The Probability is Minimal

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Monday, 25 April, 1763:

“Ccttt…,”

“To the right, by the tipped maple with emerging greenery,” Mi-ki-naak surmised. The second sharp “click” proved the first was not imaginary. The returned white captive fought the urge, did not turn, did not steal a glance. Brown eyes squinted. Muscles prepared, but did not tense. An eager thumb bumped the French fusil’s cock, but did not set. No need to worry, the thriving ground juniper, one of the last surviving on the ridge’s west slope, concealed the returned captive’s deathly shape.

“Ccttt…,” a second wild turkey joined in, this one behind and to the northeast. “Ccttt…” Another popping, clicking sound came from the witch hazel stand, or there about.

“Whit, whit, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu…” A crimson cardinal marked his territory, perched up in a poplar sapling.

“Chic, a-dee, dee, dee, dee…” That black crowned songster flitted low, darted up and bobbed on a frail wild cherry sprig with leaves the size of a fox’s ear. Geese ke-honked on the Riviere aux Raisins, past the downed maple, through the soggy bottoms, beyond last year’s dead cattails.

“Caw, caw, caw, caw…” The morning agitations of a flock of crows hung in the air, over the ridge, perhaps near the cedar grove? All the while the clicks and putts grew closer, overshadowing the melodious morning cacophony of a contented glade.

A red head popped up to the right. Through the squinty haze, the young tom appeared under the arched over red cedar tree where a trap set produced four large raccoons the October prior. That bronze shape stopped and began pacing back and forth. Two splotches of red arose. Minutes ticked away like spring water bubbling over the waist-high rocks where the nameless creek begins its passage through the great swamp.

The fidgety gobbler with the tiny black tuft expected a hen to jump up and run to his love musings. She hid in Mi-ki-naak’s shot pouch, or rather the single wing bone did. Hearing no answer, that bird went silent. The others did the same. With caution, the wild turkey embarked on a circular stalk to the south.

“Oh Creator, by your will grant a clean kill or a clean miss,” the returned white captive whispered…

Thoughts on Natural Wadding

The best jake in that group of six young turkeys had a three-inch beard. Mi-ki-naak wanted a bigger bird. Perhaps not period-correct, he passed on the lot, even though that one got within twenty paces of the hemlock lair.

Fall maple leaves, picked up in the woods, damp enough to form into a ball, neither squishy wet nor crumbly dry, secured the powder charge and the anxious death bees. It doesn’t seem possible, but my alter egos have been using natural wadding in their smoothbores for ten years. I had to check my range notes to confirm that time span.

A marble-sized ball of narrow bladed grass.

Of late, a number of black powder shooting enthusiasts have jumped on the natural wadding bandwagon, offering opinions and rules of thumb based on a handful of shots. From what I can discern from their statements, no one uses natural wadding with any regularity, either for hunting or target shooting. And few take wild game, or possess journal entries accounting for consistent success, other than my alter egos.

One comment that sticks out in the articles and videos is, “Don’t catch the woods on fire!” That certainly sounds encouraging. I had the same concerns early on in my quest to load as my hunter heroes did, or as close to it as possible. Before the first leaf wad squeaked down “Old Turkey Feathers” bore, I sought out answers from several mentors, one in particular who never gave me a questionable answer to any of my queries.

His statement was simple. “All of the oxygen in the breech is consumed by the combustion of the powder.” Being a former fire chief, he continued with, “You need oxygen to complete the fire triangle [fuel, sufficient heat and oxygen in the presence of a sustainable chain reaction], without oxygen, combustion cannot take place.”

He went on to discuss burning patches on the range, which usually indicated a synthetic fabric blend, not 100 percent organic fibers. The other situation was the use of a patch lube or solvent that contained a component with a low flash point. Over the years, my experimentation has produced smoldering patches, in part attributed to both potential causes.

About thirty years ago, I discovered a smoke plume after downing a ring-necked pheasant on a dry October evening of zigzagging in the swamp. It was not a glowing ember, just a light smoke. Regardless, it scared the daylights out of me.

But true to the advice, this was the first, and last, time I soaked the fiber wads in a commercial petroleum product, recommended in an article in a major black powder magazine. Based on that incident, the “Don’t catch the woods on fire!” caveat should apply to fiber wads, too. It seems modern-day litigation terrifies us all. After that hunt, I went back to a water-soluble compound for fiber wads with no issues.

The over-powder leaf wad and the over-ball leaf wad.

There is no question that green grass or leaves will not burn. As an aside, my studies show the green leaves do a better job of “scrubbing the bore,” than dry wadding. I only use dry leaves for late fall, winter and early spring wadding, due to availability. To date, I have never had a dry leaf wad combust or smolder. When pulled, they are as tight-packed as standard fiber wads, which do not burn, because the ignition temperature is high enough to not be an issue—and it shouldn’t anyway if my mentor was correct.

