| My ample body snuggled comfortably under a sheet which covered a blanket. Like a giant pillowcase, many Russian sheets have a large hole in the center and the blanket is slipped inside the sheet. A thick quill is then laid on top. I was toasty and warm. Old Anatoly stoked the fire about 4:00 a.m. The temperature outside measured -30 F , but inside it was about 55 F . I rolled out at 6:30 a.m.; time to get up and enjoy the Arctic sunrise.
Siberian winter is so simple: cold, snow, black and white. I walked out onto the frozen ice of the river and turned south on a hard-packed snowmobile trail. The moisture from my breath froze to my face mask and eyelashes. No wind this morning as the sun rose between two large mountains. A quiet peace covered the place.
A mink had crossed the snow earlier in the morning and did what mink do in the USA , looked for food along the banks of the river. Further up-river, I came across a spot where a reindeer herd had fed on brush and lichens along the bank. In a mile and a half that was it for tracks of any kind.
As I approached camp, old Anatoly came out to meet me and handed me a hot roll. He was feeding his dogs and wanted to show them to me. Using hand signals, he motioned that his favorite dog was great at finding and treeing squirrels and sables.
There were four large dogs and a litter of six puppies in the makeshift kennel. I asked him which of the puppies would make the best hunter. He asked me to point out the one I would choose. There was one puppy that was almost pure white, very alert and at the front of the group every time the puppies moved. I pointed to it. Old Anatoly clapped. "You know your dogs," he said. "That is the replacement for this one." and pointed to his favorite adult dog. They use these Siberian dogs to hunt everything from squirrels to grizzly bear. When the dog is — too old or won't train, they kill it and use the skin and fur to make mittens and boots.
Old Anatoly look me into the cabin where he lived. It had cooking facilities, six beds, a loft, and was full of clothes, skins and equipment which trappers would take inside to get out of the cold. There was a cupboard of canned food, cooking wares, and many other things. His home was the hotel, store, hospital and whatever was needed. Anatoly stayed there year around, and entertained and helped people traveling up and down the river. He offered a meal, a bed for sleep, herbs in case of illness, and whatever.
Quite a menagerie of people traveled by there during our stay. We saw caravans of reindeer people, two large cargo trucks, and a huge truck hauling Evenks' gear back from a winter camp to a more permanent village. Everyone knew Old Anatoly.
His family had been very wealthy and influential during the pre-Revolutionary days, he said. They were the ones who made the canons and armor for the Czars for many years. After the Revolution, his family was killed or exiled to Siberia . He said now he has nothing, and is nobody, so no one bothers him, and he likes it that way. Old Anatoly is rich in friends, and it's hard to get richer than that.
Alexander came up to us and indicated that breakfast was ready. Andrew was up and we knocked on Lucy's door. She was still sound asleep, but we managed to waken her with threats.
Breakfast in Russia usually includes a hot cereal or porridge of some kind; rice is popular. On this morning we ate rice smothered with fried reindeer meat, and butter. With bread, butter, sweet cream sauce and cranberry juice, we were fueled up for the cold. There was enough cholesterol to fuel me for a month. After breakfast, I sorted out my traps and lures and got ready for trapping.
Andrew and Lucy were dressing for the cold adventure. Lucy had borrowed a large blue wool coat that came down to her knees, huge mittens and she wore her regular fur hat. She had nothing to cover her face and ears, and it felt too cold for that, so I offered her a pullover face mask I use when calling coyotes. I had an extra one for emergencies. She looked it gladly and put it on.
We walked out to the river bank expecting to climb on snowmobiles and move out. Wrong. Waiting patiently for us were three teams of reindeers pulling wooden sleds behind them. There was only one snowmobile available to us, so the reindeer would have to do. Looked like fun to me. So we packed our gear and got on the sleds.
The Evenk man who was the trail boss was a handsome thirty year old guy named Arthur (pronounced R'tour). He was expecting us to be real "dud" crew.
