Non-Gwitchin Trapping

NON-GWITCHIN TRAPPING IN THE OLD CROW FLATS

i) European-Canadian Trappers in the Flats

The presence of the HBC and later other independent traders encouraged not only the people of the Old Crow area to continue trapping for furs, but also encouraged trapping by non-Gwitchin.

One of the earliest white trappers mentioned is Pete Norberg, "a trapper, on Old Crow", who was contracted by Constable Fyfe, RNWMP, to bring in 2000 lbs of meat to Rampart House in 1911 for the smallpox patients (Fyfe 1911).

A white trapper from Fort Yukon, James Carroll, with his wife Fanny and two young children spent a season trapping and shooting muskrats in the Old Crow Flats in 1920 (Carroll 1957). His hunting and trapping experiences on the Flats give an interesting perspective on the area and provide some additional details of the life of both the Vuntut Gwitchin and non-Gwitchin trappers. Carroll set up camp in the Flats in the spring, and moved his camp after snow melt in late May to the mouth of Potato Creek (actually Surprise Creek) where it entered the Old Crow River. In June they constructed a scow from spruce poles and rowed and poled down the river to Old Crow, taking eight days (Carroll 1957).

The Danish trapper, Victor Peterson camped on the site of the fish trap at Tsdu-ho-ko in the Old Crow Flats in the spring of 1935 to hunt muskrat. Peterson was married to the daughter of John Tizya who built the trap in the late 1800's. From artifacts found at the site, Morlan (1973) concluded that a tent was occupied by Peterson and his wife in 1935. Peterson's muskrat hunting activities are represented by muskrat stretchers and a rat (muskrat) canoe found on the surface. Peterson probably built the caches on the site as he had a cabin on nearby Black Fox Creek.

David W. "Slim" Mascall was one of the trappers on the Old Crow Flats in mid 1930s (photo in Eloise Watt collection at VGFN), with a cabin near Timber Hill (RCMP 1939).

RCMP officer E. A. Kirk sketched a map of the Old Crow Flats in 1939 to show the locations of RCMP patrols and camp sites. The map (Figure 2.10) also shows "natives" camp sites and locations of the "white" trappers; J. Frost, Victor Petersen, Mason, David Lord, H. P. Nieman, and Albert Schaeffer.

At the mouth of Timber Creek, Geist and his guides found "the cabin built at least thirty years ago [about 1920] by the famous trappers, the Mason brothers, still standing; but high water in spring had so filled it with mud, we could not use it" (Geist 1956?).

ii) RCMP and Regulation of Trapping Areas

Carroll (1957) states that the RCMP stationed at Rampart House in 1920 also had a station at Old Crow to contact the muskrat trappers as they floated down the Old Crow River with their catch. The first RCMP post established at Old Crow was moved from Rampart House in 1928. As the number of white trappers in the area increased and the use of poisons by some of these trappers became known, the RCMP began making regular patrols to the Old Crow Flats to check on the various people and their activities. Checking the health and well-being of the people on the Flats and compliance with the game regulations were the official aims of these patrols. Special Constables from Old Crow were an important part of the RCMP patrols (Dobrowolsky 1995).

In 1930s Old Crow became the departure point for the RCMP winter patrols to Fort McPherson and Herschel Island. The last patrol to Fort McPherson from Old Crow was made in 1969 (Dobrowolsky 1995).

Only when the federal day school was built in 1950 did Old Crow become a year-round headquarters. Morlan (1973) agrees with Welsh (1970) that the existence and stability of Old Crow as a community was brought about and maintained by the presence and influence of Euro-Canadian institutions such as the store, the school, the church, and the nursing station.

For many years Old Crow was not the only community of its kind on the Porcupine River. As Morlan (1973) points out, Johnson Village, Whitestone Village, and even, possibly, a re-occupation of Lapierre House in the late 1930's might have offered competition for the distinction of being the only lasting community in northern Yukon. However, with a population of only about 200 Vuntut Gwitchin in the area, it is unlikely that the government would have provided services to more than one locality along the Porcupine River (Morlan 1973).