The Trapper and His Angel
Diary of a Photography Assignment

Don Hibbs drives his dogsled across a frozen Maine lake toward his camp site.

ANXIETY PREVENTED ME from sleeping well for several nights before I left on my Yankee Magazine assignment to photograph 32-year-old beaver trapper Don Hibbs in northern Maine. I'm usually a bit anxious before any assignment. I feel inside the way I think horses feel before a race. But this assignment had several new elements to overcome. I'd been ill with the flu or a stomach discomfort for more than three weeks so I feared that physical weakness might prevent me from successfully dealing with the demands I expected to encounter during the assignment: cold temperatures, long hours, uncomfortable sleeping conditions and physical exertion. I was also a bit nervous about what the two of us would talk about for four days alone together in the northern Maine woods. If we didn't feel comfortable together the time would certainly pass slowly and awkwardly.

On Wednesday, March 23, 1987, I drove for almost seven hours from Peterborough, New Hampshire to Millinocket, Maine with only brief stops along the way in Ocean Park and in Portland to stretch my legs and have lunch with my father-in-law.

After checking in at a Millinocket motel I called my old friend Wiggie Robinson to invite him to have dinner with me. Wiggie was one of the primary subjects of a Yankee Magazine "This New England" story about the town of Millinocket. That was the first story that I shot for Yankee as a freelance photographer eight years earlier. We've stayed in touch ever since and I've visited Wiggie and his wife, Joyce, during each of the several times that I've been in town since then, always during the winter. At the time we first met, Wiggie was just about to retire from the Great Northern paper mill where he'd worked as a foreman for many years. Then he took up a new profession as a full-time, registered Maine guide.

Don Hibbs and Angel Boynton

The next morning trapper Don Hibbs, his girl friend, Angel Boynton, Wiggie and I met for breakfast to discuss plans for our trip. Don is a classically handsome, rugged, confident man who reminds me somewhat of a cross between Erol Flynn and Paul Bunyan, the epitome of a strong woodsman. Angel seems perfectly matched to him, with a strong temperament and stunning beauty.

After breakfast we drove to Don's cabins on leased land by the shore of Millinocket Lake right next to the former home of Elmer Woodworth, another trapper who I photographed for Yankee six years earlier in his final year before retiring from the profession. Don's place was rather disorganized. A large pile of lumber sitting in the middle of the floor dominated the main room which serves as office, living room, dining room and kitchen. A drying rack strung full of men's and women's underwear stood next to the lumber. Exposed insulation covered the ceiling. An old industrial sewing machine and a typewriter sat in one corner. While we talked about trapping and our trip Angel showed me some beaver mittens and hats that they'd had made. They were very soft, warm and luxurious to the touch.

Outside the log house fifteen dogs were chained to metal stakes in the ground next to small houses. They were yelping, crying, and moaning, anxious to get going. Before we started packing Angel reached into a bucket, pulled out a chunk of beaver meat and fed each of them a strip of it. We loaded two sleds with food and gear. Because there was no room to take any of it and no electrical power at the camp site to use some of it I left my flash equipment in the trunk of my car and hid the trunk key in the ash tray even though Don said, "Nobody will bother it here."

Angel and Don carefully hooked the dogs to both sleds, then Don gave me instructions on how to handle them and when to let go of the quick release clamp he had connected from the sled to a nearby tree: "We placed the dogs in a particular order on the two sleds according to which are the best lead, point and wheel dogs. But we also had to take other things into account. The male dogs are wild with the bitches in heat right now. We have to be very careful about who runs with who."

He continued, "Once Angel leaves, give her to a count of twenty before you let go of the quick release. Lean left and right to steer, just like skiing. 'Hike' means go. 'Gee' is right. 'Haw' is left. Step on the brake and yell 'whoa' to stop. Brake into turns and down steep hills. Save yourself first if a moose jumps out onto the trail. Watch your hands, feet, knees and elbows on turns around trees or rocks. You might have to jump off and pull the sled to the side to get around them. Don't worry about it... this is my standard spiel. Chances are nothing will go wrong.

