Last night the whole crew (including Weaver, who had to stay in the car) visited a trapping boat right here in Middlebury. We were led into a dark and dusty barn, skirting broken screen doors, piles of angle iron, and stacks of feeding troughs to find another boat similar to those we've been researching. We arrived late (and the sun sets at noon these days) so we didn't get a very good view or have a chance to measure it. This is just guesswork, but it seems to be about 15 feet long, and fairly wide -- the beamiest trapping boat that I've seen so far.

According to the owner, it wasn't originally constructed as a trapping boat, though he has used it in that capacity. The farmer's grandfather built the boat during the Great Depression as a fishing and pleasure craft for he and his wife. As far as I know, that makes it the first example of a specifically tandem craft that we've seen. There are two plank seats and oarlocks, and the hull slats appear to be pretty crudely nailed to the sidewalls, without any inner chine log. We'll return to examine this boat further.

When it got too dark to even see the boat, we transitioned inside to the kitchen, where trapping lore of all varieties was distributed. We were read excerpts from titles as diverse as "Trap-lines North," "Trapping North American Fur Bearers," "Fur, Fish, and Game," and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Handbook. We were assured that the best writers are also trappers, and our literary future lay in running a trapline. Renee and I will be considering this possibility.

Halfway through the interview, one of the housecats yowled upstairs and came rocketing down the stairs with a mousetrap slapping off her rear leg. The ten year old son, who is just starting his own trapline for mice, muskrats, possum, skunk, and woodchuck, had managed to make another catch. He's destined for literary greatness.

We got a lot of audio, and some immersion into Vermont trapping culture; this interview promises to feature in our writing in some capacity.

Measuring the Tremble Creek dugout

Today Renee, Christian and I took a very close look at the dugout canoe which had been used for trapping by several generations of our first interviewee. First we lowered it from the rafters of his home, where it has hung for twenty-five years, emptying that many years of dust, dirt, some stored gear and at least three pennies (who says this doesn't pay?). After setting the boat on sawhorses it was vacuumed out and we made ready to measure the its shape. Eventually we will produce a scale drawing of the boat.

Unlike the other boats we have seen, which feature flat bottoms and sides with hard chines (corners), the dugout is a complex rounded shape. This dugout is a hollowed-out log, probably pine, showing no attempt on the part of the builders to spread the sides in any way. The owner surmises that the flat transom was added after construction, which family lore says was originally done by Native Americans. The sides are surprisingly thin, and in addition to the added transom there are pieces added at the bow as well, whether repairs or part of the original construction is not clear. The boat is almost completely sheathed in roofing tin and reinforced with a series of straps, including old hinges. Since the age is unknown, we did think that the label on the tin, the Follonsbee Forge, might give us some clues. A web search shows that the firm has been around for many years, and is actually still in business!

We used the "tick stick" method to get the shape of the hull, inside and out. We mounted panels faced with paper on selected station and then, holding the tick stick against the face of the hull, traced the position of the stick on to the paper. Later we can lay our paper down on the drawing board, line up our tick stick on our tracings (the ticks, or notches, allow us to align it perfectly) and then mark the point on the hull. We connect the dots and get the cross-section of the hull. Crude perhaps, but very effective.

Renee and Christian getting the hull shape inside and out. We aligned our plywood at specific stations, and recorded reference marks in relation to the string centerline

The owner of the canoe pointed out some interesting details: he kept us guessing then told us the small loop of leather nailed to one side was a hatchet holder, and he showed us the obvious wear marks in the bottom where the trappers had stood to pole the canoe. Christian noticed the tool marks left by the round bottom plane used to finish the inside of the hull.

Hatchet holder. There are also some metal hooks inside the hull for hanging a rifle.

You can see the plane marks running across the bottom of the photo...

...probably made by a plane like this.

We have finished fairing the lines we drew full-size of the Weybridge boat. Now we can compile those measurement into a corrected table of offsets that would allow anyone to build a copy of that boat. I say "corrected" because the deterioration of the hull has allowed the shape to change significantly, which became obvious when we laid a batten on our points on the lofting. By fairing those curves we've worked back to what is probably very close to the boat's original shape. With this canoe we will not do any correcting, or fairing. For one thing, the canoe is so stiff that its shape has probably not changed perceptibly and secondly, it will naturally have a random shape due to its construction as essentially a carved object. When we draw the canoe it will be as-is, recording the shape exactly as its builders made it by hollowing a large log. To borrow from a current advertisement: inspired by nature.

Douglas Brooks

Details of the Chalker Farm Boat

Renee measuring hull sections and you can see the small frames, which are split dowels. Other than giving the builder something to attach the thwart risers to, they don't offer anything structural to the boat, since the sides are made of a single plank.
Detail of the carved stem head. The string was our baseline reference for taking the lines of this boat.
The nice detail at the base of the stem, showing how it is carved to fair neatly into the keel, which is in turn nailed to the bottom planking.

