As a young man I dreamed of moving to Alaska. Finding the middle of nowhere. Building a cabin. Trapping and hunting. Living off the land. Then, life got in the way. An education, a good job, a wife and kids, a home and a farm all happened over the course of fifteen years, and that Alaska dream kind of drifted into the background.
A few years back, life kind of settled down a bit and the Alaska wilderness bug bit me again. I started reading old books about Alaska wilderness trappers that had fascinated me as a young man. I dreamed again about blazing trails in the bush and surviving in the remote Arctic. I began to share those dreams with others, and as a result, I met a new friend.
You know that whole Alaska dream I’d had back in my teens? Jim Firmin had done it. Fresh out of high school, he and his brother moved to a remote village on the Yukon River with a dream of trapping fur for a living. This was back in the 1970’s, when fur prices were high enough for a hard working trapper to make wages. Jim ran his trapline from a remote cabin more than 40 miles from civilization for more than 40 years. And in 2020, I had the opportunity to join him on a journey I’ll never forget.
In February 2020 I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska and then to the village of Fort Yukon. Jim and I took snowmachines and toboggans 45 miles up the Porcupine River to his remote trapping cabin. We spent two weeks cutting trails and setting traps for lynx, wolf, marten and wolverine in one of the more remote places on earth.
This area was once a home for families who made a living trapping fur. It was a bustling place, with traplines spread throughout the territory radiating out from the village. People spent most of the year out on the land hunting, fishing and trapping, with only occasional visits to town to catch up with friends and resupply. Today, it’s a quiet country. Most people live in town, and only a few venture out from time to time in search of fur.
There are some who have bucked the societal trend toward town life and continue to live in the bush like the old timers. If you’ve watched the TV show “The Last Alaskans”, you know some of them. Tyler and Ashley Selden are just north of Jim’s trapline – a short distance by air, but unreachable by land. Bob Harte’s old cabin and Charlie Jagow’s place are reachable via a long snowmachine journey if you bring plenty of gas. Heimo and Edna Korth are further north still, on the edge but still within the greater Fort Yukon area. But there aren’t many more.
The trip was quite an experience. I trapped and snared lynx and wolverine, roamed the vast Porcupine River and dozens of miles of bush trails, endured minus 50 degree weather, and experienced the isolation that makes the place so special. It was a taste of what I could have experienced if I’d made a different life decision all those year ago. A brief taste.
My new book “More than Wolverine, An Alaska Wilderness Trapline” documents my trip to the Alaska bush and explores the history – both natural and human – that shape this special place. If you’ve ever had a similar dream, no matter how brief, I think you’ll enjoy coming along for the ride.
“More than Wolverine” is available on Amazon.com or the Trapping Today Store.
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