Yes, stories abound about smoldering patches and sometimes wads. As I said, I have them too. But upon further study, an underlying reason is always present. I have looked hard for documented research to prove or disprove my mentor’s theory. To date I have not found any. I would welcome solid scientific tests, data and/or evidence, if any exists.

The stories don’t cut it, because an important factor is overlooked and left out. In the meantime, caution is prudent. Based on ten years of using natural wadding in the field, my finding is that the probability of catching the woods on fire is minimal. But never say “never…”

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Safety, Turkey Hunts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Chance for Rabbit Stew

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Snowflakes drifted in calm air. The white blanket, laid upon the glade an hour or so before dawn, proved a pleasant surprise. A hint of aromatic red cedar teased the nose. Two square-cut trade shirts, a wool sleeveless waistcoat and a linen hunting shirt seemed proper attire for that mild January jaunt, in the Year of our Lord, 1796.

A measure of drip shot rattled down the bore of a Northwest gun, called “Old Turkey Feathers” by the hired hunter for Samuel the Trader’s post. The death bees swarmed on the tight-packed wadding, emitting hollow, muffled pops. The hickory rammer thumped twice on the wadding that held the eternal messengers at bay; the rod clicked and clapped as it slid into the ribbed brass ferrules.

Down the hill and around the bend in the cedar growth, half-filled cottontail rabbit tracks defined an erratic path through clumps of bent-over prairie grass. Back and forth they wandered. The woodsman tracked the rabbit with his eyes, always searching ahead. The course entered the first stand of cedars, then disappeared in the barren ground beneath the trees’ outstretched branches. The tracks resumed, vanished, angled right, disappeared, then meandered into a snowy thicket.

Fingers tingled. A cold nose dribbled. Yet, the post hunter’s upper body felt as if he was sitting next to the hearth in the trader’s cabin. The rabbit’s journey paused beneath the wild apple tree, the resting spot fresh, packed some from body warmth, dappled with round, black leavings.

A traditional woodsman wearing a four-point trade blanket.

The hunter stood in silence, his eyes sorting out the path, suspecting the rabbit might be sitting not too far away. In the solitude of the moment, he whispered the familiar prayer, “A clean kill, or a clean miss. Your will, Oh Lord.”

Twenty paces distant, while casting in a small circle in hopes of regaining lost tracks, a brown streak bounded from a small raspberry patch. The English flint snapped to attention; the tarnished brass butt plate jumped to its rightful place. A chilly cheek pressed against the cold stock.

The rabbit zigged right, bounded left, then ran under a ground-hugging hemlock bush. The turtle sight pursued, racing to catch up. Fleeting fur crossed a wagon-bed-sized clearing. Snow shook free from a prairie grass clump. The smoothbore’s muzzle caught the flipping cotton tail an instant before the rabbit dove under a dead cedar tree, sprawled on the ground by a long-forgotten ice storm. Amongst the tangle of dead branches, twisted grasses and intertwined raspberry switches, an abandoned woodchuck hole dashed any chances of rabbit stew…at that moment, anyway…

18th-Century Shot Size Equivalents

Earlier this month, Rancocas responded to “A Tad Late Tuesday” post. A question followed his kind comments:

“What would be the modern equivalent of ‘duck shot’ and another that I sometimes hear mentioned is ‘swan shot’.  I’m thinking, maybe, #4 and BB?”

There is no definitive answer to this question. The designations in the trading journals appear to be consistent with hunters’ common choices for the shot size needed to down specific birds or animals. Thus, “swan shot” was used for hunting swans, “duck shot” for ducks, and “buck shot” for deer.

On the one hand, there was no standardization of terms, and on the other hand there was a universal understanding of sorts as to the meaning of each shot-size name. Taken as a whole, the clerks’ letters describing desired trade goods, although sometimes vague, confirm the latter hypothesis.

In hindsight, all three of my alter egos refer to “duck shot” for hunting ducks and wild turkeys. Looking strictly at the historical evidence, this is a mistake with regards to documentation and perceived equivalent modern shot sizes. However the designation might not be with respect to in-the-field experience.

Four decades ago, I hunted ducks, meaning mallards, wood ducks and teal, with #4 lead shot. That size worked best for a clean, efficient taking of those specific types of waterfowl. With the advent of the requirement for non-toxic shot, I gravitated to #3 bismuth. Given the element’s lighter weight, #3 bismuth was equivalent to #4 lead by weight and provided the same results. In addition, the Michigan game regulations require “…no. 4 or smaller shot” for wild turkeys. Here again, #4 lead is my preferred turkey shot, so when hunting turkeys, as I was in that post, I refer to the shot as “duck shot.”

I now realize I should rethink that designation from an historical context…you folks are killing me here. But this just points up one of the basic principles in traditional black powder hunting, that being failures and short comings, both big or small, are nothing more than successes in disguise.

