Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 1 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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"Old Joe" was a Great Trapper
The following story came from George H. Wilson's column OLD TIME STUFF in the Evening Citizen, Ottawa 10 Aug. 1929
"Joe", as he was familiarly known, did more trapping than hunting though he was pretty clever with a gun. Joe had a farm (at Mousseau/Hetherington Lake) but the sons did more on it than the father did.
When Fred Parent (who related the yarn) first knew Joe Mousseau in 1879, Joe was well up in years, and by all who knew him was called "Old Joe".
"Old Joe" always looked forward to the fall, because it was in the fall that his bear trapping took place. Joe used to get from seven to eight bears each year and from the skins of these, he realized an average of twelve dollars. In some seasons he made as much as one hundred dollars. The bear meat he either sold in the market in Ottawa or made use of it himself.
But Joe trapped more for the "kick" he got out of it, than for the mere profit he made.
He had a system of his own of going after the bears. First, he would lay some fish or other ordorous bait on the ground. Then in front of the bait he would set a powerful spring trap and cover it gently with leaves or grass.
Then over bait and trap he would build a small structure out of logs, something like a dog house in shape. The front of the structure was fully open. The affair was just wide enough to easily let a bear enter. The idea of the little house was to prevent the bear getting at the bait without passing over the trap and getting either his front or his hind feet caught in the trap. No bear was ever known to get any of Joe Mousseau's bait without getting caught.
TRAP NOT TIED
Mousseau's trapping had other peculiarities. One was that the trap itself was not tied to anything. Attached to it was a logging chain about 10 or 12 feet long and at the end of the chain was a three pronged hook which caught in the ground as the bear walked or ran away, thus making his progress through the bush very slow.
"OLD JOE MOUSSEAU"
After putting together the first part of "Old Joe" it came to me that some readers might be concerned about Joe's treatment of the bears. However this is how it was in his time, so if you are unhappy - read no further!
To most people it was never very clear why Old Joe did not fasten the trap where it was set instead of letting the bear wander away with the trap.
WHY HE DID IT
But Joe had several ideas in his methods. The first was that the bear if let get away would not injure the trap or mutilate his foot too much. He said he wanted a complete skin.
What it was believed that Joe really arrived at, was the "kick" he got in trailing the bear and the spice of danger he had when he came up with it. Sometimes when the bear found itself pursued would climb a tree, trap and all, and in such cases Joe had the added thrill of shooting the bear while up in the tree.
POISONED FOXES
Joe Mousseau also made a specialty of killing foxes which in the 1860s '70s and '80s were very numerous around the Gatineau.
On the foxes Joe did not use traps or waste powder. He used a quick acting poison which he got in the Ottawa drug stores. Foxes in the early eighties brought from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter each at the Ottawa fur store. The foxes were gone after in the winter.
In these fox hunting forays, Joe Mousseau had the help of his two sons and of neighbor parents' sons, who worked with him on a commission basis.
USE FAT AS BAIT
The plan as pursued by Mr. Mousseau and his assistants was to procure lumps of lard or pig fat, into which a small hole was bored by a piece of maple stick or other hardwood. In this hole was pushed a poison pellet. The hole was then refilled with hot tallow. The lump was not touched with the hands so as to keep the human odor if possible from the always suspicious foxes.
The poisoned fat was then put into paper or rags and carried to points in the bush where the foxes were known to go, and deposited on the ground or snow. The place where the poison was put was marked by a pile of brush or a blazed tree.
If on the return trip the tallow was missing, a search for a dead fox was started. Mr. Parent says that the foxes seldom got further than a couple of acres away and once the fox ate the poisoned grease it was quickly up with him.