2005 by Gene Walters
ISBN 0-9738505-0-7
buy the book from author Milton E Walters
(b 1927 S Dakota ~ moved age one to Sunset House):
PO Box 58 Sunset House, AB T0H 3H0
CA $35.00 postpaid

straight to faust
                 My brother-in-law, Mel Peterson, was probably the best bushman and trapper that ever hit this country. His partner during the middle '30s was Murdock Graham. Murdock lived at Faust. They were way up the Goose River this one time; it was getting late and they were coming out at Christmas. I'll give you an idea of what kind of woodsman Mel was back then.
                 He said, "Murdock, you know we should cut across." Murdock said, "What do you mean, cut across?"
Mel said that they should go straight for Murdock's place 'cause it was a lot longer around by the road by High Prairie. Murdock said that he'd never find it. Mel didn't think that they would have any trouble. So they took off from way up the Goose River and cut across straight for Faust and hit that old guy's building right square in the middle. Now that's a feat that many people won't be able to do.

head for faust to ranch mink
                 After Andy came home from the Army, we eventually decided we'd leave the Banana Belt and head for Faust to ranch mink. The sad part is, we had just fenced the one quarter. I still think we should have stayed farming. I liked farming.
                 I'll always remember the day Andy came home from the Army. I knew he was coming home, but not when. One day I came home and Andy was standing there with the two dogs, one on either side of him. He said, "You're going to have to help me out here. These dogs don't like me 'cause they don't know me. I'm okay as long as I don't move, but the minute I start to move, they growl. It's a good thing you came along when you did. If you hadn't come till morn­ing, I'd still be standing here."
                 We decided we'd go into farming and trapping in a big way, so we were allowed to homestead a half section each. He was allowed another half section because he was a veteran.
                 Later when we got to Faust, my brother and I bought 10 acres and I added 30 to it later. We built a house there and a bunch of mink pens. We bought standard mink first; that's the dark-coloured ones. We also bought breeding stock. Later we got into various colours like pastels, silver blues and whatnot. The most females we ever had were 350 breeding stock. At times we had up to 1200 baby mink.
                 I did most of the fishing during that time, to feed the mink. We both trapped, but somebody had to stay home. Times were still tough, so my brother got ajob there at the local garage as a mechanic and doing books too. Most of the time he'd be in Faust, but he'd come out trapping sometimes in the spring and fall. Sometimes I helped pelting the mink. The pelting lasted anywhere from two to two-and-a-half weeks, beginning in mid-November.
                 You could do 100 to 150 mink per day when pelting. In later years, when we still had the mink in the '60s, we fished tulibee, for the mink feed. The fish in Slave Lake were small. It took about three of them to make a pound. We used small mesh nets, about two-and-three-quarters; the depth was 80 to 100 mesh nets. If we wanted deeper nets, we overlapped the 80 mesh nets. In order to use the nets you used a float line on top and a lead-line on the bottom. You put a heavy lead about every three feet and a cork about every three feet on top to float it so it would keep the net apart. If you wanted the net to float higher, you added more cork on top. Sometimes you'd bring in a 100-yard net and have two tons of fish.
                 It was quite a job picking a net up in a 20 or 30 mile-an-hour wind. There would be two of you on the boat, the other guy steering and you bringing the net in by the armload, throwing it behind you into the bin. You kept doing that till you had the whole net in. If you got caught with four or five nets out, with that many fish, it was a nightmare. You took the fish home, sold them to everybody you could, and filled every freezer you had. The odd time you'd lose some. The mink would eat a half to one pound a day. You'd grind the fish up with minerals and feed it to the mink.
                 The average price on a mink pelt was between 20 and 40 dollars. The prices fluctuated a lot in the beginning but they eventually stabilized. We raised standards, silver blues, pastels, whites, winter blues, sapphires and pearls. They were beautiful mink.

