Hey i have graduated from school a while ago and have been thinking about taking the winter off of work to go trapping. There is a great place for me to trap along a river that is in a valley along lots of bush, pines as well as some open area. I would be able to trap for many miles both ways along the river and any directions through the bush and clearings. I have been looking at some canvas wall tents that are 16x20 feet and have a wood heating/water heating/cooking stove. I was just wondering if anyone has tryed this or if anyone has some opinions or ideas. I have just been wondering if there would be any problems along the lines of predators such as bears, wolves, etc. comming around or trying to get in the tent from the smell of food and skinned animals drying on the stretchers.
Any tips or information would be greatly appreciated.

get a camp trailer, and enjoy the line. Yancy

That would probably be the best method. But this area is fairly remote and the only way in is by foot (like snowshoes) or a snowmobile.

If you do attempt this make sure you have plenty of firewood. That said even if you are using a fuel stove you can never have too much firewood. 10 years ago I moved into a house that had seven cords of wood already setting there. We had a wood stove in one end of the house and a fireplace in the other. I ended up cutting 5 cords and had to buy another 7 cords. Yes we used our firplace/woodstove very much and yes the winter of 96/97 was a good one here in Montana..

I see what you meen. It would use a lot of wood as it would have to be burning non stop for about 3 or 4 months or whatever amount of time i would stay out there.
Thank you for your input
It is greatly appreciated

Trapper55 I applaud your adventerous spirit. I think 3 or 4 months would be a long time on the line. I think it might be more enjoyable to break it up in smaller sections.

Wall tents are great. But they can take some time to get used to. I would recommend that you talk to the guys at Davis tent. I bought two of there 12 x 18's and am very satisfied with them. The 16 x 20 that you are considering is a huge tent, especially when you consider snow load. Just the canvas is going to weigh around 100 pds. One guy would have a very hard time getting it set up. You might want to consider getting two smaller tents. With that size tent you will also need a larger stove to keep it warm.

I lived in one for a year.Made a wood floor vfor it. But this was in South Jersey,and North Carolina. not Canada

I elk hunt out of one every year and love them. One of the most important things is put a plastic tarp fly over the top and extend it out in front for a covered entry way, we go 10-12 ft.The purpose is to keep snow from accumulating on the roof and it keeps the canvas dry, extend it all the way to the ground on the sides too. A well set up tent can be as comfortable as a cabin, warm and dry. The covered entry way is perfect for fire wood and also a good place to cook. I spent 31 days in elk camp 3 years ago and didn't want to come home!

another important consideration that i have found while camping in the back country. PICK YOUR LOCATION CAREFULLY! little things such as trees blowing off in a storm or 4" of water running through your tent floor can make for some exciting times and dangerous.otherwise a wall tent is great , i use a 16x20 for 5 guys. also don't take the firewood supply lightly , the storm from above was 60 degrees one day and about 15 degrees , 2 days later and after the heavy rainfall , dry wood was pretty darn important. depending how many bears are in the area and how the berries etc. do , you could have probs. there also . good luck ,sure sounds like fun!

You are getting some very good advice. As stated these guys make a super tent.
http://www.davistent.com/


As mickeysdad pointed out a couple of large plastic tarps can make the difference between being miserable or being comftorable. I covered up my pop-up camper in a late October Moose hunt. The weather was tough cold and wet for the entire week. That $30 tarp kept the canvas dry and warm as well as allowing the snow to just slide off the roof.

I doubt Bears or Wolves will cause you any grief. The thought does get the blood flowing though when you hear a bump in the night !

2poor , you haven't had any bear prob.s where your at? when we go to ontairio ,canada or nothern minn. there have been quite afew times the bears were filthy thick. i'm talking years with very few berries etc. , you couldn't leave camp for 15 minutes and the little buggers would be leaning up against your trk windows etc. looking for a twinkie. and any fish slime on the boat and the buggers where doing the hula hula dance in there trying to find the fish half the night. and we keep a pretty clean camp.

