Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Fort Smith (Mar 12/01) - If Cupid ever needs a poster couple to demonstrate the fine work he does, he needn't look any further than Jane and Dave Dragon.
The Fort Smith couple has been together for 41 years and are just as happy today as when they first met.
Jane was nine when her family moved to Fort Smith from Fon du Lac, Sask.
Dave was born in Plamondon, Alta. and moved with his family to Peace River when he was 15. In 1960, he came to Fort Smith to visit his dad and ended up getting a job with the government.
The couple met at the four-way stop in Smith, just as Jane was coming out of the Catholic Church.
"She was standing right at the four corners and boy, she looked like pretty nice stuff," Dave recalled though a cigar and a smile.
"I figured, 'Boy, I got to get a hold of that!' So I did."
A date in Fort Smith 40 years ago was much the same as it is today, Dave said.
"We went to a lot of shows, dances and we played a lot of sports," he said.
As every young couple needs their favourite spot to park, Jane and Dave's spot was where the road now passes in front of their house.
"We used to park right in front here," Jane said, pointing out their dining room window.
Love of the outdoors
An avid hunter and trapper, Dave was six years old when he first started trapping rabbits and weasels.
Dave and Jane have worked their own trapline for 20 years. This year, they've been busy with travelling this winter and decided to leave the line for a season, but Jane says they'll be out in the spring for beavers and rats.
"It's good to give your trapline a rest; like David says, 'They don't fall from heaven.'"
Dave said he's trapped hundreds of lynx, beaver and counted 75 wolves and four wolverines on that line. He's seen the transition from the leg-hold trap to the more humane Conibear quick-kill trap. He likes the Conibear but says it has a few disadvantages.
"They're good traps but they're dangerous," he said. "You really have to be careful -- especially trapping beavers. When they're wet and if it's cold, they are very dangerous."
The Dragons always made time for the fall hunt, when they would take the kids out of school for two weeks and fly in to their camp.
Now, the kids come back to visit the camp in shifts, they said, because the it was getting over-run with kids and grandkids.
Tanning and stitching
With Dave bringing in the furs and hides, Jane was able to produce fine quality mitts, moccasins and parkas without the extra expense of buying them. She worked out of the home until the kids were grown.
Jane learned how to knit when she was 10 and then she got started sewing for her dolls and later, her children.
When the kids went to school, she began sewing and selling her wares in a small shop behind the house.
"I'd come in and have lunch with the kids and go back out in the afternoon," she said. The money she earned kept the kids in new runners and the all the extras.
She spent about two years making the moosehide jacket Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger wears in the Legislative Assembly.
Some of Jane's work is displayed in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, in Hull, Quebec.
"They have a complete man's outfit and a complete woman's outfit," she said. "Now I'm starting on the children's clothes."
She still sews, but has moved her operation into the basement. Jane still tans her own hides and teaches others how to tan their own.
"A lot of people are asking how to do it again, so I have a couple of programs I teach."
"It's not easy -- it's some nice, hard work," she said, flexing her muscles and laughing. "I've tried every way I could think of to make it easier, but I always end up going back to basics -- there's no short-cuts."
The hide is stretched over a frame and the flesh is removed with a bone scraper.
Next, she shears the hair from the reverse side with a metal scraper. Between the hair and the hide is a yellow membrane that has to be removed.
"The veins sort of break and when you scrape all of that yellow scum off and you will have the nicest hide," she advised. "If you don't do that, that part of the hide will be hard."
She takes the hide from the frame and hangs it over a smokey fire, then it gets soaked in a mixture of the animal's brain and Sunlight soap. The process takes about a week to 10 days.
In addition to teaching tanning, Jane also works with schools, giving a presentation on fur and trapping. Over the years she's collected a pelt from each animal in the territory.
"It took 11 years to gather all the furs," Jane said.
Their son Joe (Pinto) played hockey and left home at 17 to play for a Grande Prairie team, earn a scholarship to Cornell University and be drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"It was a case of him wanting to make his life," Dave said. "Getting drafted by the Penguins was probably the worst thing that ever happened to him. They were world champions, so how do you break a line-up?"
Joe was given the choice of going to the farm team or staying in school on his scholarship.
"We talked to him and said 'If you get hurt in hockey you're screwed, but if you have school you can't lose it," he said.
At Cornell, Pinto earned two degrees, one in business administration and one in natural resources. He now works in Yellowknife as a senior policy advisor with RWED.
Through 41 years, six kids and eight grandchildren the couple say there's no real secret to their life-long love story.
"She likes the same things I do," Dave said simply. "Hunting and trapping -- that's all I live for."
"When I would go shoot ducks and rabbits, if she didn't fix them, I would have got discouraged," he said.
He can't imagine what life would be like without the big love they've had in their home.
"I always wondered what it must be like for couples who don't get along -- it must be a son of a gun," Dave said.
"We just really adapt well together," Jane explained. "And I love him dearly."