In Colonial Frontier Guns, T. M Hamilton wrote: “Before 1665 shot (as distinguished from swan and buckshot, which have always been cast in gang molds) was made by the laborious process of cutting sheet lead into cubes and then tumbling them in a barrel to more or less round off the corners…”

A gang mold for casting one round ball, four buckshot and six plover shot.

After 1665, “…his Highness, Prince Rupert…revolutionized the process…Rupert shot was made by placing a brass, colander-like, dish, but with a heavy rim to hold the heat, some ten inches or so above a pan of water. Live coals were place in the colander to heat it; and melted lead, fluxed with arsenic [do not try this!], was then poured into the colander, trickled down through the coals and through the holes, falling as droplets into the water. The result was shot, not perfectly round, but ovoid, almost heart-shaped, in cross section, with a small dimple on the more flattened side…

“This, then, was the dominate type of shot used until the invention of drop shot in 1769, when William Watts is said to have dreamed that he was caught out in a hailstorm of perfectly round lead pellets. The story is that he kept thinking about these round shot and began experiments, dropping molten lead through a colander from the tower of a church until he found that a free fall of 200 feet into a tub of water produced perfect shot…” (Hamilton, 130 -132)

While describing found artifacts in Voices from the Rapids, Alan R. Woolworth and Douglas A. Burk analyzed shot examples found in the Quetico-Superior Underwater Research Project. Shot sizes varied from location to location. They reported finds by diameter from .130-inch to .220-inch or #4 to F by the American Standard.

Two guns, found the Granite River in 1962, each contained charges of shot that varied in size. “No. 1 contained 31 lead shot which ranged from .140 to .185 inch. The charge weighted .50 ounces…” The cataloged sizes ranged from #3 to BB with the majority being B or BB.

“Firearm No. 2 held a charge of 25 lead shot which ranged between .175 and .220 inch. There was a noticeable cluster of 17 specimens in the range of .195 to .205…”   BBB and T in modern shot size.

“…Carl P. Russell’s research shows that “pigeon shot,” “duck shot,” “beaver shot,” and “buckshot” were in use during the early 19th century and doubtless earlier. Unquestionably, pigeon shot would have been the smallest, probably in the size range of No. 8 or 9 shot. Duck shot could well have ranged from about No. 4 to No. 6 shot; and beaver shot was no doubt larger, perhaps in the area of BB and larger. Buckshot, of course, is available in a number of sizes between .250 and .440.” (Wheeler, 81)

I hesitate to include this last quote, but there is method to my madness. First, as living historians, we have to take research within the context of the time it was undertaken. These scuba dives and archeological recoveries took place in the 1960s. The findings were published in 1975. Addressing the common 18th-century names, Woolworth and Birk clearly speculate as to the meaning of the old names, following the practice of assigning names based on the supposed use for the shot sizes.

A hand-forged ladle pouring lead in a gang mold.

In the Spring, 2001, edition of The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly (Volume 37, Number 1, Chadron, NE), James A. Hanson wrote a short article, “Shot Sizes—What Do They Mean?”

“The earliest shooting sportsmen developed a remarkably logical system that used the names of various game animals to denote progressive shot sizes. In representative fur trade orders from the 17th and 18th centuries, the following shot “sizes” appear: pigeon, duck, gray goose, white goose, beaver, partridge, large buck, small buck, snipe, plover, Bristol, coon, muskrat, and mustard seed. Here are the ones we have identified:

Bristol shot = gray goose = beaver shot = TT or O

Duck shot = white goose shot = No. 1

Pigeon shot = No. 2 or No. 3

Plover shot = No. 4

Snipe shot = No. 5

Swan shot or “swan drops” in the robust words of Shakespearean English, measured out 240 pellets to the pound. By today’s standard it is synonymous with .28 caliber buckshot. The beaver shot of the colonial fur trade was the same as the standard shot used at the time to hunt Canadian geese and was .21 caliber with 544 pellets per pound [No. TT]. There were two sizes of buck shot used in colonial America; small buck was .35 caliber and weighed 112 to the pound, while large buck was .38 caliber and contained 80 balls to the pound. So far no light has come to us on such interesting names as coon shot and muskrat shot” (7 – 8)

Given the sizes attributed by Hanson, coupled with the shot found in recovered smoothbores as reported by Woolworth and Birk, it appears 18th-century woodsmen preferred larger diameter shot. An argument can be made that loading with larger shot brings more versatility, offering greater opportunities for bringing meat to the table. Likewise, the increased pellet count of smaller shot ups the probability of effecting a humane harvest, when matched to a specific game species.