I trap in the fall ! November on to be exact. The bears are sleeping by then. I doubt they will come visit that time of year !

Now go set up a camp in Bear Country in June and you will get a Visitor every night.

I live in Bear Country every day. Spent hundreds of nights in Northern MN and Ontario in a tent. Yet to be Bear ate !!

I was building fence in the Bighorns for the forest service one summer/fall. We had some pretty early snow and I spend about three weeks in snow conditions in a wall tent. Not all that bad, keep the roof cleaned off. You have to get up about 2AM each night and stoke the fire, even with a decent bedroll. If you are going to do some tent living spend the extra money on a very good bedroll/sleeping bag.

Was building fence with a pretty crazy cowboy who was from Belle Fouche SD. He WANTED bears to come into camp so he'd have bear stories to tell people. Tossed food around here and there and violated every bear/camping rule you can! I had my black lab with me and she just hated bears. We got woke up all the time by her barking at a bear that was coming into camp. My other tent mate was half indian and seemingly immune to the cold. We were camped by a nice little brook trout stream, and he'd go down every day and kick the thin ice off the water and take a bath. Makes my boys shrink into my chest to this day to think about it.

I had some fun with that cowboy and Indian. Would not trade those memories for anything.

Here is our Soldier Creek fence camp in 1987. Great view when you got up every morning.

By the way thanks a lot trapper 55! Now you got me all wound up to get back to Wyoming! Doggone kids!

I think the dogs are one of the most important things to bring along. I've got one that hates people and one that hates other animals. Never leave home without them.

This is the only PIC I had in my Photobucket account of Elk Camp, but you can see the entry way, we don't have any big bears where we hunt so we do cook in the entry way, that is me in the PIC

K-9
I'm getting ready to head up to Soldier Creek area in a few weeks. I always spend the first few days of grouse season hunting Soldier Creek, Buck Mtn, Buck Creek Vees and on back into Battle Park.

Could have been I went by your camp a time or two. I spent 3 or 4 weeks up in that area the summer and fall of 87

Hey thanks for all the tips and information

I am sure you have. If I remember right you have to go by there to get back to Battle Ground Park. Is Deer Haven still there?

Some good advice here but I would second the idea of getting two smaller tents. 10x12 with a 4 foot side wall is just right for one or two people and easier to heat. Take a good, small chain saw and a swede saw with an extra blade. 30 inch is my favorite size. You shouldn't need to heat your tent when you're not in it and I don't even keep a fire at night when I'm in a tent. Just get the best sleeping bag you can buy.

I've spent whole winters in a wall tent and it's a nice way to live. The bears and wolves should be no problem at all.

What would you do about a floor? Would a tarp or two as big as the floor be good enough?

I have also spent alot of AK winters or portions of in wall tents over the years. We used a good tarp on the floor and roof and instead of a cot or air mattress under you we always used spruce bows was comfy and beat having all that cold air come up under neath you to cool you down. Like White 17 and others said smaller is better even with 4 guys we only had a 12X14 the one year and it worked fine you just gotta think how it will work and keep clean as possible.
I also think you may want to consider differnt places to move camp to when the surrounding fur gets the surpluss cleaned up. You may want to do this next year and 3 or 4 months in one location will really put a dent in populations of certain types of critters unless you know what you have and take care of it. I bet white17 can shed a little more light on that and how it works for him.

