Different

I’ve thought a lot about writing on this topic before but have never seemed to come up with the right words to properly express myself in a way people might understand. I decided to be brave and try to put a few words down about what it’s like to be me, a 21st century trappers wife, living a life that seems 100 years ago amongst modern day people.

The way our family lives is very odd this day and age. We have lived out in the woods in isolation for 13 years now, 6 months a year, sometimes more. We have a totally different understanding of how to make our lives functional than most other people. We have no running water, even when we are living in ”town” for the summer. Instead of long commutes, careers and consumerism, we spend most of our time earning our bacon in a very tangible way. Just last week, Tyler butchered a lame chicken to throw in the crock pot for dinner before I took the kids into town to Sydney’s gymnastics class. The kids wanted to watch and like talking about the anatomy. They aren’t at all confused about where food comes from or how it comes to our plate. They are here to witness the process for nearly all of the food we eat. Oranges, Apples and bananas are magical exotic foods to our toddlers. When we got to Sydney’s gymnastics class that day I was a little embarrassed to see that Blaze’s face had blood spots freckling his cheek. The other moms just look at me like I’m a complete weirdo when I explain as I wipe his face that we just butchered a chicken for dinner before we drove in for class.

Tylers home cleaning salmon after a successful trip this past July. We have no running water so the tank to the right of the photo was filled by a water truck so we have fresh clean water to use on occasions such as this.

Our lifestyle has made us somewhat culturally different from most of our American peers. I don’t often feel like I fit in and I’m totally fine with that. I love my life but sometimes it’s really hard to be understood. Trying to explain casually to acquaintances what we do for a living can sometimes be a little awkward and frankly makes me sound like a real character. What do you do? Oh we’re trappers… and live a subsistence lifestyle?  My husband does some construction work in the summer time.

I really like the conversations that happen in March when we come back to town from the trapline after the season is over. I will call up our car insurance provider to have our car put back on a policy and the jolly customer service agent will say something like. ” Gone for the winters, huh, must be nice to get out of Alaska for the winter!” Sometimes I just say, “Yeah….” But sometimes I feel like telling the truth even if I sound like a character and I tell them we travel NE of Fairbanks about 250 miles every winter to live on our trapline.

I’m forever getting ready for the upcoming winter while we are in town for the summer. I’ll be at the grocery store picking our herbal teas and Sydney will say in front of other costumers, “Yummy, I’m excited! Are we taking that out to the trapline Mamma?!” and everyone close enough to hear will give us a look of confusion.

Sydney and Blaze at the Tanana Valley State Fair this summer. This was Blazes first fair…due to covid. Glad we got to do it this year.

Though we are a rare breed, there are a few other families living out in the woods and making part of their living off of a trapline. If they live in the Northern half of the state, I likely know them. They are my friends because they are some of the few people I can totally relate to. Even though we are sometimes hundreds of miles away from each other in the winter they feel like my closest neighbors. Alaska Bush neighbors. I get lucky enough to visit with these other bush women, mothers, a few times every summer and we have a good time exchanging ideas, grocery lists,  and having a few good giggles about the dumb questions people sometimes ask us about the lifestyle. We talk about how we strap our dogs and kids into bush planes. We talk about animal populations, how to best clean out a cloth diaper with no running water, how to best cook a beaver tail, how we light our off grid cabins, how we put our boats up for winter storage, bear problems, river issues, good ideas for the first aide supply kit. Had Tyler and I not ended up living the life we do these other women would have probably been unlikely friends to me. We have a lot of fundamental and personality differences but our bush mamma comradery has been a strong bonding experience.

When we travel to the lower 48 states to see family I often feel like a foreigner. I’m blown away at how made up and fashionable people are. Everyone seems so distracted and fast moving. There is so much pavement and every lawn seems perfectly manicured. I love what is untamed, wild and bushy. I’d rather meet a bear in the woods than those that walk the streets of Minneapolis at 3 in the morning. The curiosity people often have about our lifestyle sometimes embarrasses me and questions sometimes make me feel like a museum piece. Friends of friends want to show up at get togethers in order to meet the elusive Alaska Sasquatch Family, (us). That’s what it feels like sometimes anyway. There is a special grin some people get when they meet us that looks like someone waiting to be entertained. I can’t hardly say anything about our lives that doesn’t sound weird or interesting to most folks. We also tend to get a lot of advice, A LOT.