Thus, shot size choice, taken within the ethical constraints of modern game laws, highlights the importance of the trade gun’s effective distance. It is the woodsman’s skill level relative to approaching wild game that neutralizes any adverse effect of such a choice and increases a time traveler’s chance for rabbit stew…

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Bag of Beads and Silver

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

A Mini-Monday Missive…

A solitary gobble beckoned. Cedar by cedar by cedar elk moccasins crept along, below the ridge crest, in the shadows. The woodsman’s course meandered east. The steep hillside leveled. Cedar trees gave way to oaks. One red oak in particular, short trunk, broad limbs and hollow, broke apart in 1791, the summer prior.

In October of 1792, Samuel the Trader’s hired hunter discovered the damage. After careful thought, he hacked a lair within the tree’s top branches. The gobble that first week of November teased the woodsman back. Once sitting cross-legged, his fingers fumbled for the single turkey wing bone, nestled in his hunting bag, beneath the New Testament and the bag of beads and silver. He drew air twice, his lips snug about the bone’s oval end. “Aarrkkk, arkk.”

“Aarrk, arrkk.” An answer echoed, square ahead, in the sedge grass near the mucky trail coming off the north island in the great swamp. The stalk sought the dawn gobbler, but any wild turkey would fill Samuel’s impetuous craving.

A traditional woodsman returns to his lean-to shelter with a wild turkey.

The Northwest gun’s muzzle eased over the oak’s rough bark, pausing at the little clearing, twenty paces distant. But the hen did not appear. Seconds weighed like months, minutes like years. The backcountry hunter knew better than to call again. Patience was the only option. His thumb stopped fidgeting on the firelock’s hammer screw. The tarnished-brass butt plate relaxed, too.

When all seemed lost, a glimpse of bronze and brown stepped from the shadows, still ahead, but uphill, veiled by the dead branches at the base of a tall cedar. The wary hen had circled, unsure of the soft clucking in the treetop, and a bit perturbed the hen that called out had not come when she clucked back. That wild turkey was fair-sized, mature but not old and tough eating. The hired hunter had little choice but wait the bird out…

Trifling Details

Three or so years into the post hunter’s humble existence, accessory accoutrements became the center of my research. A degree of comfort was developing with this alter ego, and it was time to further flesh out his being.

As a dedicated living historian, I tried to test and document every accoutrement that accompanied Samuel’s hired man into the glade. The hunting bag is a separate, somewhat larger, deerskin bag for transporting additional necessities into the wilderness. It contains a variety of documented items taken on longer hunting trips.

Sometimes the hunting bag stays in camp and at other times it tags along on a simple pursuit. In either case, the hunting bag is never too distant from the hired trading-post hunter. If the bag is left behind at the shelter, often times my alter ego takes specific items on his person for a woodland sojourn. The wing bone call, journal envelope and New Testament come to mind. Depending on the hunt’s scenario, a buckskin bag of beads and silver is slipped inside the linen hunting shirt.

Trading clerk journals, like that of Michel Curot, an employee of the XY Company who wintered in Wisconsin’s St. Croix region, contain references to daily dealings. On September 20, 1803, Curot records:

“I bought 2 lynx and one deer skin For a little sugar and a few Beads…”

On April 22, 1804 he wroted:

“I got a lynx skin and two rats for a few beads…”  (Curot, 410 & 463)

There are other references scattered throughout the primary documentation that supports this character portrayal. After all, this is an individual closely associated with an interior trader’s post. Some of those passages record impromptu transactions, leaving the impression the clerk was out and about in the countryside. In addition, clerks sometimes sent their employees out to a known village with a pack or two of goods to secure food or peltry. Silver trinkets are listed with the same frequency as beads.

At some point in the research, it struck me that my character should have the ability to execute backcountry barters.  If he paddled along the River Raisin, encamping near its banks, a pack or two might not be out of place. Likewise, whether chasing reluctant wild turkeys or elusive white-tailed deer, the post hunter should never be without “a few beads or silver”—petty cash in today’s jargon.

A buckskin bag with glass beads and trade silver poured out in a man's palm.

The drawstring buckskin bag is small; palm-sized weighing but a few ounces. From time to time the contents vary, depleted by wilderness deals and dictated by Native demand. Larger, colorful glass beads are favored, because the clerks’ journals deem them more valuable, perhaps four or five worth a prime beaver. Six or seven silver ring broaches, two or three larger broaches, and maybe a unique trade silver piece are included. Sometimes a gun worm or two or a couple of priming wires fill out the assortment.

Years ago I was shooting the smoothbore aggregate, up the valley on the Max Vickery primitive range at Friendship. It wasn’t named after Max then; he was still very much alive. Ricky Roberts was the range officer and kept score.

At the end of the round, a wry smile spread across his face. He told of a similar match, and at the end the range officer announced that anyone who had beads or silver to trade on his or her person would earn five extra points. That wasn’t allowed in this match. Ricky was just dropping an historical thought out for discussion, of course.

