Trapper traded in rifle for bingo card

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Traveling with a dog team loaded with winter supplies and snowshoes laced to his feet, it took Pat Auger five days to reach his trapline near Fort McMurray from Wabasca over 45 years ago.

What he loved most was his 30-30 and 303 rifles, the silence of the bush and a "moose in my gunsight," says the 59-year-old Metis trapper.

With roots in Trout Lake -- an isolated community some 250 km north of Slave Lake -- the ever smiling trapper says he has lived for the past 20 years in Wabasca. "But I do not belong to the Bigstone Band," he quietly explains.

"My father was Joseph Auger from Trout Lake. My mother was Wilemina. She was treaty from the Bigstone Band," he recalled.

He is married. "My wife's name is Matilda," he smiles, "and I have seven children. I lost one child two years ago."

Auger says he is happy with his life and how it turned out.

Afraid of the bush? "Never. I was a pretty good shot and I had a good partner. Sylvester Auger and me used to trap together. He was a pretty good shot. He used to be a good trapper too, but now we're too old," Auger laughs.

In 1952, like many other Native people during that year, Auger came down with tuberculosis.

He was transferred to Aberhart Hospital in Edmonton and wouldn't wee his home again until six years later.

City life did not agree with him, but then his view of the city was from a hospital bed.

"I spent a long time taking care of the nurse," he says with a laugh and then adds solemnly, "I took a long time to heal."

Once he was discharged from the hospital, Auger traveled back home and began trapping again. However, his long light with tuberculosis took some of the life out of him. "I wasn't the trapper I used to be." Today he has a different frustrations, he says, adding that trapping is not worth it anymore.

"All the time I trapped it used to be good. But it's no good anymore because the price of fur is poor. There is a lot of fur around Wabasca but not like it used to be." A long time ago when travel to a next door neighbor's cabin could mean a full day's journey, Auger recalls people were more inclined to make their visits worthwhile.

He remembers watching Indian and Metis people dancing and laughing with the sound of the ever present fiddle in the background.

It was during this time Auger decided he wanted to play the fiddle.

He says he learned by simply watching fiddle players and then practicing.

It paid off because soon he found himself playing at house gatherings as well.

He loves his fiddle, which he started playing at an early age and today, he admits he can play any Metis or Indian tune.

"Square dances, jigs, reels of eight, I'll play anything," he says and he does.

"I used to play at dances long ago at the big house in Wabasca. Now I have many trophies from winning at talent shows," he says, with a proud smile.

At a recent talent show in Slave Lake Auger showed up with his fiddle and although, "this time" he didn't win, he says it doesn't bother him. "I just like to get up there and play for the people."

Retired from trapping now, he laughs when he says he has traded in his 303 rifle for a bingo card.

"Now I'm too old to trap and there are too many cutlines all over. Before there were no roads -- it's changed," he says with a sigh.