OUTDOOR LIFE MA.13 
 
either unconscious or dead before 
the wolves had come. 
Most animals are cruel but few 
can touch the fiendishness of the 
wolf. He kills a great part of the 
time for the sport of killing. When 
on the chase under those circum- 
stances the pack range along beside 
a spent deer that would be easy to 
pull down, keep him running and 
tear great pieces out of his flanks 
and hams, slowly destroying him on 
his feet. On the ice at the foot of 
a high cliff on the Petewawa River 
I saw thirteen deer that had taken 
the 500-foot leap rather than fall 
prey to the pack. Not one of them 
had been touched after it had landed - 
on the river ice, but many of them 
were ripped, slashed and had great 
chunks of skin and muscle torn out] 
during the chase. 
 
ONE big wolf sure put a fast one 
over on me. Every four days 
he traveled a certain deer trail. He 
would make the trip east one day 
and four days later he would pass 
heading west. Just what the idea 
was I never found out but I wanted 
his hide. Let one place a rotten 
log across the trail. Here he al- 
ways placed his front foot on the 
same spot while stepping over it. 
 
The author with a is 
 
Left- Ti to. 
one of the 
huskies of the 
author's dog 
team 
 
Below l The 
author with 
his team  of 
huskies an d 
wolf-dogs 
 
-~ad al Igotwas disappointment. 
He had come along at a fast trot 
right up to the log and stopped, 
stood for several minutes without 
moving and then gingerly walked 
around the end of the log to the 
side the set was on and up to with- 
in about three feet of the trap. 
There he had stopped and looked 
things over for a minute, then de- 
liberately  turned  his  back  and 
scratched gravel at the trap until it 
sprung, left his scent on it as an 
added insult and trotted off. He 
never used that trail again. 
I have talked to a great many 
rangers and wolf trappers about 
this instance. Some of them have 
had similar experiences. All agree 
that these wolves have been pre- 
viously trapped and are wise. Cer- 
tainly instinct warned him of danger 
but pure cussed brain work made 
him .spring the trap and insult the 
trapper. 
 
/ ~      THE    most generally used method 
§   'of trapping wolves today is by 
/             snaring them. Poison is prohibited 
'  by taw* and a good law it is, sav- 
ing the lives of thousands of small 
animals and birds. The snare is 
usually a -i  steel cable set either 
spring pole or snub. The set is 
/7placed               on  a  deer trail or   old 
/   abandoned   road. The   spring-pole 
set is as follows. First a pole six- 
~             teen or eighteen feet long is cut and 
lashed  about five  feet from  the 
ground to a tree close to the path. 
The small end of the pole extends 
'oif on his shoulder,  a little better than half way cross 
the path. A long forked pole raises 
the butt end of the spring pole high enough so that the small 
end will be about thirty inches from the ground. To this 
small end the wire loop is fastened with hay wire. The loop 
is then set cross-wise of the trail. Old branches are used to 
block both sides of the snare leaving a small gateway where 
the snare is. Mr. Wolf comes along the path, his head goes 
through the loop, it tightens, he plunges-throwing the forked 
pole over, the heavy butt end drops, hoisting him by the neck 
so that his hind feet just touch the ground where he hangs 
until dead. Rather brutal, but very (Continued on page 68) 
*Editor's Note :-Some qualification is needed. In Manitoba, for instance,

an authorized officer may poison wolves in any provincial game reserve, 
and in Ontario expert trappers may be so authorized anywhere. 
 
After carefully  preparing 
my outfit by smoking my 
trap, gloves and   ground 
sheet and weathering them 
well, using extreme caution 
to keep all human scent 
away from the trap set and 
vicinity by wearing green 
deer skin moccasins with 
the hair on the outside, I 
set the trap, using every 
trick and artifice to cover 
the setting. To the human 
eye it was perfect. That 
night a half inch of snow 
fell on the bare ground and 
three days later about an 
inch more. The set could 
not have been better con- 
cealed. The fifth morning 
I journeyed to get my wolf 
 
MAY. 1934