Along with cold temps what odd/unusual experiences have you had on the trapline?
In 80/81, the same season I had the 50 below day, I was trapping out of a cabin about 20 miles up the Nowitna. The cabin was on an oxbow lake that still had a connection to the river. I only had a dog team in those days. Some days I would leave the oxbow and head down the main river to check a line I had on the other side of the river. Each time I went this way and about 3 miles from the cabin, there would be fox tracks going to the same spot. The fox would dig a little in the snow at that spot. This went on into late Feb. or March when I decided to stop the team and see why this spot was so interesting to the fox.
I kicked snow away and found some moose hair sticking out of the ice. I got my axe out of the sled and kicked more snow away. After some chopping in the ice I found more moose hair and chopping into the hair was meat. I kept working at the ice with the axe and discovered there was a whole moose frozen in there. I went back to the cabin and got my chainsaw, an ice spud, and some rope. I figured I could get that whole moose out of there with enough chipping the ice and using the team to pull on it.
I'm not sure how long I worked at it but eventually I had to be satisfied with about half of the animal. Just couldn't get the whole moose up and onto the ice.So half the moose I think, floated under the ice somewhere downriver. I won't go into detail about what I did with the half I got out, but it didn't go to waste.
The only explanation I could come up with was the moose tried to swim across, or walk across, the river at the wrong time and ended up drowning. It's head was under water so I think it died up river somewhere and where I found it was where the ice it was floating with ended up.

Mike hard to beat your story.

I had been passing this tree all season but when the February sun hit this tree I stopped and still can't figure out what went on. The tree trunk was void of branches almost to the top and the branches were all on the ground at the base of the tree in a pile. There were claw marks that indicated that a bear had did the limbing.

I would have loved to be in visual distance to witness the sound of what went on.

That would have been something to see Larry ! I wonder if a brownie chased a blackie up that tree ?


Mike: i have had two experiences similar to yours. The first one was at a beaver house in a slough I had never been to previously. There was a live bull moose thrashing in an open lead near the slough mouth. He couldn't get out because the ice kept breaking. Eventually he tired and went under except for one antler sticking up. He remained like that all winter.

The second was a cow moose that had come off a cut bank onto glare ice and dislocated both shoulders. Her front legs were at right angles to her body but her back feet were still under her. She could push with her back legs and scoot around a little with her nose on the ice. She looked like a cow catcher on a locomotive. I put a 22 LR behind her ear and ate her.