These are Wilderness trapline photos from our home on the Tanana flats, Interior Alaska.

A few tools of the Trapping trade, at 50 below 0. Inscription on back of photo reads : "I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend, shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out, but the wild must win in the end".  Many a backbreaking day was spent breaking trail with snowshoes and cutting brush and trees to make new trails into new country.  On a hundred mile trapline, it was necessary to camp out overnight in temperatures as low as 60 below zero.  Jack London said in such an environment, he called it the "white silence", you get a unique perspective on life.  After many close brushes with death, I got mine.

Cowboy of the North, hitching the team. This is a small team for a short trip on the left.  On the right longer treks require 10 or more dogs.  Note huge Athabaskan Indian gloves for extreme cold weather.  Our kennel included up to 25 dogs or more. Many hundreds of Salmon were caught at our fish camp each year to feed dogs. Most were dried  or frozen in the fall.  Many dangers await the trapper including crossing thin ice on rivers, slush ice near streams, moose blocking the trail, ready to take on the dogs with slashing hooves etc. (Moose think the dogs are wolves) This is especially dangerous when driving team at night.  Both wolves and bears would visit the dog kennel area on occasion.  None of the dogs were ever killed by these predators. 

My two sons. The older son holding waterfowl next to yet uncompleted cabin addition, soon to be their bedroom.  Logs for cabin were hauled to building site by dog team.  In the spring a staging lake for waterfowl a few miles distant contained many birds.  In the quite of the wilderness, their calls could easily be heard at the cabin.  In the fall we would harvest a large number of waterfowl for winter use.  We would dry and smoke these fowl for part of a winters food supply.  Bears were attracted to the smokehouse because of the waterfowl and salmon scent.  We were forced to snare or shoot a number of  rouge bears who refused to leave without a portion of our winter meat supply.  We also subsisted on moose, bear, rabbits, squirrels, muskrats, beaver, grouse etc.