DAY 4Saturday February 13th 2010
8:00 A.M. Clear, 5 above
Camp day today. Maybe not exactly what the reader wants in an “action packed tale of winter wilderness survival”, but quite frankly it’s a fact of life out here. The heat doesn’t work by turning up the thermostat. The water doesn’t come out of a faucet. The wife isn’t there to keep the dishes washed (lady reader…please no cries of feminist outrage over this, according to my wife they will just fall on deaf ears).
We start with our normal breakfast then plan out the day, dishes to be done, water to be hauled from the river, wood to be cut, gear to be organized, and best of all, marten to be skinned. No one task is too difficult, but when combined with the fact I have to do all of them without disturbing Ken’s nap, they become much more tedious. I have to say, after yesterday’s death march, I’m not disappointed to spend the day gimping around the cabin.
Before we begin the chores, we unload the trapping gear and ready the sled to haul water and wood. It’s then that we notice the “camp raider” has struck overnight. This time he’s gotten into the pack basket, ate a hole into the bait bag, and made off with another chicken. He’s no longer as entertaining and cute as he was, now he’s a thieving little {edit} that’s crossed the line one too many times. I may take Ken up on his offer to let me catch him.
Water is hauled by sled from the river up to the cabin. Ken has previously cut a water hole in the ice, so chipping through the few inches and filling the buckets was a quick process. I ran the sled load of water back to the cabin and returned to the river with the chainsaw. Ken had been busy scouting firewood. Ken is a firewood conniseure, so picking the right tree is akin to going shoe shopping with your wife. You might as well just smile and nod, because no matter which one you say looks best, they will always choose different one. We do find some promising looking spruce and cut up a few test sections to be split at the cabin.
When we arrive back Ken grabs up the splitting maul and tells me to take a quick picture. Not questioning the seasoned veteran, I comply. After splitting one piece...yes one piece, he proceeds to do a test burn on it while I split the rest. It's only now, while looking through my index of photos, do I realize the crafty deception. There is only one piece of photographic evidence to support Ken's claims of having to do all the work, and no such evidence to support my claims.
I’ve already decided that everything I catch on this trip will be skinned leaving all feet and claws attached. This will allow me the widest range of options on what the final product will be. Ken skins and boards the first marten in about fifteen minutes to show me how to do it, then he turns me loose on the second. Other than the fact that he skins his marten “through the mouth” and he uses some custom built tail stripper, his method seems pretty straightforward. I have to say I’m impressed with his speed and cleanliness skinning this way. I’m pretty confident I can do the next one with relative ease. An hour and a half later I have a finished result I’m pretty happy with. A few small nicks around a couple of the toes but nothing major. Skinning out those toes is going to take some getting used to.
After what turned out to be a pretty productive day, Ken makes a great meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toasted rolls. Ken tops his roll with
Backbreaker. He says that’s how real men do it. I let him know that I certainly don’t find anything offensive about
Backbreaker, but I cant miss the opportunity to top my roll with cotton’s(forum member) homemade jelly. (Thanks cotton!)
Lesson Learned:
Cotton should go into business with Paul to make the ultimate cold weather, sweet, lure/trap-line snack food. Ken swears the jelly has remained in liquid form at 20 below! I swear the jelly is delicious!
!!!! So the guy making this up need's to get off HLA and get it all on here 
!!!!!!!!!