"What are the commands for these animals?" 1 asked.
"Slap the reins on their backs and say 'Che - Che.'" he replied.
Do you suppose the word reins came from reindeer, or was it the other way around?
Reindeer have enormous feet just made for running through deep snow and tundra. The reindeer are about the size of a medium white-tail or a mule deer; not very big. The domesticated ones have very agreeable temperaments.
The ones that were to pull me turned around and looked at me with a look in their eyes as if they were saying to themselves: "Hey man, this dude is above and beyond the call of duty." The Evenks and Yakuts weigh maybe 120- 140 pounds each; I weighed 250 pounds.
Arthur slapped the reins and we hit the trail. Lucy rode on a sled pulled behind Arthur's team, all wrapped up in reindeer skins and a huge quill. She looked like a Czarina being transported across the snow barrens.
Andrew followed, driving his team. He wore a heavy black long coat, almost like a Navy P-coat and some borrowed boots and mittens.
I wore Sorel boots, wool socks, "space-age" long johns, jeans, flannel shirt, sweatshirt. Lee insulated coveralls, a Pella survival parka, Thinsulate gloves and a pullover face mask. The warmest it got that day was -10F .
As we were packing the sleds to leave, clouds had moved in and it started to snow lightly. As we drove the reindeer up the river, the wind came up. Snow swirled in beautiful small funnels winding across the river. Light sheets of snow drifted across the trail in front of us.
We traveled about a mile when Arthur stopped and we got off the sleds to look at mink sign. There was on open spot of water in the river from which the mink had been crawling. I set a #1 1/2 coil spring trap and a #0 Gregerson snare at that place. American mink in Siberia do exactly the same thing as they do in America ,
The river got tense, water was running over the ice and under the snow so it made things rather spooky. Nobody wanted to fall through and freeze, which is always a potential hazard when trapping on ice. Several times Arthur stopped to examine a bridge of ice we would have to cross. He would jump back on the sled, slap the reindeer and away we would go. With my hefty weight, I sweated it out, believe me!
Mink were abundant on the river according to their sign. We stopped frequently and I set snares until I ran out.
The reindeer did well but were tiring. As we went around a tight corner, one sled runner dropped into a crack in the ice and I went flying into the snow head first. With the reins still held lightly in my hand, I rolled back toward the sled, jumped up and back onto the sled with ease as if I did that every day. Arthur was looking back and gave me a "thumbs-up".
We rounded a bend in the river and ahead lay about 100 yards of 6" deep water on the ice. Arthur decided to charge ahead so SLAP went the reins and out across the slush we charged, water flying. Everyone held on for dear life, afraid of the consequences.
We traveled on about five more miles, then I yelled for them to slop. There was a nice river crossing for all kinds of animals and I wanted to put out some lure to set what kind of animals the lure would attract.
The reindeer were halted and we broke trail off the river and onto shore. The snow was hard but would not support our weight so we broke through with every step. Where there should have been well-used trails of animals, there were none. I walked on about 300 yards and crossed one set of musk deer tracks.
Three scent stations were set out using Laugeman's Super Call-Fox. Carman's Canine Call and Pro's Choice. Arthur was very interested in the lures. I explained how we used them in the USA . They use fresh squirrel, ptarmigan, and other baits often, but do not know about concoctions like ours.
While we were contemplating the scent stations, Lucy spotted an ugly black mushroom ( a shelf fungus) on the side of a paper birch tree about twelve feet up. She was very excited about it and asked Arthur and Alexander to please get it for her. "For what?" was the general reply. "For a wonderful tea." she said. Since none of us could climb the tree, Arthur tied a hatchet onto a ten-foot pole and proceeded to chop the rock-hard fungus off the tree. It was black and brown and leaked. Even when it thawed out it was hard as a rock.
"What does it taste like, Lucy?" I asked.
"It is most wonderful," she said. "It imparts on you wonderful medicinal values and good feelings." Her family used to gather it when she was young and they had it often. "It is good for cleansing impurities from the body. It makes the kidneys work very well," she added quite firmly.
"Will it make one pee in bed?" Andrew asked, trying to be smart.
Something went out to Andrew in Russian that I did not catch, so he picked up a snowball and tossed it at her, and the Russian had a great laugh. She wouldn't tell me what she said. The mushroom went into her pocket and later into the tea.
At noon we pulled the reindeer up to the shore where a small creek emptied into the river. Arthur and Alexander decided this was the place for milking lunch. Alexander asked us if we wanted to set one of his trapping camps and his trapline. Trudging off after him we walked about three hundred yards and came upon a canvas tent nestled in a heavy growth of spruce trees. It was about 12' x 14' with a steel wood stove, a bunk and makeshift table in it. Outside was a fire pit, a plastic bag of old carcasses aging for bait, and gear hung up in a tree. There were several types of traps between a #1 long spring and #1 1/2 underspring jump trap. All were roughly made with thin stamped steel and terrible chain.
His entire trapline was run on foot or snow skis in October and November. When the deep snows came, surplus animals had been trapped, then he quit. He had about seventy square kilometers in his trapline which was sufficient for him. Some trappers, like Valodia had three times that much area. Alexander was a part-time vacation trapper. Alexander's country looked like central Alaska —thick timber in the river bottoms with bare mountain lops. He said it was too thick for snow machines or dog or reindeer sleds, and not worth the work of cutting trails.
I noticed several girlie magazines in the tent and asked him about them. He just shrugged."What can I say? I just read them because the articles in them are good." He grinned. Trappers are the same everywhere.
We ambled back to the fire and to Arthur. He had prepared lunch—three pieces of moose meat about the size of a lemon for each of us. These were impaled on a slick and extended out near the fire to thaw. Crackers that were as hard as floor tiles and a cream-sugar sauce and butter rounded out the lunch. There was also a tea that packed a real bang. We each pulled a piece of moose meat off the stick, bit into it and cut off a piece with a knife. We were hungry enough that it tasted good, rare or not, and everyone ate all of their moose meat without complaint. Arthur had cut it from a chunk of hind quarter of moose that was rolled up in a burlap bag on his sled. The fire had singed off the leaves, hair and burlap threads, but had not impressed the meal much with cooking.
I soaked the crackers in my tea to soften them up a bit to no avail. We could have used them to face the sled runners, or maybe as clay pigeons. I ate several anyway and liked them.
The wind and snow had been playing around all morning and were just enough to make one wonder if something worse was coming.
"Andrew, ask Arthur what the weather will be like this evening," I suggested. Arthur looked up and about. His reply was, "It will be clear and the stars will be bright." The wind picked up, the trees swayed and made the taiga wind sound through them. Snow cascaded down for a while.
"Anything else you want to do?" Alexander asked.
"Da. I want to set out two more lure stations about two kilometers this side of camp." I suggested.
"Da." he said, and we untangled the reindeer and headed back.
The river was worse. It was as if the river knew it was almost time to break out of the shackles of winter and was sneaking out in spite of the ice. Andrew took a dive into the snow and stuck his boot into the slush.
Reindeer are like horses when they sense it is time to go home: they moved out quickly. The pace back was quick. We approached a touchy spot where the reindeer had to cross a very small shelf of ice directly above an open spot of water. The reindeer had to be turned about 20 degrees, just at the right time, to get them square on the shelf or it was into the water for the reindeer and passengers.
Arthur and Lucy hit it dead on, as expected. I hit it next and expertly maneuvered it to everyone's surprise.
Andrew hit it slightly off and the tail of his sled slid over the edge and slipped further toward the brink as the deer and sled traveled across it. Another foot and we would have had to fish him and the reindeer out of the river. A person can freeze to death in the Arctic in daylight, with the sun shining and without being wet.