My dogs tugged excitedly on the sled as Angel pulled out ahead of us. I counted to twenty, then hesitantly I slipped the release free. We shot forward with a jerk. Over rocks, around ice shards, sliding out and around some open water we glided and bumped across Millinocket Lake and around a shaft of open water. Don skied behind us, pulled by a single line attached to his best lead dog, Kobi. Up a hill off the lake to a dirt road and across it to a snowmobile trail we rushed. For three hours we traveled almost silently through the woods, stopping occasionally to rest ourselves and the dogs. After the initial spurt of energy from the dogs they settled down to a fairly steady pace of about six miles per hour.

The day was mostly overcast and warm, close to 50 degrees, with an occasional break in the sky. We crossed one lake and I leaned against the sled, took my hands off it and shot pictures of my team in the foreground and Angel ahead of us. By then Don was hitched by rope to my sled, skiing, and Kobi was leading the team. One of the dogs had split his paw earlier and had a leather bootie covering his injured foot. Don fell several times and was dragged before I could stop our team while taking some particularly sharp turns down steep hills. Angel stayed a couple of minutes ahead of us most of the time that we were on wooded trails.

Eventually we came out of the woods at Third Debsconeag Lake. As I drove onto the ice I saw Angel standing in the distance talking with a figure next to a snowmobile while a small group of ice fishermen was gathered to their right. It was Wiggie, who had come out to give us directions to a beaver house north of Second Debsconeag Lake.

After looking at a map of the spot we continued up Third Lake, passing Jay Robinson, Wiggie's son, and pulled into our camp site, about thirty feet back from the shore in the trees. The tent was an A-frame unit made of surplus paper mill drying cloth hung over some rough cut poles. It was about ten by twelve feet at the base and seven feet high and had a stove shaft protruding through the back wall. Don gave me a tarp to put on the rough, bare ground which was it's floor. "Pick a spot to sleep wherever you'll be most comfortable. I'll sleep outside in the sled." I laid out my tarp, inflatable pad and gear. Once we'd unpacked Angel left for home with her team of dogs.

Don and I headed north across Third Lake and Second Lake, up toward Big Minister Pond and the beaver house Wiggie had suggested we try, with Don riding on the left-hand runner and me on the right. The already soft snow had softened more during the afternoon as the sky cleared and the temperature rose. Travel was very difficult once we got off the lakes. Sometimes I snowshoed, mostly Don did while I drove the team. The dogs worked very hard. It seemed like we'd never get there. I was panting with each step I took when we had to push the sled up hill, but just as I was about to give up hope of ever getting to our destination Don looked into a ravine to our left. "I think there might be beaver down there," he said and wandered off while I sat on the sled, eating snow to cool off and quench my thirst from the exertion of getting to that place. The dogs laid in the late afternoon shadows and watched the woods where Don had disappeared.

It seemed like he'd never return and I began to wonder what to do if darkness fell. After thirty or forty minutes I heard some rustling noises among the alders. "Steve..." he called out. "Ya," I answered, glad to hear his voice. "There's a house down there only ten minutes walk." Don hitched Kobi to his pulk (a small sled), carrying his trapping gear, and we snowshoed through alders and brush for a half mile or so. My legs ached as I slid down an embankment to the stream bed that the beaver had dammed. The late afternoon light was failing, but I shot high-speed film at slow shutter speeds while Don cut poles and rigged traps in three locations below the beaver house. By the time we started back to the sled the sky was dark pink where the sun had just set.

Our ride back through the woods was harrowing. At first we rode side by side as before, then we tried riding with me behind Don, and finally I rode inside while Don drove the sled. It was so dark at that point that I had a difficult time seeing the branches that were whipping across my face as we alternately struggled up hills and raced down them, careening into trees on either side of the narrow trail. To help keep my balance I'd regularly stick my arm or leg out one side or the other as the sled seemed about to flip over. The dogs knew their way back, but the going was rough, the snow being even softer than when we came in. Eventually we tipped twice and crashed into two trees. The sled almost ran over my bent leg as I screamed, "Yowwww, and scrambled to get out of the way. "I'll walk..." I said in a quiet, disgusted tone after I'd pulled myself from the snow. Easier said than done. I continually broke through the snow, but finally got out to the lake, five minutes behind Don, swearing to myself most of the way or singing in mock good humor, "The dogs know the way to carry the sleigh through the bright and drifting snow... oh, over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go....