The hunting bag was back at camp, but the bag of beads and silver was in my shot pouch, left over from the Woods-N-Water News Outdoor Weekend. The unloaded Northwest gun leaned against my chest. Nimble fingers retrieved the bag of beads and silver. I loosened the drawstring and poured some of the contents into my left palm. “Do you have peltry to trade?” I asked, stifling a naughty smirk.

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the direction whence he came…

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Saturday, 17, December, 1763:

Frozen oak leaves crunched. Spotty snowflakes whisk about.  Wool-lined moccasins tread light, slow and deliberate.  The still-hunt progressed into a blustery southwest wind that sliced to the bone.  

Two years prior, a summer thunderstorm broke a modest red oak high up, below the main fork. One limb came to rest on either side of a similar sized white oak. That tree, the white oak, grew a dozen or so paces below the crest of the second ridge east of the Riviere aux Raisins. The debris offered a prime vantage point for deer passing out of the river bottom on their way to a night frolic.

The Snapping Turtle looks to the south.

The returned captive scuffed away the leaves, pulled the once white trade blanket, bought with three large beavers, dyed brown with walnut hulls in a brass kettle, about his body. He sat cross-legged with his back to the trunk, facing into the wind. The French fusil, the muzzle pointed south, rested on the blanket tails that covered his madder-colored leggins.

A fat fox squirrel scrounged to the right, showing little concern. The critter hiked up a tall oak trunk, the one splintered in the thunderstorm. Nothing else moved about…

At dusk the wind ebbed. Orange and lavender painted the sky beyond the vast swamp that skirted the Riviere aux Raisins to the west. The water turned a shimmering silver as it wound back and forth through the tawny grasses. Canada geese ke-honked to the northeast. The honking faded to the north until it was heard no more.

A scrawny young doe browsed over the far rise. The deer angled down into the depression between the ridges, coming closer as the day slipped away. At the poplar stand, the forest tenant’s evening course turned northeast, sniffing the ground, then pausing to lick green moss on a rotting tree trunk. It appeared she would pass by, beyond the fusil’s effective distance.

This deer, that summer’s fawn, offered little sustenance. “Bones and hide,” Mi-ki-naak whispered. With the cold, she was not worth the effort to dress and pack back to camp. Each hoof fall crunched, louder and louder. She did not raise her head, did not check her back trail nor search for danger ahead.

At seven paces distant, her head rose up slow. She stopped. She sensed danger, gazed to the south, glanced the north, then looked up the rise to the ridge crest. As his adoptive Ojibwe father taught him, Mi-ki-naak squinted so the deer would not see his eyes. The young doe’s ears perked. Hams tensed. Back hair bristled. Her head dropped as her tongue licked her black nose.

The doe snorted, more a sneeze than a warning blow, then turned about and took four bounds down the hill and with the wind. She stopped, looked back and sniffed. What little breeze remained, light but still noticeable, carried the returned captive’s scent away from the deer’s keen nose.

She stomped three times. Time passed. Unsure, she took four bounds, the kind that do not produce distance, but rather undertaken to elicit movement on the part of an unknown foe. Again her right foreleg crashed in the leaves. She stood in silence until darkness fell. The oak leaves crunched as she walked off.

Huddling in a cold, shivery silence, nose dripping, Mi-ki-naak, Snapping Turtle in the English tongue, waited. In time he got to his feet, rubbed his hands and walked off in the direction whence he came…

Many Moccasin Steps Back…

A guiding premise of any traditional black powder hunt is a passionate desire to forsake “what is” for “what was.” The attraction of this hunting philosophy is to let go of the here and now and embrace a turning back of the clock to the ways of our ancestors. For some, this transition in thinking requires little forethought or effort, for others there is fierce wrenching of hands accompanied by great trepidation.

Seventy years ago, Aldo Leopold penned some pretty powerful words. He addressed the degradation of hunting and also of the environment and conservation. The following is a favorite passage from an essay entitled “Wildlife in American Culture,” which appears near the end of his classic work, A Sand County Almanac:

“Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto-trunk, and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage. The traffic in gadgets adds up to astronomical sums, which are soberly published as representing ‘the economic value of wildlife.’ But what of cultural values?

“As an end-case, consider the duck-hunter, sitting in a steel boat behind composition decoys. A put-put motor has brought him to the blind without exercise. Canned heat stands by to warm him in case of a chilling wind. He talks to the passing flocks on a factory caller, in what he hopes are seductive tones; home lessons from a phonograph record have taught him how. The decoys work, despite the caller; a flock circles in. It must be shot at before it circles twice, for the marsh bristles with other sportsmen, similarly accoutered, who might shoot first. He opens up at 70 yards, for his poly-choke is set for infinity, and the advertisements have told him that Super-Z shells, and plenty of them, have a long reach. The flock flares. A couple of cripples scale off to die elsewhere. Is this sportsman absorbing cultural value? Or is he just feeding minks?…Where is the go-light idea, the one-bullet tradition?” (Leopold, 180).

