Over the years, the Yukon Trappers Association has moved their location a few times but their mandate remains the same: provide all Yukon trappers with education through our workshops, a store where they’ll be able to buy their lures, snares or traps and at the same time drop off their furs for either the tannery or the auction house. Our store is open to the public – come see and buy the tanned furs! Jackie Yaklin, our long-time secretary-treasurer, store manager and volunteer, lived through a few interesting bits: she started work with the YTA at the store on 4th Avenue in 2007 and since 2009 brought the Association, with other volunteers like Kathryn Boivin, back from the brink of extinction. Since 2018, thanks to our director Grant Redfern, we have operated out of a beautiful log cabin in the Industrial Area in Whitehorse. Grant offered up his lot at 175A Titanium Way for purchase and since 2018, with his very gracious offer, we were able to stay in business and reach our milestone of 50 years.
Let’s have our president, Brian Melanson, talk about the trapping communities’ challenges:
The faces of the industry haven’t changed too much in the last 50 years. If trapping is in your family, you have likely headed out on the land for awhile before you could legally buy a drink.
No one can start trapping this year and know everything and hope to be successful by the end of the season. It takes 5-7-10 years to learn the skills and develop proper fur handling techniques; but only if you’re skilled enough to catch the fur, if you’re able to physically go out and set the trap, if you’re one of the fortunate ones with a trapline and last but not least if you have a healthy mind and body (read: being out on the land is in your blood) to go out and face every aspect of this lifestyle.
So for the future I see this happening in the Yukon: Get the youth of today out into the bush, into sewing and making value-added products – Yukon furs are the best in the world and are in high demand globally. We need to show that Fur is Green and environmentally friendly and safe.
Victor Sokalski will tell us a bit of himself and the YTA’s history. “Ted Geddes was one of the founders in 1973 and was spoken highly of by everyone I met. I started trapping in the mid ’70s when I had an assistant license on a small trapline by Judas Creek on the Alaska Highway. Back then, when the concession holder wouldn’t go out and trap, the line was taken away from her/him. In the early ’80s lynx sold for over $1,000.–. That was the fur industry’s hey-day. Trappers, naturally, were a lot more active back then and more in numbers. The AGMs were held over 2 days, usually in the Elks Hall, with guest speakers galore. The Ontario Trappers Association was mentoring the YTA along and through that association came out the now only auction house left in North America, Fur Harvesters Auction Inc. in North Bay, Ontario. The YTA’s first office was in the now Yukon Inn premises, formerly called the Tourist Service. Darlene Richardson was indispensable at the YTA’s store, having had a paid position for the busy months from about September to April. Trappers need to help themselves and step up to the task of staying in one unit. I remember one couple from Watson lake who, on their own time, in the summer months, would visit Yukon campgrounds to talk to interested Yukoners and tourists about trapping and the trapper’s life. The Yukon Government, in the ’90s, had a really good program going where leghold traps could get exchanged to Conibear (https://www.trappingtoday.com/trapping-supplies/traps/) traps. Harvey Jessup was very involved in assisting the Yukon trappers’ community. Come see us at the event and feel the furs! Sonja Seeber, Yukon trapper
