Trap House, Michigan: The Original Soundtrack of the Pleasant Peninsula

Traps, tracks, scat. You might think I’m talking about Detroit’s DJ scene, but step outside the neon lights and you’ll find a different rhythm: the primal thrum of trapping. This isn’t just about dropping steel jaws in a critter’s path. It’s about trying to outwit elusive furbearers on their own turf. It’s about continuing a tradition that’s been around for eons. If your knowledge of trapping begins and ends with cartoon clichés, it’s time to obliterate those misconceptions and embrace the visceral reality.

“Furbearers.” Slip that word into your next campfire conversation and watch eyebrows raise. Michigan boasts 17 species of these fur-bearing wonders: badger, beaver, bobcat, coyote, fisher, fox (gray and red), marten, mink, muskrat, opossum, otter, raccoon, skunk, and weasel (Least, Short-tailed, and Long-tailed). An embarrassment of riches.

Fur men made Michigan. The Old World fell in love with beaver skin hats and, from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s, pelts were red hot. Whole towns rose and then fell on the whims of European fashion. Detroit itself, soon to be known as an automotive mecca, was first a fur trade post. Trappers were legends, immortalized by stories of their adventures in the Michigan frontier, taming the wild and living off the land.