This is the life of Syd Van Loon, a female trapper. Syd is not your regular gal, she’s a Yukon-er. And not just any Yukon-er, a woman whose numerous abilities have made me realize my incredible deficiencies in general survival. Syd pulls prize sheep out of the mountains solo, fixes a truck at -40 with a hammer, skins wolverines, and smoke a pipe without hands. If the world goes to shite, Syd is the woman you want on your team.
We pitched her story and got funding from Yeti and off we went (Zanny my producer, Cam the camera guy, and Sloan from Yeti) to her trapline outside of Whitehorse. December is a special time in the North when you get precisely 7.6 hours of daylight. And it’s cold, like -40 cold, but it’s a dry cold they say. We had deep discussions about how many layers were too many layers, and we never did come to a conclusion. Wool base layers x 2, fleece pants, down pants and insulated Carhartts, along with two down jackets, buffs, googles and mitts that rendered you useless, was the uniform. God help you if you have to pee. We were ready for it, and the it was the thing we didn’t know.
We unloaded the sleds at the trail head, loaded up 5 days worth of gear, food, gas, guns a carcass for bait and headed to her trapping cabin about a 40min sled ride in from the truck. Joe Creek cabin was built by Jurg, the Swiss old-timer who used to run the trapline with teams of dogs and who sold the line to Syd. It is off the grid, perfectly livable and very warm once the wood stove gets cranking.
We woke to -43. Syd had been up for hours making sure the fire in the wall tent was going, which is where the sled are parked when it’s cold. We loaded up for the day and pushed off to do ‘trap check’ which basically means sledding up the line where she had set traps a few days earlier. The first trap gave us a harsh introduction to trapping, it was a lynx, frozen solid. The next trap had a live wolverine and god damn it, those animals are fierce. It was caught in a leg hold which is not what you want, leg hold traps are for lynx. It had mowed down everything around it, royally pissed off. Syd then needed to ‘dispatch’ the animal and she loaded her gun and approached carefully. One shot to the head and then another for safety. The killing doesn’t get easier Syd said, visibly shaken. She stepped away, lit her pipe and let the soul of the animal leave the body before doing anything further. The cold days continued, gathering more fur, giving us an intense immersion into the life of a trapper.
We all survived, digits intact. Sloan fell in a beaver pond. And then we made this film.