I love to check out the sets and other things left behind by the old timers that have trapped the high country before me. Several years ago my Dad, who was my trapping partner at the time, and I were scouting and area for marten. As we wound our way up the trail we discovered several old marten sets, most of them "short pole" sets. Like this one------
We had heard that the trapper that had trapped this area years ago had a cabin so we were on the lookout for it. We came to a fairly level spot a few yards above the creek, so started to cast around looking for signs of habitation. I jumped up on a big spruce log about 2 1/2' in diameter and was walking down it, I spotted an old rusted out metal bucket half buried in the duff of the forest floor. After a couple more steps I see some old cedar shakes under the log, then I realized what I was looking at, the tree I was walking down had fallen across the cabin crushing it.
My Dad suggested that we look around for trees that might have been blazed, he said that the old timer often did this near there cabins. I don't know if this was a type of claim or if it was just a way they did back then. So we cast around the immediate area looking for blazes. Just a few minutes later I found an old blaze, and my Dad asked me if there was any thing written in it. Upon closer examination I see there was something written in pencil on the weathered wood of the blaze. It said, "W.C.Stratton October 14, 1917". That was an exciting find for me, one I will never forget.
Part of the inscription was partly grown over by the bark of the tree, but it could be read. The pictures I took of the writing did not turn out.
We ended up trapping this line for a few years and even had our camp set up along this creek. The camp was about 5 miles down stream from where the cabin stood. We did take many marten off this line and even used some of Stratton's sets.