Now we’ve just finished a wild turkey season in Michigan. Many of the stories posted online sing the praises of items Leopold classified as “contraptions” or “gadgets.” Others bemoan the fact that “…the gobbler hung up and didn’t come in,” “in” being within 50 yards of the modern-day version of “the poly-choke” and “Super-z” plastic suppositories.

Msko-waagosh, the Red Fox, with a wild turkey in a snowy landscape.

And then there is the lowly traditional hunter, sitting under a red cedar tree, dressed in the clothing of a mustered-out member of Joseph Hopkins Company of Rangers or a returned white captive, given the Ojibwe name of Mi-ki-naak. The arms used are smooth-bored flintlocks, appropriate for each historical persona. Oh, and the effective distance of those firelocks is 25 paces—the former being close to 28 yards because that living historian’s stride is longer than Mi-ki-naak’s and his English fowler is bored larger than the French fusil.

Leopold’s words are prefaced by three “cultural values,” each of which survives with most traditional black powder hunts.

“First there is value in any experience that reminds us of our distinctive national origins and evolution, i.e. that stimulates awareness of history…I shall call this…the ‘split-rail value…”

“Second, there is value in any experience that reminds us of our dependency on the soil-plant-animal-man food chain, and of the fundamental organization of the biota. Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relation with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim…”

“Third, there is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called ‘sportsmanship”…

“Voluntary adherence to an ethical code elevates the self-respect of the sportsman…voluntary disregard of the code degenerates and depraves him…”

Here again, Leopold continues with an explanation of the values that seemed to be slipping away from outdoor folks in the late 1940s:

“The pioneer period gave birth to two ideas that are the essence of split-rail values in outdoor sports. One is the ‘go-light’ idea, the other the ‘one-bullet-one-buck’ idea…” (Ibid, 177 – 179)

In a broader sense, if a convert or newcomer gives traditional hunting, either black powder or archery, a fair test, the dependence of the modern philosophy on contraptions and gadgets becomes obvious. In most instances, the addictive nature of venturing back to yesteryear takes hold. The apprehension lingers for quite some time, and that is natural. It is difficult to give up “guaranteed success” for an “unknown maybe.” And this is the essence of the salesman pushing the modern inline over the unreliable and outdated side hammer.

A number of years ago, at the Woods-N-Water News Outdoor Weekend, a gentleman in his mid-50s started asking questions about traditional black powder hunting. In the conversation he stated that it was his “lifelong dream” to take a whitetail using a Model 1863 Springfield rifled musket, dressed as a returned Civil War veteran. I think he had been a Civil War era re-enactor in his younger days. He owned the rifle and most of the clothing.

Now this fellow had a dozen reasons why he couldn’t achieve his dream, the biggest was giving up his heated “people box,” as Miss Tami calls today’s deer houses. Over the next half hour, both Tami and I knocked down all of his objections, but he still persisted.

Our demonstration area was busy that day, as it most often is. Near the end of the conversation, another fellow walked by, stopped, touched my shoulder and said, “I just wanted to let you know that I took a deer with my Springfield musket last fall. What a thrill. I didn’t know what I was missing.” His timing was perfect.

Tami and I talked about it in the evening. We don’t believe we convinced the naysayer to venture back, to attempt to achieve his lifelong dream, but we weren’t sure about the gentleman that stopped by, either.

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Tad Late Tuesday…

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Saturday, 23, April, 1763:

“Gob-obl-obl-obl-obl-obl!”

The tom sounded far off. Elk moccasins whispered down the east face of the ridge. Fall’s oak leaves flexed, but did not crackle. Two steps and a pause…two steps and a pause…

The evening air smelled of fresh greenery, with a hint of old urine laced with the tannic aroma of decomposing duff. The still hunt progressed to a clump of three red cedar trees, struggling for light within the dripline of a monarch red oak. The tree was hollow, but sturdy with broad limbs. On either side of a split up the trunk, raccoon leavings rested atop the dark brown rotted wood washed from the crack.

Mi-ki-naak, Snapping Turtle in the Englishman’s tongue, removed the walnut-dyed wool blanket from his shoulders, wrapped it about his waist and sat cross-legged against the middle cedar tree. The French fusil rested in his lap, primed and loaded with duck shot.

A wild turkey hen stepping from deep grass.

“Ark, ark,” a hen clucked somewhere in the midst of the tamaracks. The returned white captive knew better than to answer the hen or try to entice the gobbler. This evening foray was an ambush, pure and simple.

The monarch oak grew halfway up the east face, not quite due west of the north island in the big swamp. Late in the day, the wild turkeys moved into the sedge grass and red willows. Before dusk they headed to the roost trees. Some crossed that island while others followed one of the three lower trails that passed on either side of the old oak. And some nights the birds chose a different route to the night roost.

