Stanley Maydaniuk, who is 97 years old, said that although it took a bit of getting used to, he really loves living in the Sandy Lake Personal Care Home. “The nurses are so nice, that I hope I can stay here and never live anywhere else.”
Maydaniuk, talking about his life said, “Other than my family, my whole life was beavers, beavers, beavers and Riding Mountain National Park!”
He was one of eight children, born in 1914 on the family farm, 16 miles north of Rossburn, close to Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP). His wife, Doris, came from a farm only 1-1/2 miles away.
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Maydaniuk did some farming to make his living, but more important to him were two other occupations: being an RMNP fire warden and a beaver trapper.
He took his role in protecting RMNP very seriously, but he was even more enthusiastic about trapping beavers, “to protect the trees and help stop flooding.” Using humane No. 330 Conibear traps (not leg-hold traps), he would bait them with poplar that he peeled to reveal the white stalk. Nearby beavers would come out of the water to investigate and get caught. Landowners from Onanole to Russell would call Maydaniuk to help rid their farms of nuisance beavers and a Winnipeg Free Press article written almost 20 years ago, then estimated that Maydaniuk had trapped over 2,500 of them.
He began trapping when he was 11 or 12 years old and didn’t stop until he was well into his 90s. He would carry the beavers out of the woods, beginning with the farthest away of seven or eight traps. “It wasn’t easy,” said Maydaniuk, “but dragging carcasses could have damaged the fur, making the pelt worth less.” When he got home he would skin the beavers and stretch and nail the pelts to boards to dry.
“He made his own knives from disused V-shaped mower blades,” said his friend Ian Ripley, former conservation officer from Shoal Lake, “and he skinned them in a different way, faster than anyone I ever saw!”
Last fall, Maydaniuk attended the Old Time Threshing Event on the ranch of Frank and Linda Wilkinson. Still amazingly spry and flexible, he showed everyone how to twist wheat into “twine” for binding sheaves and the “right” way to stook.
Maydaniuk attributes his good health to, “No liquor — not even a taste, no smoking, no soft drinks, not much sweets and lots of fresh air.”
He adds, “I feel good just to live.”
