These texts are extracted from records.

Elijah Kawapit talks about the Martin and the Mink.

Martin

I’ll talk about smaller animals, the first one I’ll talk about is the martin and his behavior during the winter. The martin is killed only during the winter time, he’s not hunted in the summer and same thing for the mink. The martin likes to run around as soon as it snowing, he goes far and all over the place.

As the weather gets into the middle of winter, he runs around closer and closer. He stays in his burrow and runs out from there once in a while, to run around near by. He keeps going back to his burrow, the reason is he hunts for himself. He kills anything that he eats, like the squirrels, weasel, mice and other things.

The way I’ve known him to do sometimes is, he drags whatever he killed inside his burrow. He also kills rabbits and can run fast when he chases whatever he intends to kill. He can also climb as good as a squirrel and runs up to the trees.

It’s until when the weather begins to get mild that he starts to run around to a further distance, that’s when he doesn’t mind about his burrow. I’m not sure when the martin starts to mate, I think he it’s around the fall season and the young ones are born in the spring. Same thing with the mink, they bore their young ones in the spring.

Wherever the martin was running, (to set traps for him) no matter if his tracks are barely visible. He  comes running in the same area again in the winter, that’s why the traps are set up wherever he’s been running before. Even if he comes in that area just ones, he eventually comes running back to that the same area again.

Mink

The mink does the same in the fall. he runs around hunting for himself, he’s like  an otter because he eats fish. His behavior is like the otter, some minks go far distance running around hunting for themselves and others just run around nearby.

All kinds of game is like that, there are some that are very cautious. When this happens we say  iyakwaameu  ANPnNRH! and the mink seems to know when he has come across the trap, it’s said that this means he doesn’t want to be killed. It’s like he’s very frightened by the trap, the martin is like that too.

When it happens that the martin or the mink, doesn’t want to eat the bait. They’re tried other things, sometimes they’re other things they like to ea t and isn’t afraid of the trap at all. They said that when a robin ( that isn’t plucked ) is used as a bait, the martin can never avoid running to a trap. The trap can be placed under (where it’s not visible) or just place some sticks in a circle. Sometimes the trap is hanged, two poles are place across like a bridge. They’re placed on a small tree and tie the poles to the tree, the trap is placed right on the two poles.

The martin or the mink ran up the tree, when they sense the bait and they get trapped. The bait is carefully placed to make sure it’s not eaten from the other side, instead to have it eaten from where the (martin or mink) had ran up from. The bait is hidden from visibility by using boughs, also small trees are used for the top part. The boughs are chopped off only on one side and cover the top, so the snow cannot get in. This is how to make the hanging trap.

The trap that‘s set up on the ground is placed in areas away from the wind, and it’s covered the same way, so the snow cannot get in. Other times it’s set up in a way, where it’s covered from all sides. This way no other animal or a robin can get trapped. Even when the snow covers all the area where the trap is, the snow cannot get inside where the trap is.

When the martin or the mink runs right where the trap is, he can sense the bait even when it’s under the snow. He can sense it, when he runs in the opposite direction from the wind. He then dives through the snow for the bait.

Sometimes the way I set up my mink trap, is to set it up under the snow where it’s not visible at all. When the mink runs, he sense where the bait is and dives for it. He desperately makes sure he can eat the bait and that’s how he gets trapped. That’s how a trap is set up for martin and mink or any other small animal, like the weasel or the squirrel.