“Chip, chip, chip, chip, chip,” a sparrow sang. A crimson cardinal and its drab, cinnamon-feathered mate flew from tree to bush to tree. Crows winged over, silent. And in time a string of seven geese ke-honked to the west for a rest on the Riviere aux Raisins.

At dusk Mi-ki-naak scrambled to his feet, shook out the blanket and placed it over his left shoulder. With light fading, he crested the ridge. Maybe forty paces to the south a red head popped up.

The jake stood in the hazy shadows behind the dead, lower branches of several small cedar trees. Another head popped up. A hen flapped hard, fleeing a few feet above the ridge’s west slope. A fourth bird began walking north. Snapping turtle swung the fusil. The firelock clicked as his thumb drew the French amber flint back. The brush was too thick, the hour too late. The returned white captive simply watched and chuckled…

Another Project Underway

“Have you found the beads, yet?” A pleasant guffaw followed that question. I laughed when I answered, “Not yet” with a cheery lilt to my voice. “There is always hope,” I thought. The question arose as a fellow living historian and I were discussing the frustrations of this year’s wild turkey season in Michigan.

As always, we ask each other what we did in the last few days. With a great sense of accomplishment I reported that I finally started cleaning my muzzleloading cabinets. That project has bugged me for several years. Something always comes up. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve reached into that hovel only to be called away.

In the first year of Msko-waagosh’s meager existence, I purchased several hanks of antique tube beads, cobalt blue and greyish white, from the bead mongers in the flea market at Friendship. My alter ego wanted them woven into the shoulder strap of his new shot pouch. About a year later I got to that project.

Two hands of antique white beads and a few loose blue beads.

There were enough beads, but he decided he wanted more. At Msko-waagosh’s request, I took a hank of blue and one of white with me to our regional bead vendor. Well, those two hanks came up missing. We went through the truck, all our clothes, the bags and packages from that day—no beads.

In the back of my mind I have a lingering twitch that tells me I took something else along that day having nothing to do with living history, and I put those beads with whatever that was. I’ve never been able to coax that foggy recollection into the light of day.

So “the beads” are still missing, some six years later. Every time I start cleaning or sorting, the question arises, “Have you found the beads, yet?” The other side of that joke is that when I misplace something and can’t find it, I simply shrug my shoulders and declare, “It must be with the beads…”

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Crushed Soda Cans Slip By…

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Black powder overflowed a brass charger. The precious granules trickled down the Northwest gun’s muzzle. Wadding squeaked, resisted, then seated firm with a hickory wiping stick. Lead shot rattled to the breech, secured with thinner wadding, tamped tight.

The fowl cackled again. “Kort-kok,” it called, loud and strong, walking closer. Drying prairie grass with a hint of sweetness from the corn in the north field perfumed the air. A cardinal twittered. That crimson songster was perched low in a wind-tipped cherry tree. The nameless creek meandered west, dividing the cattail wallows, willow stands and rolling knobs. That narrow strip of land, left fallow because of standing water at planting time, produced an evening fowl or two, even in the lean years.

Rolling fog shrouded the cedar tree line.

Chilly air settled in the lowlands at dusk on that late-October day in the Year of our Lord, 1796. A red-tailed hawk cried out, somewhere to the west, but the post hunter didn’t look up. Elk-hide moccasins zigged and zagged due east through the prairie grass and red willow switches. The helter-skelter course turned south at the twin poplar trees that grew at a sharp creek bend.

Here and there roost forms, marked with a single white-edged leaving, betrayed the fowls’ habits. The underbrush thickened, going knee-high to thigh-deep. Pauses, about-faces and quick turn backs highlighted the erratic dance, all choreographed to befuddle one of those winged delights.

On that eve, the quick foray first produced the bounding, brown-fur flash of a cotton-tailed rabbit. Heartbeats grew rapid. The turtle sight pursued, lost the critter, then regained its head in an impenetrable tangle not meant for a swarm of death bees. Pressing on, a lush, shoulder-deep patch of mixed swamp grasses with the occasional clump of cattails produced nary a flush.

A sharp turn about angled the woodsman’s course in the direction of the creek, all the while progressing to the log bridge that crossed the creek, giving access to the north side and a wilderness wander’s way back to camp.

What was once a thick plot of goldenrod, perhaps the size of a fort’s barracks, was now a sea of brittle, dry stems that snapped and crackled with each buckskin leggin stride. Six or seven trade-gun lengths distant, stalks wiggled. The advance ceased. The forest tenant’s body turned. The smoothbore’s muzzle eased right and hovered over the movement. The woodsman’s thumb pressed hard on the firelock’s hammer screw. Arteries pulsed. Death bees huddled tight in great anticipation.

