As the outfitter and his chief pilot shivered by their small fire, they could hear an angry bull moose grunting and crashing through the bush 25 metres away.
At the tail end of another 100 days of flying daily in the remotest part of BC, the Cessna 185 floatplane experienced an engine failure and the men had to conduct a forced landing (read “crash”) through trees and into a lake along the BC/Yukon border. They forced their way out of the sinking plane and swam to shore.
Being experienced woodsmen, they immediately started a fire and hung their wet clothes to dry while they waited for help. Everything went down with the airplane, except their clothes, an axe, and a lighter.
Having grown up in the northern bush, they had a healthy respect for the wilderness. The outfitter, Nic Weigelt, 55, a former Canadian army paratrooper, lawyer, and pilot, is the manager and part owner of Jennings River Wild Adventures. He figured the fire would keep an angry visiting bull moose and local wolves away. But prepared a “safety tree” just in case.
The pilot of the ill-fated Cessna was 74-year-old Dale Trottier (pronounced Trotter), but everyone north of 55 degrees latitude knows him as “Trapper.” If you ever fly into a ranch, float plane base or remote airstrip north of 55, from Churchill to Scoop Lake, from Fort Simpson to Yellowknife, and ask, “Hey, you seen Trapper around?” chances are the people will know exactly who you are talking about.
Lots of guys in the North are called Cowboy Smith or Trapper Joe, but there is only one Trapper. At age 15, he ran his own trapline and hence the nickname “Trapper” took hold. But it was horses that made him famous. Not the trotting or showy kind. The kind that bucked. This love of rodeo led him to become Canada’s most winning professional rodeo cowboy, with seven national bareback titles.
Born in Black Diamond, Alberta, Trapper began his rodeo career in 1963. From 1968 to 1980, he placed fourth or higher in the Canadian standings. In 1970, he was the only Canadian to compete at the National Finals Rodeo held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Later, Trapper taught and coached young bareback riders and acquired his commercial pilot’s license. After retiring from the Pro-rodeo circuit, he began operating his own airplane service, which spread the cowboy’s legend further.
Trapper is famous. A few years ago, Nic sent Trapper south to Kamloops and lost contact with him. One hour away from the mandatory 24-hour reporting period before calling SAR (Search And Rescue, which, of course, they have on speed dial), some ranching folks phoned Nic to say that Trapper had just topped up on fuel and had departed.
When he arrived back at Nic’s hunting lodge, Trapper explained that strong head winds had “burned most of the fuel,” so he had landed at a float plane dock at a ranch near Prince George. The ranch owners invited Trapper in for dinner and put him up for the night. The following day, they fueled up the plane and Trapper was off. When he arrived at his employer’s dock, Trapper explained, “They knew who I was, I didn’t know them at all. But really nice people. You owe them 350 bucks. Adios.”
Such is the way of the Northern courtesy and candour.
One time, north of Clinton (former gold rush town between Vancouver and Prince George) Trapper’s plane ran out of fuel, forcing him to land on the highway and park the plane at a rest stop. So, he took out his jerry cans and started hitchhiking. As he walked along the Cariboo Highway, a group of Satan’s Angels bikers rode up on their motorcycles and began teasing Trapper.
They asked Trapper if his horse had run out of gas.
He bluntly replied, no, his airplane was out of gas.
When they looked over at the Rest Stop and saw his airplane, the bikers invited Trapper to hop on and gave him a ride to the gas station, and then back to his airplane.
“I ran into them guys at Falklands stampede a couple of weeks later and had a few beers with them in the beer garden. Nice guys.”
Even at 74, the cowboy pilot still hand pumps thousands of gallons of fuel, sometimes 100-gallons a day. Standing 5’8” and weighing only 160 pounds, he lifts 150-pound moose quarters in and out of the airplane and is not averse to fighting bigger men or telling a police officer to “get the f… off my airplane.” You do not mess with Trapper.
Friends find that Trapper is an enigma, a walking contradiction. The things Trapper does, he’s a master at. It’s not that he says he’s better than anyone, he just does it – ‘it’ being anything to do with airplanes, the bush or bucking horses. For instance, if you can’t tie a proper bowline, you might be considered “dumber than a day-old coyote.” If the tail of the knot is on the right, instead of the left, you are only worthy of a shake of the head.
When Trapper says, “I don’t mean to be ignorant,” fasten your seatbelt, because he’s about to be unapologetically blunt. If you offer your opinion, like the bowline with a Yosemite finish is an even better knot, well, you better have your big boy pants on when he comes back at you.
One night, Nic went down to his dock and retied all the float ropes as rewoven figure 8s, which is a pretty reliable knot. By 7 a.m., they were all back to bowlines. “He’s the hardest man I know and I know quite a few,” says his friend and employer. “If he’s ever been scared, he wouldn’t show it. Not surprising, coming from a guy whose favourite line is: ‘Shut up and die like a man.’”
But under that hard, sometimes foul-mouthed, often sarcastic exterior is a sophisticated, highly intelligent, honourable man of merciless wit who is worldly wise and even had the opportunity to dine with the Queen.
As for being stranded, shivering, injured, listening to the wolves coming closer throughout the night and next morning and being visited by a couple of bull moose, Trapper and Nic managed to stay alive through the minus-seven-degree night. Fortunately, the aircraft’s emergency locator transmitter’s signal was picked up by a satellite.
Half-frozen and falling into hypothermia, they were finally located by 442 (SAR) Squadron and rescued. On the helicopter flight back into the town of Teslin, when they were told they were being MedEvaced to Vancouver, Trapper said, “Well, that ain’t gonna happen.” It was the end of the hunting season and, banged up as they were, they still had camps to tear down, horses to bring in and a whole bunch of other work to do. CAT scans could wait.
Such is the way of the North.
Doug Setter, BSc is a former soldier, paratrooper and competitive kickboxer. He works as a fitness trainer and is the author of seven books, including Flat Gut After 50. He can be reached at www.dougsetter.com
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