While we have seen several trapping boats already, the Chalker Farm boat is particularly interesting. It has the same shape as the other trapping boats, a long, narrow double-ender (which we are increasingly hearing termed a "two-pointer") with cross-planked bottom and sides made of single planks of pine. Whereas the shape is basic, this boat reflects some very interesting construction details that one would expect to see in much finer boats. These include the small frames along the sides, which the boat builder went to the trouble of mortising into the chine logs. These frames are half-round, commonly seen on bent frame boats of this region and also a hallmark of the famous Rushton rowboats of the Adirondacks. The boat also has decks with coamings fore and aft, which the builder carefully rounded at the sheer. Particularly interesting is the carved stem head, which is part of the stem. This was a fairly time consuming detail for the builder, but Christian, one of the students, also pointed out that at the base of the stem the builder carved a small section of the stem so it faired in to the end of the keel. I've wracked my brain and I can't think of ever seeing anything like this before.

Douglas Brooks

Mystery Boat, 10/16 and 17

Ben, Christian, Douglas, and Renee visited a boat in Weybridge. A former owner of a Weybridge farm doesn't know anything about it, so it is very old - possibly over 100 years old? With some creativity, we managed to get the boat down (it appears to have been built into the barn). It is wider and slightly longer than the boats we saw at the farm in Panton. It has finer construction, but is in very rough shape. It had oarlocks (possibly not on the original construction), and front, middle, and back seats (once upon a time). It is a vernacular boat - built by someone to suit their needs. It had no tin as the other trapping boats did to protect them from the ice. Whether it was used for trapping or not, we took measurements of it. On Saturday, Ben and I worked with Douglas to make drawings of the boat from our measurements. If done correctly, the boat could be replicated exactly from the drawings. Due to some variations in method, a Japanese ruler, and the poor condition of the boat, it may be hard to make anything from our drawings. But, we learned our lessons, drew some lines anyway, and will probably return soon to re-measure the boat.

Ben and Douglas are in the loft of the barn, and Ben is holding the boat up with straps while Christian removes the support.



- Renee

Interview, 10/14

Douglas, Ben, and Renee met a farmer from Panton, whose family has six trapping boats, one of which is still used for fishing.

The family has been here for six generations, since the 1700s. The farmer started trapping in the 1960s on Dead Creek. A high-grade muskrat pelt was worth $1.25, and a low-grade pelt 35 cents. His father built the boats, and his grandfather probably trapped as well. He and his four brothers trapped, but he says, "Some of us kept it up more than others." His brothers also trapped for raccoon, fox, and beaver, but he only trapped for 'rats. Both he and his brother were licensed fur brokers, and his brother collected furs from Vermont and New York. A buyer from Massachusetts or New Jersey would then buy their furs for a fur house or as another middle man. He trapped in the fall as well as the spring, but you had to wait long enough for the animals to have their thick winter coats. They would trap after milking cows in the morning, and each had their own section of the creek. They would check traps until 2 or 3 pm, then do farm chores again, after which they would skin and flesh the hides.

He remembers there barely being a channel in Dead Creek in the 1960s due to all of the cattails. Their boats were double-ended so they could go either direction among the cattails. They also used push-poles, but some of the boats had oarlocks. Some boats were too narrow to be rowed. Occasionally, in big waves, they would paddle the boat kneeling and using both ends of the push-paddle like a kayak paddle. His poles were longer than the other we'd seen, perhaps 14 feet, and one paddle had tin on the sides of it as well. His father built a square-sterned boats for the younger boys so they wouldn't fall out - the square-sterned boat was less tippy. At the end of the trapping era, they used a canoe. He says a big decline in the market made trapping no longer worth it, though he trapped through 1995, "just for something to do." He says the muskrats go in cycles with water levels, diseases, and other factors. He speculates that climate change and herbicides, which kill cattails, may have caused the changes in Dead Creek. There are fewer cattails in Dead Creek now, which makes for more "bank 'rats," which live in holes in the bank instead of houses built of reeds.

They would often set traps at feed beds of cattails. The muskrats would swim along the bottom of the creek always in the same places, so they set their traps on the creek bottom. He remembers the bow and stern stems of the boats being oak, and the push-paddles ash because it is flexible and strong. Each brother owns one of the remaining boats, and his was built by his father in the 1960s when he was still in high school. The square-sterned boat was built in the 1950s. In 1969, he got 215 'rats: 91 were sold for $1.65, 105 at 82 cents, and 8 at 35 cents. His income from muskrats that year was $239. Their family trapped 6,000-7,000 'rats one year, and when his brother was working as a fur broker, they had 24,000 'rats from New York and Vermont as far south as Rutland and north to the Canadian border. The Canadian market was better, so sometimes they sold their 'rats north. His brother ate muskrat, but he never did. Their family also went fish shooting, and hunted bullfrogs with baseball bats.