Trapper 55 Where the heck are you planning on setting up? I would be surprized you had a visit of any kind except for a fish and wildlife officer.
Marten yes
Squirrel yes
Whisky Jacks Yes
Mice yes
And last snow fleas! Just joking. I don,t think you have a thing to worry about , First off bears are generally hibernating in the winter and if a wolf ever came within 25 ft of your tent , call me I,ll bring you some valium ! Are you really serious about wolf problems?
Get a tent for skinning , not too big and one to live in 12x14
or vice versa. Forget the preditors they are scared spittless of you . except for spring Beaver trapping , then MAYBE a curious bruin will check you out , But by that time you will smell so rank , you,ll be scared of yourself !LOL

this is my tent. all my winter pics are on prints, so this is all i have. it's 10x12 with a 10x10 awning. one or both sides of the awning can be dropped down in bad weather. the tent is about twenty pounds and only takes a ridge pole and two upright poles. the awning overlaps the tent a ways. i have a fiberglass vent flashing out the back door flap. but they will put it wherever you want it. no floor, i just throw a piece of canvas down to keep grass out of the sleeping bag, but it doesn't take to long for the woodstove to dry the ground out if you shovel the snow off first. i've camped at twelve degreese and sit in the tent in a t-shirt. this pic makes it look smaller than it is. i'm 6 foot tall and i can stand upright in the center and just have seats to the side. enough room for two and easy for one person to set up and take down.

it's an RK a-frame lodge but they make a lot of different tents. good quality and fair price. http://www.rklodges.com/Lodges/index.html

My advice is to get this book.

http://www.northwoodsways.com/media/books.html

I have the first edition of this book and it is wonderful. It covers many things about living in a traditional canvas tent during the winter.

Second. Make a promise to do this and not wait. You may find yourself married and with a family. Those responsibilities may not allow you to do something that few are able to do.

Thanks for all the info. And i would be staying on my uncles property he owns a large large area on both sides of a large river that feeds a big lake and it has lots of bush as well as clearing around. Its more less the a big valley.

Back in '92 me and my best friend went deer hunting for four days and we used my brothers 22foot tipi,we put up a drying line to dry out wet hunting cloths and such,we put straw and leaves around the bottom.We kept a fire going day and night,could cook meals inside,went throught rain then it turned to freezing rain then snow for two days.If I was going to do that,this is what I would use if I was going to be gone for 3 or 4 months but that is me.Sorry you can't beat them you can get them in different sizes,they maybe big but when you learn how to put one up it's easy.

I'd hate to have to cut the wood to heat a tipi.

Also I have to second Otterman's suggestion of NOT sleeping on a cot. Boughs on the ground with a thermarest pad on top makes a much warmer bed than a cot.

I think that is what i waould do now. Use spruce boughs.
Would a sleeping bag or thick warm blankets be better? or both?

Inflatable mattress beats the heck out of a cot or a thermal pad.

The air provides great insulation !

Get a self-inflating air mattress. Benefits of both an inflatable mattress, and a close cell foam pad.

Don't use a down sleeping bag. When they get wet, you might as well be sleeping in a sheet. Get a good bag with qualofill or something similar.

You can make your own camp furniture with a saw and some twine for lashing. Make sure you have something to pad your chair with.

Get yourself a good water filter and an extra cartridge. Mine is good for 1000 liters, is a 1 micron filter, and will filter our giardia.

Stan Hawbaker's book has a list of supplies for exactly what you plan to do. I suggest buying it, if for nothing other than the shopping lists.

I'd go with the sleeping bag, not blankets. Get the best you can afford or borrow the money to buy an even better one. I used down for about twenty years and never had a problem but Buck is right about getting them wet. It depends on your climate.

When I'm tenting I use snow for water. You may be able to do the same.

For snow is just boiling good enough or should it be boiled and then distilled?

No need to boil it at all, Just melt it and use it.

You can put a wood stove in a tipi,I seen it done,I would use wool blankets,if wool gets wet it still keeps in body heat.

Here's another hint on winter camping. If you buy or make a liner for your bag, you can lower the temperature rating of your bag by 20 degrees. If your bag is big enough, you can make the liner from 2 wool blankets which, with a decent bag, will keep you toasty in the most extreme temperatures. If your bag isn't that big, such as a mummy bag, a flannel liner is great.

