stay out here because I love hunting and fishing.
You can't be successful on every hunt, but I love this way of life
and I just want to keep doing it as long as I can.
This guy he's been around a, been a while he's old beaver there, man.
He's, hard to say how old he is.
Floppy tail.
When I was a kid, this is all I ever dreamt of, was living this type of life
and now here I am, I'm, I'm living my dream.
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Our safety net out here is each other.
Especially with people that you know and love that actually contribute
to everybody's livelihood and well being out here,
you, you never leave your, your neighbor stranded.
I like the smell of sweet spruce.
This is a real nice log.
One of the blessings that I can say that I've had in my lifetime is
I've had a lot of personal time to contemplate actual reality
and I guarantee you that chasing the almighty dollar is probably
the biggest waste of time anybody can possibly do.
Wood for the stove, venison in the freezer,
go out and catch a fish, that's my wealth.
You really can't ask for any more than that.