Old trapper remembers a happier time

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Being a trapper all his life, 80 year old Gabe Lazott finds that since his retirement six years ago, life can be boring.

Keeping an immaculate house seems to be the only pleasure he finds in life these days.

Reminiscing causes Lazott to smile and brings a twinkle to his eyes.

He recalls when in his younger days he had a good year at trapping.

"I brought in 90 lynx, that was the biggest catch ever," he said, smiling proudly.

Lazott, a widower, is originally from Fort Vermilion and has a family of ten children.

"In those days one could not be lazy, otherwise your family would starve," he said.

"Trapping, fishing and gardening provided the staples of our diet. Sometime I went to work in the bush camp to be able to make other purchases," Lazott said.

My father and my grandfather, both worked for the Hudson Bay Company. Lazott recalls his father worked for $100 per year.

"My father even worked one full year just for a cow. But the milk was sure good," he said.

"In my young years as a trapper, pelts were paid by the skin. One skin was 35 cents."

"There was one man that earned the name "Thousand Skin". He was the only man to have earned a thousand skins in one season," he said.

Although Lazott admits he would still like to go in the bush to trap, he says it costs too much money to go trapping any more. With the fur bearing animals being scarce, a trapper

does not make money anymore, he said.

Having lived on the reserve since his retirement, he doesn't like what he sees.

He says there has been a lot of lives lost as a result of alcohol.

He doesn't like to dwell on the situation, so he began to talk about a much happier time.

"After trapping season was over, a few of us would go to this man in Fort Vermilion. He was the only man that took pictures for 10 cents.

"This man had a big camera, nothing like the one you got," he said pointing to my camera.

"Once the camera was set up, he would put this big black cloth over his self and take our picture. He took good pictures," he said as he showed yellow-colored pictures of himself

and friends taken a long time ago.

"My last moose I killed was six years ago," he said, chuckling fondly.

"I had gone hunting and had arrived at my cabin when I remembered I forgot something. So I went back to the highway to hitch a ride. There was construction going on at the time.

I asked the flag girl to see if she could get a ride for me.

"Just them she said, look at that moose. It was scared and was trying to cross the road but with all the vehicles and noise it went back into the bush.

"I told her to forget the ride and walked back to cabin and got my gun. I knew it would to in a circle so I set out to where I figured it would come out.

"Sure enough it did. I had moose steak that night. I even gave some to the flag girl, I think she was my luck."

You see, I couldn't see out of one eye, and the other one was really sore as I had gotten a willow in it a few days earlier and I was squinting a lot," Lazott said as he imitated the

squint.

Over the next couple of hours, Lazott told stories of his early life as a trapper.

He seemed to delight in having someone to share these happy thoughts with.

The feeling was mutual.