Carry plenty of matches in waterproof containers. 3 times as many as you think you will need, in several separate containers. Also carry several butane lighters. Just keep in mind that butane lighters will not light above 32 degrees F (0 deg C), so you have to warm them up first by putting them in an inside pocket. My first extreme weather trip alone, my matches all got wet, and I couldn't get the butane lighter lit because I didn't know about the 32 deg thing, and thought I was going to freeze to death in the mountains in a blizzard before I finally got a fire lit.

If it was me, and I had the funds, I'd invest in a gps unit. You get turned around out there somewhere and the snow is falling and everything looks the same cause you can't see 50 feet in front of you, it will help you get back to camp.

Do NOT forget a good first aid kit. You'll be alone. There is no Rite Aid pharmacy down the road. You are the doctor. You need bandaids, gauze rolls, gauze pads, tweezers, tape (duct tape is good), aspirins, decongestants, tylenol, visine for snow glare, antibiotic ear drops for ear infections, a good general purpose antibiotic, antibiotic cream, and a mild pain killer such as codeine. Ask your doctor for a prescription. Tell him you will be alone for a few months. At the first sign of infection or illness, go on the antibiotics and tylenol. Some day I'll tell you a story about almost dying from a viral infection that almost killed me by closing up my throat so I couldn't swallow water, with no help around and a 2 day walk out to a road. Maybe I should write a book about that ordeal.

I love being in the deep woods alone, but I know from experience what kind of trouble you can get into. The key is to plan ahead, and everything you do has to be done with the knowledge that you can't get help. You are on your own.

Yes so have I and it doesn't work well at all in a tipi because the peak is so high. The heat is in the top of the tipi not down at body level. Might be ok in Indiana but probably not in Alberta.

I would not use an air materess if it gets very cold that air in the matteress will get cold and you are sleeping on cold air.
As far as a sleeping bag liner goes wool is one thing flannel is another. Last weeek after years of using good nylon bags with quallofill my wife and I spent the night in old flannel lined bags that had been in camp for a week when we crawled in them they were damp and it sucked took a half hour to get them warmed with our body heat to chase the damp out. Not something you want to do if you come in wet and cold and need to warm up you body so you can wake up in the morning

Otterman, I'm not talking about a built-in flannel liner. I'm talking about a removable liner that you can put inside a quallofill bag. You can buy them, or make them yourself. They go in like a sock. Add to the warmth of the bag, and keep the bag clean. You can take out the liner to clean it.

The new self-inflating pads are basically a bed of closed cell foam, and then a layer of open cell foam that expands when a valve is opened. Throw it in the tent, unroll it, open the valve, and half an hour later you've got a nice cushion and separation from the ground. A regular air mattress gets to the same temperature as the air, and you'll freeze your butt off. Because of the foam design of the self-inflating pads, they don't get cold.

Buck Sorry if I missread your post I thought you ment air materess not the self inflating kind.
Flannel is flanel it will collect moisture as all it really is is cotton. Leave it for a day or to in damp weather it obsorbs the dampness. As a removable liner the only advantage you have is you can take it out and hang it by the stove to get the dampness out. Trust me on this one 10 yrs of trapping out of wall tents in Ak a good portion of the winter I do know what I am talking about.

Otterman, what do you think about a fleece liner?

Fleece would be better buck. If you get a good quality bag there will be no need for it though, I have camped out in wall tents without heat numerous times up here down to 30 below with just my sleeping bag, no liner or anything. I was plenty warm.

Just remember to get a bag big enough for your boots also

I have no experince in sleeping with it I think it would depend on the fleece most is made to repel moisture so seems logical that it would work. It is what we line all our fur mittens with that we sell the big thing would be getting a good quality fleece not your typical cheap wally world stuff we have found the cheaper fleece from such places matts down in mittens and looses its warmth after a few years

get a blue tarp and throw over the roof, it will let the snow shake off a lot easyer than the canvas, also wont waterlog the canvas near as easy either. Take off to let canvas dry out on a sunny day about once a week.

Rich, you're alive !!!!

Sending you a pm.

