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.