26 - John's Years as a Trapper

"I Was Not So Bad!"

John Albrecht arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan on June 1, 1929. As he could not speak English, he went to work for a German farmer near Bulyea, about 70 kilometres north of the Queen City. He worked there until the fall, helping with the harvest. When the threshing was over, the farmer said, "John, you know the wheat is going down in price. If I was in your shoes I would go north. North there is lumber, sawmills, there's fishing, and if you're really tough, go trapping." [As quoted in Berry Richards. Interview with John E. Albrecht, La Ronge, SK, July 14, 1975. Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, audio recording R-A873.] The farmer must have had a crystal ball. With the crash of the stock market in October of that year, wheat prices plummeted.

Laura and Adolph Studer, 1938. Source

John left the farm at Bulyea in mid-September and moved to the St. Walburg area. He worked for a year on the homestead of Adolph Studer, a farmer and trapper who spoke a little German. It was there that John first tried his hand at trapping. Studer encouraged John to trap and offered him a loan. "No," replied John. "I got enough money." He bought himself 100 to 120 small traps and, on Studer's advice, went trapping for weasels. 

 

Life as a Trapper

John left the St. Walburg area on October 1, 1930 to become a trapper in the Big River area (Dore River); he stayed there for four years. "I was not so bad," John told Berry Richards in a 1975 interview. "I made quite a few dollars with weasels; in the spring, rats [muskrats]."

It was while he was at Big River that John began to learn English. He ordered at least 20 books from mining people in Big River, receiving books on minerals and geology. These books not only helped him learn English, they also sparked his interest in prospecting. [Source: Berry Richard's interview with John, 1975.]

While at Big River, a trapper named Ragnar Jonsson from Wollaston Lake talked John into heading further north and west to Wollaston. In June of 1934, John headed to the Snake Lake-Souris River country. There he bought a canoe, more traps, and five sled-dog puppies from local Dene people at Pinehouse Lake. "The puppies were small, but they could run behind me," John recalled. "And there I went on a trip - I tell you!" John trekked through hundreds of kilometres of wilderness to Wollaston Lake, walking or portaging 50 kilometres (30 miles) along the way with close to 800 pounds on his back, including a canoe. 

This Google map shows the distance from Big River to Wollaston Lake via Pinehouse Lake using present-day roads. John got there by canoe and on foot.

He reached Wollaston Lake by the end of September 1934, only to discover that his friend Ragnar Jonsson had just left for Reindeer Lake and then further north to Nueltin Lake. "So I was alone there. Alone on Wollaston," John lamented to Richards. Clearly, it was a lonely time for him. 

The Chipewyan had a rough year and even they didn't come. So I was just clean alone there. There was nothing. That's the damnedest north, you know? It's one hell of a long stretch. And I tell you, no maps! I didn't even figure out where I could get maps. No maps, nothing!

John trapped in the Wollaston Lake region for three or four years. According to John's friend Dr. Klaus Lehnert-Thiel, John's cabin was located on what is now the site of the Rabbit Lake Mine near the western shore of Wollaston Lake. [Source: Author interview with Klaus Lehnert-Thiel, January 15, 2018.] He later moved his camp to Fiddler Bay on the east side of the lake.

Les Oystryk, a historian and retired conservation officer from Creighton, Saskatchewan, has done considerable research into the life and work of Jim Cumines, a fish and game warden stationed at Brochet on Reindeer Lake. Les and I have been emailing for several years, and he has generously shared information that he has culled from Cumines' reports relating to John Albrecht. 

Jim Cumines, game warden, on winter patrol by bombardier in 1942. Source

Cumines first met John in May of 1936 during a patrol of Wollaston Lake. John had been trapping under a license issued at Souris River using the name "John Gilbert." John told the warden that the license issuer had misspelled his name. Seven months later when Cumines encountered John again, he was still using the same license issued in the name of Gilbert. [Source: Email to author from Les Oystryk, March 28, 2018.]

Was John hiding his German ancestry? He had applied for, but not yet obtained his naturalization papers from the Canadian government and was considered an "alien." Trouble was brewing in Germany. According to Oystryk, Cumines eventually issued a non-resident trapping license to John so he could sell his furs.

In 1937, John moved up to Brochet on the northern end of Reindeer Lake. That summer, he served as the guide for P. G. Downes on a journey to Neultin Lake.

Hand-drawn map by RCMP Constable Marcel Chappuis in 1937-1938 of the Wollaston Lake/Reindeer Lake area that he covered by dogsled during his 1937-1938 winter patrol. John Albrecht's cabin on Fiddler Bay, Wollaston Lake is identified at top centre. Thanks to Les Oystryk for bringing this map to my attention.

By March of 1938, Cumines wrote that John was trapping out of his main camp at the narrows going into Fiddler Bay on Wollaston Lake. John had "a good cabin and seems to keep everything in order," Oystryk quotes Cumines."but complained that this winter he made no hunt at all." Foxes, wolves, caribou - all game was scarce. Cumines also reported that John had put up quite a lot of fish for his sled dogs, "but he claims the Indians helped themselves to his fish cache and now is very short of dog feed."

Illustration from "Memories of Deep River." Source

Two years later Cumines reported that he had seen John at the Swan River fur trading post on Reindeer Lake. He had 20 fox pelts of poor quality and a few mink and otter. By June of 1940, Cumines determined that John had gone by plane with two Swedish trappers to Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan. John had apparently left some debts behind at the HBC post at Swan River on Reindeer Lake. [Source: Email from Les Oystryk, March 28, 2018.] John formed a trapping partnership with one of the Swedes, Oscar Johnson, a man in his 70s. The two of them lived in a cabin at Selwyn Lake north of Stony Rapids and split their fur proceeds 50/50. The two also did some prospecting, finding some gold, nickel and copper, but the prospecting didn't work out. The trapping supplied the money for prospecting. "We made more than we needed," John told Berry Richards. "We had always money,"

Oscar Johnson decided to quit the north in 1945. After a few years trapping out of Selwyn Lake, the 75-year-old told John, "I can't take it anymore." So he "went out." (According to Klaus Lehnert-Theil, when a trapper, who spends most of the year in the bush, says he "went out" it means out into civilization.)

Three years later, John's life changed dramatically. He co-discovered a major uranium source and got a new partner - Nan Dorland - who shared the same cabin at Selwyn Lake that he had previously shared with Oscar Johnson.

NEXT: John Albrecht: Guide for P. G. Downes: Click HERE

PREVIOUS: John Albrecht's Early Life: Click HERE

INDEX TO BLOG POSTS: Click HERE

©Joan Champ. All rights reserved.