fish lesser slave lake from faust
                 Sonny and I went to the bush one other time, trapping beaver late in the fall. I let someone else run my fishing nets while I was gone. A big snow came up. Sonny and I realized there would be trouble if the nets weren't pulled, so we packed up and went home. Sure enough they hadn't pulled the nets and it was freezing because it turned cold right after the snow. This was in late October and we were out there trying to chop our boat out when this fellow by the name of Henry came along. He asked us why we didn't chop his boat out and we'd all go out in his to get the nets.
                 Another kid who used to fish with me decided to come along to help us. It was dead calm when we finally got the boat chopped out of the frozen creek. Lesser Slave Lake was still open. We went out from Strawberry Creek.
                 It was unfortunate, but my nets were the ones being lifted last. The fish were no good because the nets had been out too long. The wind came up and Henry panicked and made me throw my nets overboard. I never did get them back. The kid who was helping us was gonna punch Henry out and take over the boat. All we would have had to do was drift into Kinuso beach and we wouldn't have gotten into trouble, but Henry wouldn't listen.

                 I'll tell you a story about commercial fishing in the early '40s.
                 This guy named Tommy hired me to help him fish on Lesser Slave Lake. I went down to Faust with him and by the time we got going, we were late. All the powerboats were rented by then, so he went over to Menzies' fish plant, where they bought fish. He told them he had to have a boat so they rented him these old lifeboats from off­shore ships. They were about 20 to 22 feet long, with no motor, just great big long oars.
                 Tommy had it all figured out that I'd be the engine because all he took was one set of oars. We went down to the west end of the lake, by what is known as the "Big Grassy," and fished there. The year before, he caught a lot of pickerel, but we didn't do very good this time around. We fished there about two weeks. When we'd go out, if it was calm it was all right. But if a damn wind came up, how in the hell could you paddle a 22-foot boat. You'd have to flag down a guy with a motor and throw him a line and he'd tow you in. I still remember paddling, just laying into those oars with the sweat rollin' and Tommy he'd laugh, slap his leg and say, "You know, you can't scare me with speed so go as fast as you want to."
                 The sad part of this whole thing was the food the guy fed me while we were fishing. To this day, I still don't like fish soup. We had fish soup for dinner and supper. That is, if we got in for dinner. If not, we ate bread on the boat. But for breakfast, he had this concoction of wieners and beans with a half-dozen eggs stirred in it and that's what he fed us. Along with bread, that's all we ate. Finally he said he had to quit because he wasn't making any money, but he told me I was learning quick and would make a good fisherman. He told me I handled nets well.

no timber in god's country                  Years ago we went into the country to trap. It was God's country.                  By God's country, I mean the way He made it. There was timber from Meekwap Lake to the West Prairie River. In less than 50 years that timber was reduced to a few patches scattered here and there throughout the trapline. Our own government screwed up the tim­ber resource. In a weak attempt to begin reforestation, they put a huge V-shaped plow on the back of a large Cat, like a D-8. Basically they dug a trench about five or six feet deep. The drainage from this caused erosion and generally any seedlings planted halfway up these mounds of dirt failed to survive this manmade concoction. This was mainly because these so-called forestry experts planted pine where spruce should have been planted and vice versa. They wasted resources and tax dollars.                  In the case of the job they did at Meekwap Lake, these ditches drained into the lake, ruining muskrat habitat. The timber company did not leave a buffer zone by the lake. They logged right to the edge of it. There was, as usual, a total lack of regard for nature and the resource. This is another government blunder, because there is no one policing the timber companies.                  They've done this all over the trapline. They call this "scarifying." The dictionary definition of the word is "to cut slightly." If a five- or six-foot ditch is a slight cut, 1'd hate like hell to see what they'd actually call a ditch. The government guidance on our refor­estation is as useless as the tits on a boar. For example, one time a tree expert was at Meekwap Lake and I suggested they plant the pine on the high ground and spruce in the lower areas, or plant both and let the dominant tree take over. He scoffed at my ideas. There isn't much timber growing at Meekwap Lake these days.