Some of the ice bridges we had gone across in the early morning were definitely narrower and thinner now. We held our breath at each one and made it over.
We set out three more scent stations, again in an area that should have had furbearer and big game tracks, but the area was trackless.
The last lap of the trip was three kilometers of fast going, no slush or ice bridges. The reindeer really put on the speed. Everything was going great until one runner dropped off the packed trail into the soft snow, the sled tipped and I flipped off. That spooked the reindeer and they really poured on the coals. I managed to hold onto the reins with one hand and proceeded to get dragged along on the ice and snow at about 10 mph . It was a real kick . I tried to rein the deer in to start over but they wanted no part of stopping. Eventually, I got down to six inches of one rein before I managed to stop the beasts. There was snow in every gap of my clothes and body. Nothing injured, so I got back on the sled and off I went.
We arrived back at the camp at 4:30 p.m., giving us plenty of time to rest, sauna and re-sort our gear for the trip to the spike camps thirty kilometers to the cast.
After dinner we were introduced to Pasha and Misha and several of their sons. Pasha and Misha were going on the hunt with us as guides and camp managers and wanted to get acquainted. Pasha was chief of the reindeer people. Misha was an important hunter. Pasha was 48 and Misha, 38, both were tough as wire and very quick with smiles, laughs and words. We finished dinner early, sipped on vodka and cognac and talked from 7:30 until 11:30 p.m. about Evenk life in the taiga and ours in the USA .
Subjects that evening included fur prices, license prices, guns, ammo, hunting habits, wildlife law enforcement, lifestyles, etc. It got rather uncomfortable telling them about what the average trapper had in the USA .
"How many vehicles do you have?" Pasha asked.
"Too many," I said. "Two old Oldsmobiles, one Buick, one Chevy pickup truck, one Chevy van and two four-wheel motorcycles."
They had about twelve reindeer each.
"How much money do you make each year?" Alexander asked.
"$40.000, some years better, some years worse," I replied. That is four million rubles, a significant percentage of their republic's budget!
"Are you rich in America ?" Pasha asked.
"Not as rich as you," I said. "I am not a chief. I'm about in the middle of people in America for wealth."
"How many guns do you have?" Misha asked.
"Guns are very easy to own in America . We can have all we want and all the ammunition we want." I said. "I have many guns of many calibers."
"Here it is very difficult to have guns, and the ammunition is very expensive and hard to gel," Misha complained.
"Cartridges are very weak and we are not pleased with what we have. We used to have much better but the government looks them all." Pasha said.
"What do you use to hunt bear with?" I asked.
"Twelve gauge shotguns with slugs of lead, and lathe turned brass, or SKS carbines in the 7.62 x 39 (a very under-powered bear gun)." Pasha replied.
"Isn't that a bit exciting hunting bears that way?"
"It damned sure is, you have to get very close and shoot it many times. It is very dangerous," Misha said.
"In our country, most states do not allow any gun so small to be used for large animals," I said.
"Your government must be good that it would care about you so thoughtfully," Misha said.
I choked on that one, wishing it were true.
"No, I think their reason is that the large animals should be killed cleanly and humanely and not run off to be wasted. Our government is not that thoughtful or caring either. It seems our government doesn't like hunters and trappers very much. They regulate us with lousy, stupid laws," I said.
"No different than here," Valodia said.
"Would you like to see pictures of my hunting and guns?" I asked.
"Yes, certainly," was the reply. So I hauled out photos of coyote, elk and antelope hunting in Colorado . They were fascinated by the various rifles I had and marveled at the Kawasaki four-wheeler.
In several photos, there was a barbed wire fence behind me.
"What is that?" Pasha asked.
"It is a fence made of wire with barbs in it to keep cattle, horses and sheep inside of it," I replied.
They had never heard of such a fence. They used only wooden poles. They were puzzled that we would waste metal for fences.
It was a great evening and lasted until 1:30 a.m.
Everyone was very excited about the next three days; the hunt and the story telling. |