He generously let us take his trapping boat temporarily. We will measure it and draw plans (like blueprints) for the boat.

- Renee

Follow-up Interview, 10/9

We met again with the former trapper from Middlebury to get more details as he remembered his family's trapping boats.

The boats were pine with an oak stem. They leaked a little when you put them in the water, but not for long. There was a seat in the middle and one in the back, which was useful for putting your knife or hatchet on. The gun rack was on the side. You stood in the back, with your legs spread for balance, and poled on either side. The boats didn't last long because nobody took care of them, but you could get 15-20 years out of one with care. The dugout canoe belonged to his grandfather, so when he trapped alone as a 17-year-old, he needed his own boat, which his father helped him build. They would use old fence posts as sets, and pile them by the cabin or on the bank near where they were placed. They would store the boats in the barn in the winter. They would keep paint on the boats and dry them at the end of the season. They also hunted bullfrogs during muskrat season, and he says, "You haven't lived 'til you've eaten bullfrog legs." You hunt bullfrogs by netting the smaller ones and shooting the bigger ones. Twenty or so bullfrogs would be enough to feed the family, and they are best fried, according to him.

- Renee

Photos

Checking out the dugout canoe.
















Transom.











Douglas and dugout.



















The former trapper and Christian with the push-paddle.
















Muskrat house on the way to visit the muskrat camp.

The former trapper and Tremble Creek, where they set their traps.

The cabin. He hopes to some day have it preserved.






















Approaching the cabin at the muskrat camp - note the size.

- Renee

Interview, 9/25

Ben, Christian, Renee, Douglas, and a representative from the Vermont Folklife Center interviewed a former trapper of Middlebury, Vermont. These are some of Renee's notes from the interview.

The trapper's father built trapping boats for family use years ago, and he helped build one for himself. There was no one way to build trapping boats, but certain things you had to have. There were as many different designs as people building them. Generally they were 12-14 feet, narrow, flat-bottomed, had a gun rack, and were poled with "push-paddles" standing up. A push-paddle is a 10-11 foot pole with a paddle on one end and a steel bottom with points for pushing off the creek bottom. Their family arrived in the area in the 1760s and farmed until the 1990s. He learned to trap. Trapping muskrats was good money. He was at the end of the era. Trapping 'rats was a spring ritual, and important income to a small farmer like his grandfather. He trapped by himself one season. The family had a trapping cabin on Tremble Creek in Addison County. The men of the family would sometimes stay overnight at the cabin, which is still there. His grandfather built it around WWI. They could get $1-4 for a pelt in 1950. His grandfather got 50-70 pelts a day. It was a big party that made money. The season lasted two to three weeks, when his grandfather would be at the cabin full time and other men would come out when they could, with usually 3 or 4 people there. Muskrat trapping season was also "shooting fish season." They would trap in the morning, then skin the 'rats, then shoot spawning pickerel for sport, which is still legal in Vermont.

During the spring, the muskrats are flooded out of their houses and are looking for high points to climb. A trap was set on an angled, floating log with a piece cut out of it just below the water line, where the trap sat. The log floated partially out of the water, so the 'rat would try to climb on the high end but would get caught in the trap. Muskrats instinctively dive for the bottom when trapped and then drown. The trap is chained to a pole sticking out of the water, so the trapper pulls the trap out of the cold water to retrieve the 'rat. You could use a .22 to shoot a muskrat between the eyes, but you must have good aim to avoid ruining the pelt. The hides would be stretched, then sold to a dealer who took the muskrats to New York. He says that the muskrat population of Tremble Creek collapsed in the 1960s, perhaps from a disease. The creek has changed due to eutrophication -- runoff from pesticides and fertilizers lowered the water quality, and vegetation now chokes the creek. The decline of the muskrat population coincided with a decline in the fur market. "We always felt we left a lot of 'rats," he says. The trapping boats that his family had are gone. But he has a dugout canoe that they used for trapping. It was very tippy, and never used for anything else. The story is that it was made by Native Americans in the late 1700s, and the family acquired it either by finding it or trading the natives for it. It is covered in tin to prevent the ice from ripping it up. This dugout is in his house, but the family's "newer" dugout is at the Maritime Museum. About the trapping boats, he says, "These are farm implements, and they're functional. If the cow steps through it upside-down in the pasture, nobody cares. They're cheap to build; they're simple; they're functional."

Photos to come.

- Renee

Welcome

Follow Christian, Ben, and Renee as they research trapping boats with boatbuilder Douglas Brooks. During the fur trade and more recently, dairy farmers of the Champlain Valley trapped muskrats in home-made boats for supplemental income. No documentation of these boats exist, and they are rotting away in barns. We set out to hear the oral history of muskrat trapping, photograph and draw plans of existing boats, and eventually build a boat or two of our own. Ben hopes to make an interactive map with video documenting the boats we find, and Christian and Renee plan to write historical journalism pieces for credit at Middlebury College.