The Fox Bait

Leslie Pardy

Leslie Pardy is a fur trapper and fisherman from Cartwright. He also worked for many years for the Hudson Bay Company there. He has hundreds of stories to tell about his interesting life. Here is one amusing tale about the Hudson Bay fox bait.

I REMEMBER ONE TIME, I was working up there at the Hudson Bay store. They had some bottles of this fox lure come in. I'd never seen it before. I looked and thought, "By gee, it might work."

I unscrewed the top and took a sniff. I figured if I could smell it at half a mile, the fox ought to be able trace that down for five miles, at least.

So I got a bottle. I came back from working and I jumped on the skidoo. I went down on the hills here and put a drop to each of my traps and shoved the bottle back in my pocket.

When I came home, they told me there was a good show playing here. I wanted to see that movie bad, so after supper, I hauled on my parka. It was fairly new. I struck off for the place they were having the movie. By God, the guy who was sitting next to me, didn't he stink. It got me so bad I moved up two rows of seats and sat down. And God, it was worse there.

I put my hand in my pocket to get a handkerchief or some darn thing and my hand was wet! This was the fox bait. The stopper was slack on the bottle of the darn stuff, and it was me who was stinking all this time. I thought it was the other guy who was smelling, not me.

I never found it any good at all, on traps. I think it drove the animals away.