Ive been looling at some tents and think i will go with a 14x16 canvas wall tent. It should have enough room for a bed, table, wood stove, place to hang pelts, and some extra room. Id think that would be the best option for me.

BuckNE:
I think i will get a gps. Youve got me thinking about once when i was deer hunting by myself. I shot the deer and wounded it but had to track it for about an hour or a little more. By the time i found it and gutted it, it was getting dark. I was in the middle of some thick bush and there was about 3 feet of snow in there. I lost direction of where i was. Had me scared there for a second. I took a good look in all directions and luckly could see a faint brake in the bush. It was the cutline that i was hunting on.

A gps is a good idea. Thanks.

One other suggestion to keep in mind if you have a decent bag no need to leave all your clothes on while you sleep strip down to your underwear and let your body heat escape into the bag it will keep you warm all night not to mention sleeping in your clothes gets quite uncomfortable or at leaste it would seem.
trapper 55 if you must buy one tent to do it all in and you are going to be alone make it as small as you can to keep from heating such a big space as suggested above 2 tents is better. When I was go alone fall beaver trapping I just have a tarp strung up outside by the fireplaace to cook and skin under. If I set my wall tent this winter and I very well may it is only
10x12 and plenty big enough. If you have good cold weather below freezing most the time you can keep your furs in gunny sacks stored outside. We always left ours on the roof of the cabin or in a tree 5 or 6 feet off the ground never had a problem but you want it where voles cant get it. This saves on the need to haul strechers to and from, not to mention trying to dry fur in a tent can be a real pain if the weather is rainy and you have to be gone all day checking traps.

One other thing if you do not have the tent yet and are going to buy one, then look into an Arctic Oven. I have spent some time in these and I do prefer them over a wall tent.

http://www.alaskatent.com/products/tents/arctic_oven.htm

I bought the A-10 "arctic oven" with the scout Cylinder Woodstove and love it, was only around -20 each time I spent a few nights in it but never did zip up my bag nor did my kids, you have to put wood in it every 2-3hrs but that's what the kids are for it really heats up fast and loved the waterheater on the side for melting snow. It's spendy but I love comfort the older I get

MY dream tent an arctic oven I wonder if I can get a grant for it

I have to agree with the part about trying to dry pelts in a tent. Can be difficult. Also sleeping in your undies will keep you warmer than wearing a bunch of clothes in your bag.

I hunted bears out of Wall Tents in ALberta in 2002. They levelled off their spot pretty well, and put down pallets they had picked up, and rolled out a carpet for the inside. It was just like sleeping in a cabin, outside of the noise. Lots of sounds coming from outside! First and only time I ever heard a wolf!

Top 2 pic's from early 80's. The bottom 2 from the late 80's. The top tent is still in use. The bottom is mine, and I have it in storage in Garage. I'm told it's a ,"Squad Tent". It was lots of fun, tenting like this, but also lots of work. Before and after, the trips. I agree with Yancy, get a trailer. More time spent hunting and trapping. But it was stated a trailer could be taken that far in.

Thank for all the info. Do you think that a redbone coon hound would be a good trapping dog. Ive been wanting a redbone for a long time and am gonna buy a dog soon, like within a month. What would you recommend?

Stanley's pix reminded me about routing stove pipe. When I first used a wall tent I poked to stove pipe through the roof. It works but you get spark holes in you tent that way sometimes.

Now I run it out the end on a 45 degree angle. You don't need to go far past the canvas and you can support the pipe with a couple of sticks tied together. Be sure to get some fire-proof fabric and make a safety. Cut a hole in the canvas and sew or safety-pin the safety into the hole.

ttt

A hound of any kind usually does not make a good trap dog. They're always too busy hunting. Last thing you want is a dog that will take off on a coon trail while you're checking traps. I think working type dogs make better trapping partners.

Blue heeler.

How about a situation to avoid.

Yukon Territory.. far above timberline..... snowstorm in July.

View out the tent door waiting for the cloud cover to lift:




But worth the wait: