Some of you have wondered after reading “Bears are a great source of food among other things” what other critters we may have had on our dinner tables. I used to spend summers with my grandparents. Both sets of my grandparents were born in the late 19th century. This part of the United States was very wild back then. Most of my family on my father’s side spoke with a Native American language, Anishinaabe. On my mother side of the family, they could get along in Anishinaabe but didn’t have the fluency of my father’s side. I think because I spent so much time with my grandparents their 19th-century view of the world has always colored my view of the world including what is food. An example of that world view was my discussion early on about how to sharpen a double bit ax in this blog. They promoted being able to take care of yourself. I was taught early on how to get around in the woods and not get lost. What kind of good things you could find to eat just for the picking and so on. I was expected to know all those things. An example might help; all that all came together occurred in the winter up 1961 – 1962. I was in my first year of college at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. We had some sort of break and I had gone to visit my grandparents on my father’s side of the family. By that time, my mother’s family had moved away from Minnesota. I was so frequently at my grandparents I knew a lot of people particularly people my age. One of my friends by the name of Billy asked me to check on his trap line because he knew someone was poaching it. Whoever it was knew when Billy would be at work. Billy figured that when the poaching occurred because he never saw anyone. I went with Billy and we walked the trap line so I could watch while I was at my grandparents. I was going to carry a 30 06 rifle and use it to attempt to scare off the poacher but firing a shot near him.
The planning went well but weather forecasting even in the early 1960s was not all that great. The morning I started out I listened to the weather forecast on the radio and it said there was a chance of snow. It was still early winter and the snow wasn’t deep yet so I didn’t need snowshoes. I always used a little backpack. In it, I had a metal cup I could put over a fire and using melted snow make a cup of tea. Also, I carried a little piece of tarp about 4 ft. square. And I often had a candy bar or two as well. As I was getting out near the end of Billy’s trap line, it started to snow. It was coming down so heavy I was sure that it wasn’t going to last but it did, but it was really slowing down my progress. Visibility also had got very poor and being winter in northern Minnesota the day was already coming to an end in the late afternoon making it even worse. I made the decision that there was no way to make it back home before it got dark. I found myself a spruce tree. I think it was probably a Black Spruce since they have branches almost all the way to the ground. I made a little nest using the tarp under the spruce tree. I figured the snow would peter out overnight and I could head home the next morning. I don’t remember but I imagine I made a bed on a spruce boughs. If you lay them down correctly, they kind of make a springy bed. The storm continued through the night and even in that stand of spruce the snow drifted in around me and the tarp gave me a nice roof. It wasn’t snow cave because was partially open to the weather. The storm went on well into the next day. It was late afternoon before the snow finally let up and already getting dark so I stayed put for another night. I was getting hungry but I had enough tea bags and there was plenty of snow to melt so I had some nice hot tea.
The next day I got home and when I came into the house my grandfather was sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire and my grandmother was at the stove doing something. My grandfather looked up and nodded at me and my grandmother said, “I bet you’re hungry.” I’m sure they had worried about me, but they had also taught me how to be self-reliant and take care of myself.
It looks like I didn’t get around to saying anything about what wild critters we ate. I’ll have to do that another time because this is gotten very long. Oh, I never did see the poacher that time. I guess he was smarter than me and didn’t want to go out when it might snow.
