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Trapline


In the fur trade, a trapline is a route along which a trapper sets traps for his or her quarry. Trappers traditionally move habitually along the route to set and check the traps, in so doing become skilled at traversing remote terrain, and become experts in the geography of the local area. Because of this traditional knowledge, traplines are not only of interest to trappers themselves but to researchers and others (governments, corporations) interested in local history, biology, and topography. The assignment of particular trapline territories to individuals in band societies was traditionally handled by group consensus, and occasionally violence and warfare. In the present-day trapline assignment is typically formalized and controlled by the state. Formalized trapline territory boundaries now form the basis for many major land-use projects in fur-rich regions.

One of the entitlements that goes along with possessing a trap territory is the right to erect a trapper’s cabin: a simple shelter in which a trapper can stay while moving around his territory. Trappers' cabins are a cultural icon of fur regions, and an important part of the national mythos of countries and regions such as Canada and Alaska, and among groups such as the Métis.

In Canada formal trapping territories assigned by the state are typically called "registered traplines" (RTLs), though each province administers its own system; they have been common across Canada since the 1930s.

Alberta's registered traplines were once exactly that: lines which followed a creek or other feature, but in the 1960s they were switched to a system of trapping territories.

In British Columbia "the registered trapline system continues to be the primary system for setting harvest guidelines and managing furbearing animals". It is an offence to trap an animal on a registered trapline that does not belong to you in BC.

Manitoba has had registered traplines since 1940; they were brought in at that time to stop a wave of new arrivals in Northern Manitoba from trapping out an area that was already overharvested by the local, mostly First Nations, population. The system is administered under the province's Wildlife Act. Lines cannot be sold, inherited, or handed down, but are awarded through a points system, where preference is given to people with a close family relationship to the previous lineholder, a history of using that trapline with the permission of the previous lienholder, and residency near the territory.


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