Trapper and family head into bush to ride out pandemic
For almost two months, Barry Carriere and his four young children have found refuge from the pandemic on a secluded trapline nestled in the north of Saskatchewan.
“Instead of (shopping at) the Co-op store or Walmart, where you’re going to bring something home, you might as well go back on the land and live off the land,” Carriere said.
The Cumberland House Cree First Nation trapper and fisherman said he’s one of many choosing to wait out the pandemic on the land.
For almost six weeks, he and his children have regularly gone out on the land to fish, set traps for muskrat and beaver, and bond over traditions he learned from his father.
It’s all meaningful for Carriere, who grew up watching his father catch and clean the fish he sold. He never expected to inherit his lifestyle, which was a trying one at times, and ended too soon. Carriere, the oldest of four boys, was 14 when their father died.
Today, he cherishes each moment spent catching, cleaning, and smoking wild food with his children. For him, it’s always a full day, waking early to check traps, and staying busy until sleep around 9:30 p.m.
“I’m pretty fortunate to be keeping tradition going with the lifestyle I have today,” he said.
They only kill a few animals on the land, however, since trapping sales dried up with the onset of the pandemic.
A banner year of sales at a fur table in Prince Albert last December only partially offset the drop, according to Carriere, who is also the acting vice-president of the Northern Saskatchewan Trappers Association.
For northern trappers, the lost demand marks hard times, he said.
“(Trapping) is what they rely on and depend on. It’s going to be tough for them.”
A lean year will likely mean more time harvesting for personal use.
For Carriere, there is nonetheless an upside to this: his favourite moments are spent daily with his children, watching them and passing on a traditional lifestyle. It’s not always an easy one — he also wanted them to have a formal education — but time on the land, away from a brick-and-mortar school, is well spent, he said.
His community has been spared any known COVID -19 cases so far. It’s a comfort Carriere said he owes to the fast action of local government. In the meantime, he asks for patience from people anxious to return to their summer cottages in the North. It will take time to weather the pandemic, and to pass on any further lessons, he said.
“I chose the path to live Dad’s legacy and to have this legacy, to teach my kids. That is my greatest time,” he says.