Setting traps
Jonathan was born in La Tuque, but he doesn't care much for his home town. His real home is the forest, the woods, the trees. If he left school early, it's because he couldn't make friends with his classmates. Or rather, he didn't want to. "To make sure he could come back here, he purposefully didn't make any friends!" explains his father, Michel Lamarre.
You should see the ease with which Jonathan plucks a partridge, the expert hand with which he sets a trap, the instincts that allow him to find the entryway to a beaver's hut. This guy must have resin or sap running through his veins, so it's not surprising that he perked up the instant he was able to come back to Windigo.
The son of a game-preserve owner, Jonathan exhibits all the signs of somebody who will one day run his own preserve. With his father, he scours the woods to trap martens and beavers, the former for its fur, the later for its skin and "smelly glands," which are used to lure martens. "A marten trap is just like a mousetrap, only bigger. It's stronger and more painful," specifies Windigo's "Baron Von Trap." As a bonus, here's his personal technique.
To trap a marten, first pick an Upper-Mauricie forest. Any forest in the region will do. "A marten gets around a lot; it travels all through the forest," says Jonathan. Then find a low-lying, slightly bent branch, to make the animal's run easier. Fit it with a wooden box with one side made out of wire mesh, to keep the animal from escaping, but also to allow the beast to see the bait – a partridge thigh, prepared with a bit of "beaver drug," those infamous glands. The trap will be placed on the other side of the box, opposite the wire mesh. Cover the trap with spruce branches and come back a few days later.
To keep your prize from becoming a smorgasbord from the forest's carnivores, don't forget to equip your trap with a cord, which will hike it up once it's been successful. After all, it's only for their fur that man traps martens.
Beaver traps, on the other hand, require a bit more effort, not that spotting the wild engineer's dwelling is a difficult task. A master at constructing elaborate dams, a beaver will often choose to live in the middle of a lake, which keeps it safe from predators like Jonathan. But the Baron has more than one trick up his sleeve, even if he has to place his trap under water.
Thankfully, Jonathan does not have to don a diving suit to do this. A long piece of wood, a canoe and a little instinct are all he needs. After rowing up to the braided-branch hut, Jonathan climbs on top of the beaver's home, accompanied by his brother in-law, Matthias. Don't worry, these are very solid roofs. Our trapper then begins to search the water near a prominent bump on the hut's surface, which hides the water mammal's food supply.
Beavers will generaly build an access door near this "pantry." Jonathan finds the entryway on his first try. Now all he needs to do is to stick some large branches in the lake's bottom, arranging them to form a triangle. He fastens a trap to this frame, placing it right in front of the door. He then repeats the process for the hut's other entryway.
In order to perfect her aim and ability, The instant that Jonathan walked out onto the hut, all of its occupants swam away. But they'll be back. And unfortunately for them, they will be no match for the powerful steel jaws sitting on their underwater doorstep. Even though a beaver trap also looks like a big mousetrap, it is even more powerful than a marten trap, which makes us think that it must be even stronger and a lot more painful.
A question remains: What does one do with a trapped beaver? "We sell the hide. And the meat makes damn good spaghetti sauce!" answers Jonathan. How about some spruce beer to wash that down?
