fur traders and simplicity

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Bushman5

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Oct 31, 2007
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quoted from "The Fur Trade" from here: http://www.lonehand.com/fur_trade.htm



"We all have our heroes of the fur trade. Certainly it is worthwhile to study and to emulate their lives and careers. Bridger, Glass, Fink and others lend fascinating tales and exploits to this unique period of western history. But to serve history well and pay true honor to the mountain man we should accept the fact that, more often than not, he was a company man and not the "free trapper" so many of us love to portray. The Rendezvous, when put into context, was a period that covered only 1/12 of the time spent during the life of the average mountain man. The time that remained was spent trying to get by without becoming sick, getting lost, or going under. In all probability due to the high cost of products and accouterments the mountain mans life style was very simple and not one of flashy bead work, a huge variety of knives, bags, elaborate camps and the other trappings of modern re-enacting. There is a certain amount of fascination in simplicity and for the sake of accuracy it is well worth exploring this approach."
 
I hear ya, I cringe when I think of all the crap we take. My wife likes all her stuff and in many ways its more to display for friends and tourists than any functional reason. We take our daughter who is severely handicapped but enjoys the Rendezvous so much it would just be cruel to leave her at home, even if we could.

The guys that show up with their Baker lean-tos got it made. There was one old guy, a native, who came and built a palm frond lean-to every year and had a simple camp but he still had to truck in all the building materials, though he gathered them fresh nearer his home.

We have a couple tents and different rigs, this is my favorite cold weather rig but we did get a 4 dog stove for the wall tent and it kept us warm last January.

At least I can get all this into the truck without taking the cargo trailer.

1035934268033885154S600x600Q85.jpg
 
Their lives were pretty simple just because they didn't have all that STUFF. It was not always a easy life but certainly not as complicated as now. And they have the guts to call this progress.
 
Good thread. Great set up hushnel. I'm leaning more and more towards simplification for me and my kit when I go out.

Knowledge, correct and good quality gear and physical robustness. That's the principles behind my next few months.

It's just too easy these days to go for the latest outdoor gizmo and before you know it you're dragging half a department store into the woods. The one thing you don't have though is the sense of satisfaction at the end of the trip. Just my findings from various recent trips i've done.
 
Any information on where I can see a pack board from the fur traders era? Did they use them? What other sites can I go to to find out more about what they carried?
 
hushnel said:
I hear ya, I cringe when I think of all the crap we take. My wife likes all her stuff and in many ways its more to display for friends and tourists than any functional reason. We take our daughter who is severely handicapped but enjoys the Rendezvous so much it would just be cruel to leave her at home, even if we could.

The guys that show up with their Baker lean-tos got it made. There was one old guy, a native, who came and built a palm frond lean-to every year and had a simple camp but he still had to truck in all the building materials, though he gathered them fresh nearer his home.

We have a couple tents and different rigs, this is my favorite cold weather rig but we did get a 4 dog stove for the wall tent and it kept us warm last January.

At least I can get all this into the truck without taking the cargo trailer.

1035934268033885154S600x600Q85.jpg
Click to expand...

Nice primitive camp. Like the capote. I have a 18ft Blue Star lodge from Missoula, Montana that I use with the family. They are no longer made. Sometmes a "Forrester tent" one pole tent with a stove jack in it from R.K. Lodges, had it for years. .
 
Yeah, well these guys could and did leave their lifes, wives and kids behind them, they often had to vamoose with what they could grab, everybody starts gathering junk when they set down roots, the trick, I guess, is to take to the woods without all that junk, like your vacationing from the "stuff" and making do with your wits and little else. I am only able to do this once or twice a year, I try to do this when I’m camping and hunting. Though I seem to be getting more able to do this as I get older and nearer to retirement.

Rendezvous is a little different, I’ve got to have junk I’ve made or acquired to swap and trade for the upcoming years projects in this aspect I’m at the Rendezvous for similar reasons as our ancestors where.

Still it ain’t bad to wake up to a warm tent and hot coffee :)

2861238480033885154S600x600Q85.jpg
 
Simplicity is not owning a tent. Fur traders would flip over their canoe on shore, and use it as shelter. Keeps the rain off, the wind away and traps heat from the fire.
 
That's my wife in the picture, she made the capote from an old Whitney blanket I've had since I was 2 years old, I made mine out of a blaket of the same age but the green/black stripe I kept with me all along and it shows much more wear than the candy stripe I gave to my wife.

My 15 foot wall then was made by Tentsmiths, the hunters lodge is Panther Primitive.
 
ya'll ever heard of Mark A. Baker or John Curry? if you have forget it, if not google both of them. they have some videos and books out that are pretty good.
 
I think it's really recharging to go camping with nothing but what I actually need and doing little projects while I'm out there. The interesting thing is the "what I actually need" part. The more I camp, the less that is, and the longer I'm away from it the more it becomes. After a certain point, familiarity with the woods becomes more important. And our ancestors, living in the woods 24/7, were really familiar with it. Sometimes I think they would have considered themselves loaded for an 11 month excursion with nothing but a rifle, knife, ax, pot, canteen, flint, and blanket.
 
I would love some more info on rendezvous! I went to one when I was in scouts (trappers rendezvous in ks). I really enjoyed trading and such. You can respond here but if you have more specific please do email me!
 
A good place to start is the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA). There are NMLRA sanctioned events in every state and almost all year long with the huge one in Friendship Indiana. There are many local associated NMLRA shooting clubs that have local rendezvous that are not necessarily sanctioned but are supported and listed by the NMLRA.

This is the group that I belong to; the rendezvous is Early America up to 1840, about the end of the fur trade era. There are other organizations that sponsor historical interpretations and re-enactment; most historical sites have local groups to re-enact the period of historic significance to these sites. For instance St. Augustine Florida does big re-enactments of the era in which the fort was built, this is a local organization but I don’t know the name of it, though some good friends of mine are involved with it. There are cattle drives in Florida, Conestoga wagon trains in PA, Colonial Williamsburg VA, Civil War enactors and hundreds of other groups.
 
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