As I climbed into the sled Don said, "They'll never believe you back at the office. You should get a bonus for this job!" We crossed Second Lake uneventfully. The crescent moon was directly overhead and showed bright yellow through the hazy clouds. "Moondog," Don murmured as I looked up into the night sky. "Do you know what the ring around the moon means?" he asked. "Rain," I replied unhappily, "Just what we need."

We slid almost silently toward the opposite shore and the portage trail leading to Third Lake. Because the hill into it was steep I just automatically climbed out of the sled. "I'll walk," I said with no hesitation. With my flashlight turned on I trudged up the hill. "I'll wait five minutes ahead," said Don as he switched on his hat-mounted light and called to the dogs, "Hike... go boys." The team and trees nearby were briefly silhouetted by Don's flash lamp, but soon they disappeared like fireflies dancing through the woods. We met again at the edge of Third Lake. My walk on this packed trail with thin snow cover was much easier than on the earlier one. While we rode back to camp in the dark we planned the next day. "I'm not going back there again in soft snow," I said firmly. "And if it rains I'm getting out of here." Don immediately replied, "I'll join you.

Don builds a fire at his campsite to prepare supper.

By the time we had our supper of chicken, rice and mushroom casserole it was after 8:30. The dogs ate before us. They have only one meal per day of dried dog food mixed with hot water to rehydrate them. By nine we were both bedded down, Don in his sled and I in the tent. Everything was quiet as I turned off the lantern and zipped up my sleeping bag. I slept fitfully on the hard, uneven, cold ground. My rented sleeping pad hadn't inflated well. In the middle of the night I got up and walked onto the lake to see the stars shining in a crystal clear sky. The tree line behind me was cast in sharp, black shadows on the lake by the setting moon and the wind whispered across my face. As I walked back to the tent with my light shining ahead of me Don called out, startled, "Who's there?" I chuckled to myself that such an experienced woodsman would seem surprised by my late night walk and replied, "Me... I just had to pee."

Several more times I was woken by the sound of an animal scurrying past me in or out of the tent. I think it was a field mouse by the squeaking sound it made as it rustled the forty pound dog food bag, undoubtedly replenishing it's larder. At one point I put on my down jacket and wool hat to keep warm and vowed never to do anything like this trip again. My feet, legs and back ached from the day's sledding effort. "I'm getting too old for this," I imagined myself reluctantly but angrily saying to Yankee managing editor John Pierce.

Don and Kobi enjoy the warmth of the morning sun.

The next thing I noticed was warm sunlight streaming in the corner of the tent near my head at just before 6 a.m. After slowly rising I tried to put on my boots, but they were frozen solid so I reached for a spare pair. My throat was tight when I answered Don's, "Good morning" greeting. He was still bundled up in his sleeping bag with only his eyes, nose and mouth exposed to the cold morning air, which was clear and sharp. We hurried to shoot pictures of Don with Kobi on the lake watching the sun rise. Then he hitched up the team for some shots of them running across the lake with Mount Katahdin looming behind them. The dogs weren't very responsive. "Gee Kobi, gee. What the hell is wrong with you? That's it. Go. Jesus Christ, gee Kobi. Let's go get the beaver, Kobi," he yelled ahead. Then he turned to me and muttered, "Sometimes I lie to them." I rode along part of the time to get pictures showing Don's shadow driving the team ahead of us.

When we went back to camp Don started breakfast but decided to leave me to finish it while he checked the traps he'd set the previous day before the snow softened again. So I ate, brushed my teeth, found a place next to a tree back in the woods and off the trail to unload the previous day's meals and picked up the camp. Then for an hour or more I sat at the edge of the lake writing notes about the trip, soaking up the sun and watching the ice melt. The only sounds were an occasional tapping of a woodpecker, the screech of a Canada Jay, the wind softly rustling branches around me, a slightly jarring cracking of the lake ice or the distant noise of a passing jet high overhead.