Our garden this year. Lots of cabbage, Kale, Broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, beans, peas and zucchini. We keep tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in our greenhouse. We raised 50 cabbages for our family this year because we eat so much kraut and I dry a bunch for the trapline where I make a cabbage roll casserole dish with the dried cabbage as well as use it in soups and stews.

Trapping can be a sensitive issue to folks this day and age. Some people think we are awful and cruel. I am pretty sensitive to that. Someone can ask us what we do and when we tell them they can make a snap judgement about us without seeing the entire picture of our lives, our lifestyle. They just hear trapper and think we kill animals for a living and it’s wasteful or outdated or cruel. They don’t know the good things we are doing living our lifestyle. We create very little trash compared to most Americans because we don’t buy nearly as much from stores. We buy a lot of bulk items that have very limited trash. We use flour and grain bags to start our woodstove in the morning. We have a very small carbon footprint compared to most people. We don’t drive a car half of the year. The animals we harvest, nearly all of them are used for food, what we don’t eat the dogs will. We’ve spent two winters living off of Pike and Lynx meat. Arguably the greatest loss of wildlife comes from loss of habitat, not Tyler and Ashley Selden going off into the wilderness and harvesting fur in the winter where our nearest neighbor is 80 miles away, as the crow flies. If we ever knew or felt that an animal was endangered we would do everything we could to protect it. We couldn’t fish for chums last year because their numbers are too low. We wouldn’t dare put a net in when we know the salmon need our help. We harvested more beaver last fall to feed our dog team. People have to eat, pets have to eat, animals have to eat .It makes sense to eat meat where we live. Meat is what is available to eat locally.  We try to use every possible part of an animal that we can for a purpose. We are not wasters. We try to be good stewards of the land. Our dwellings are humble and don’t take much energy to heat. I’ve been know to turn people down offering our children balloons because I know that they only turn into useless trash! I like to buy quality things that will last a long time.

Still, it’s hard for people to get past the fact that we kill some animals to make part of our living. My Grandmother likes to call what we do hunting because she just seems to prefer that word for what we do. If a person eats meat, they are eating an animal. If a person is a vegetarian but cares for a pet that eats meat, they are likely buying products made from animals. If your a Vegan but you own a leather couch, that came from an animal. We have to be honest with ourselves about hidden impacts we have on the environment. For Tyler and I its obvious what our impact is, we face the reality every day in our work. We have enormous respect for the animals we catch that feed us and help us eek out an income while we live in the wilderness. If you live in the middle of a true wilderness trapping is a pretty obvious way to make some money.

Tyler and I had a shower tonight. We fill a portable heater tank from our rain water collection reservoir.  After we were done with dinner and getting the kids ready for bed I remembered and said to Tyler, ” Oh, yeah, you started a shower warming tonight?” and he said, ”yes, and we’d better go out and take it or it will be a waste.” It’s dark, 9:45, and about 45 degrees outside. We go out and take our showers and it feels great. That’s our lives, all the time, every day. We don’t mind. We aren’t put out. We appreciate things in life. We don’t waste and we know the value of things.

I started knitting this summer and plan on doing all of my own hats made with wool to put my fur pom poms on starting next spring when we get back to town.

The summer flew by like crazy! We planted a garden. My parents came up for a visit. My childhood best friend came up for a visit. We hiked into a State Park cabin for a bit of a camping adventure. There were berries along the hiking trail and it took forever to get Blaze and Sydney to the cabin because they were so distracted by berries. We got to go to the local fair. The weather was fantastic this summer and no Smoke! Tyler signed a contract with a literary agent!!!! We hope he is a published author in the next year!!!! We are so excited about this journey. Tyler leaves on Friday to guide 2 moose hunts for Charlie Jaego. We will head to the trapline around Sept. 20 when Tyler gets done guiding. Our anniversary is this weekend. I made a poor decision as a wife and agreed to get married on moose opener! We are rarely together these days on our anniversary. Looks like we’ll have to sneak in a date tomorrow or never. I better get going so I can hunt for a sitter. I’ll try to do another post to say goodbye before we head out for the winter. Thanks for reading everyone!