TRANSCRIPT

Interviewee: Henry Wilson
Interviewer: Keith Hyde
Date: July 23, 2008

I'd say about from mid March 'til early part of May we would be out there. We would, we would trap muskrats. One year, the last year I was there, there was him and my brother Stan. At that time, the government-they had limits for everybody, eh? At that time, they had limits for five hundred muskrats per person. So our job was to kill a thousand muskrats. So we were out there. We got, I guess, a thousand muskrats. Five hundred him and five hundred for my brother. And I was the helper. I guess I didn't realize it but I was, I was an apprentice. But it was a, it was a good life. We ate-you ate muskrat. You boiled it, you picked it. Everything under the sky. And then once in a while you go fishing, eh? That's the way we lived. Made our bannock out there. And it was a good livin'. And they had a little trap-lines and it was like a little settlement. Where we were, there were maybe three trappers. We'd up our tents and everybody had their own little trap-line and then we went. And the steps was-procedure was we would get up in the morning and have something to eat and then away we'd go: to either set traps or check 'em. And we'd go and do that pretty well all day. We'd have our trap-line, make our rounds. We'd come back in the afternoon and in the evening you start skinning them. And you skin a muskrat-and after skinning three, four hundred muskrats, you get pretty good at it. So… and you enjoy the season. And towards the-I'd say the end of April-there's ducks in there. Geese start coming in. And that was another, I guess, revival of them. Like, the spirit of the people and were excited the ducks were in. We'd shoot some and we'd have a feast, you know. And part of the challenge, I guess, everybody had their role in there including shooting, plucking, eating, and everything. And … when the ice started melting, that's another sort of a different way of trapping. You trap, you use leaders or and you could see muskrats all over. And you-there's no problem killing two, three hundred a day.

KH: Wow!

HW: Yeah, that's when you do it. The problem is… they start mating and they fight when-and then they tear their fur up. That's what happens. So the quality's not there, so you try and get as many before that happens.