The Dirty Lynx

Absalom (Uncle Aps) Williams

Uncle Aps Williams was born in Porcupine Bay, Labrador. He spent all his life fishing and fur trapping. He was living in Cartwright when he told this story. Since then he has moved to Goose Bay.

I NEVER GOT IN ANY TROUBLE with very many wild animals, clear of a lynx one time. Natives claim he's a mountain cat. But lynx is the right name.

You would get so anxious to get back to your stopping place. Well, you had to get wood for the night and all kinds of stuff like that. Perhaps you were hungry, after all day with nothing to eat.

You might take something in your game bag to eat, perhaps, but it was so miserable cold. It was all frozen up anyhow. If you had food it was all frozen too hard and it was hardly any use to start a fire outdoors. You wouldn't have time to thaw that up in the fire. You'd only burn it up. So you waited until you got back, in the night. But you had to be careful not to rush too much, or you could get in trouble.

They get around in families, the lynx. If they had a brood one year, the young stayed on to the next year. They might have ten or twelve into a family. I caught one of them little fellas over across the river on the other side. I was just about a mile from home camp.

It was getting dark. The sun was gone down. When I got over there to the bank, I got up over it, and here was a lynx peeking out around a stick at me, and another one in that trap. A big one, too.

The old one in the trap was lying down. I scravelled up and took it out, a great big old cat. In a hurry, I just slung it alongside. I hooked out the trap, and tailed it again. I got the bedding put over it.