Well-known author and forester Bud Moore began trapping at the age of fourteen and spent several winters in the 1930s running trap lines in the Lochsa backcountry. After working over 40 years with the US Forest Service, he retired in 1974. Anxious to get back to his roots and the land, he and his wife Janet moved to Swan Valley where they managed their 80-acre Coyote Forest. Later, he wrote the book, The Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains.
Beginning in 1983 at the age of 66, he spent a couple of winters living out of a tent near Palisade Creek in the Bob Marshall Wilderness while he worked his trap line with four spur lines. One spur went up the Little Salmon Creek drainage toward Smith Creek Pass, stopping short of the dangerous avalanche path just north of the Little Salmon Lakes. Another spur led down the Little Salmon Creek drainage. The two remaining spur lines followed Gill Creek and Palisade Creek drainages.
That first winter Bud harvested 63 pine marten, 40 ermine, four mink, and two squirrels. Marten pelts were worth $40 each, while long-tail and short-tail ermine pelts were worth $5 and $3 each respectively. Interestingly, he observed very few snowshoe hares and squirrels that first winter. He decided to let the area rest the following winter before returning the third winter to resume trapping. Reducing the number of predators that first winter had caused an increase in prey species such as squirrels and snowshoe hares. During the third winter of trapping, he inadvertently caught more than 60 squirrels in his traps which he sold for $3 each. In addition to the squirrel pelts that he jokingly referred to as Swan Valley Sable, he trapped 44 pine marten and 20 ermine.
In a journal he kept that winter, Bud wrote, “The Little Salmon is dark country.” He went on to observe that even though he could look up on sunny days and see the sunshine on the high peaks, the sunshine never reached the depths of the Little Salmon Creek drainage.
Bud could interpret volumes from tracks in the snow. He noted that three coyotes intersected his snowshoe tracks one day. One coyote reacted by backing off, while the second bounded over his tracks careful not to touch his tracks. The third boldly walked on Bud’s trail before later jumping off and continuing through the forest. Bud wrote, “Obviously, coyotes, like people, react in various ways to the same set of circumstances.”
There were periods of bitter cold in western Montana in the winter of 1983. I could personally relate to Bud’s wintertime experiences. On the very night that he was camped on Palisade Creek, the temperatures in Swan Valley and Seeley Lake hit minus 45 and 52 degrees below zero respectively. I was also camped on the west side of Swan Valley near Lindy Peak in the Mission Range. Winter camping took on a different dimension in that type of cold. There was no room for error or for getting sloppy or careless. Even doing everything right was not always good enough in those types of conditions. I got a touch of frostnip on my nose, while Bud got a bit of frostbite on the tip of his thumb.
Bud had a passion for the wildness of the mountain landscape. He took photos of the scenery but realized that although pleasing to the eye, a photo could never quite capture the essence of wildness. In his journal, he penned these thoughts: “…. (photography) falls short of recording the spell of wildness exhaled by the high country of the Swan Range in winter. Its bounty can only be seized by those who go there, who take time to reflect in its grandeur then let its wildness soak into their personalities.”
Bud reflected on the interrelationship of wild places and humans and what that meant to the earth and the richness of life. He noted, “The surface and the forest surrounding the small lake near the pass lay buried under five feet of snow marked only by the tracks of two marten. I paused near the lake’s outlet, inhaled the spirit of the place then snowshoed across its surface to the opposite shore where, on looking back, my tracks heading home for Christmas seemed no less a part of the natural scene than those of the marten hunting their prey in the forest. It seems significant that thorough involvement in nature develops an appreciation for my part in the natural scheme of life. It is not a matter of man and natural wilderness but is instead natural man, involved with other life in a natural place where his activities entwine with other creatures to form a web of physical and spiritual dependency ….”
Though he trapped fur-bearing animals for profit, Bud remained a steadfast advocate for wild country. He wrote, “A strong dose, then, of reverence for earth and respect for the beauty and utility of natural systems has to accompany our use and exploitation for the land and resources if we are to sustain whole lives for many people ….. wild places like the high basins of Palisade Creek are good places to visit to get away from the crunch of technology and to reflect on the prerequisite of natural laws, gain insight, then return to the modern world….”
For his contributions to natural resource conservation, the University of Montana awarded Bud an honorary doctorate in 1974. He died in 2010 at the age of 93 and was inducted into the Montana Outdoor Hall of Fame in 2014.
Reader Comments(0)