Three or so minutes later, the post hunter’s left moccasin weaseled forward, then the right, cautious and unhurried. A stem snapped, loud and distinctive. Wings flapped. A frantic brown bundle of wildland frenzy exploded skyward. The English flint jerked to attention with the distinctive click. The trade gun’s tarnished brass butt plate slammed to its rightful place. The turtle sight pursued the rising fowl, then stopped, sagging in despair. There was no red wattle, no iridescent green head, no white neck ring, no cinnamon-colored chest, no streaming, barred tail. “Hen!”  his mind shouted as the fowl cleared the swale, set her wings and coasted into the cornstalks on the opposite side of the nameless creek…

Oh, Those Inconsistencies…

Funny thoughts flood my mind right after the intense encounter of a wild bird, be it a gobbler, mallard drake or hen pheasant. I realized not a minute after that hen pheasant dropped out of sight in the standing corn that I had not offered a prayer for that evening’s simple pursuits. “A clean kill, or a clean miss. Your will, O Lord,” I whispered, rectifying my alter ego’s oversight.

I don’t have a name for the inconsistencies in my writings that have arisen in recent days. I’m sure one will come up, either in my scribblings or in a phrase or sentence from a loyal reader.

In the early years of my time-traveling misadventures, there were a lot of issues with my clothing and accoutrement choices—inconsistencies, if you will. I gave little mind to authenticity of ring-necked pheasants.

Fox squirrels, cotton-tailed rabbits and pheasants were the mainstays of hunting in my youth. Small game was the major reason for choosing the smooth-bored trade gun over a longrifle when I decided to journey back in time. I hunted roosters with my modern shotgun, so why not with the firelock? I wasn’t much good at wing shooting, modern or traditional, but that did not matter; getting out for an evening of bird hunting did, if only for an hour or so.

It wasn’t until years later that I started looking into the “authenticity” of the game I loved to chase in a 1790s sense. As I read through trading post clerk’s notes, like those of George Nelson, Michel Curot and Francois Victor Malhiot, I found “fowls” mentioned, but no ring-necked pheasants. But this was no surprise, it only pointed up one of these inconsistencies that Lt. Lang so aptly referred to.

Back then, a conversation with Al Stewart, an upland game specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, brought to light Ralph A. MacMullan’s pamphlet, Life and Times of the Michigan Pheasant, published by the Game Division, Michigan Department of Conservation, Lansing, MI, re-issued in 1957.

The Chinese ring-necked pheasant first showed up in early settlement documents in 1832, a few years before Michigan gained statehood. These wily fowls were introduced in this state on March 27, 1895—a century after my beloved 1790s. Legal hunting began in 1925. These gorgeous game birds thrived across the southern part of the state, reaching their greatest population density in the 1940s to the early 1970s.

A ring-necked pheasant rooster hung from a tomahawk in an oak tree.

As a youth, I was fortunate to hunt at the end of that era. By the time the hired post hunter began his journey back to yesteryear, the local pheasant population was in decline. Despite the falling numbers, “Old Turkey Feathers” downed its share of inconsistent fowls.

But were they inconsistent? To some degree, no, they were not. By the time I considered the period-correctness of the ring-necked pheasant, the principle of measured compromise had found favor with my time traveling adventures. The concept smoothed the modern me’s love for chasing ring-necked roosters, a cherished pastime handed on to the historical me.

The idea of physically traveling back in time is not possible within the confines of man’s understanding of the laws of the universe. The mental route is the only option. As a living historian, I can only approach some semblance of what it was like to live, hunt and survive in the wilderness that abuts the River Raisin in the Old Northwest Territory. I can never achieve that reality, only view from a distance.

When modern inconsistencies arise within the framework of a time-traveling simulation, they threaten the fabric of the total experience. Some are serious situations, dangerous or life threatening in nature, others acts of frivolous stupidity, like the proverbial crushed soda can beside the re-enactor’s path.

Yet in either case, dangerous or frivolous, the principle of measured compromise steps in to ease the disruption created by a specific transgression. With luck, one’s mind assesses the severity of the infraction, calculates the probable effect and applies a suitable solution that negates that disrupting impact. The best case is the crushed soda can will pass by without conscious awareness on the part of a forest tenant.

In truth, ring-necked pheasants morphed into fowls in the same manner coyotes evolved into wolves. The error on my part, as a humble writer wishing to reflect on the life and times of a hunter hero, was allowing my mind to cross back over time’s threshold and describe the “fowl” as a “pheasant.” Even with a healthy dose of measured compromise, those pesky crushed soda cans spring up now and then…

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Not Much Changes…

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

Muffled wing beats rumbled. A reddish-brown blur rose in the grey soup of morning vapor. The fowl dropped into a thick patch of sedge grass, thirty or so paces east of its night roost. Overnight dew drenched each slender, tawny blade of prairie grass. Silver droplets splashed and scattered as trail-worn buckskin leggins crept along. Likewise, greased elk moccasins did little to fend off the inevitable soaking.

Despite unseasonable warmth, the humid scent of damped goldenrod stems, rich, black earth and a hint of wild mint left little doubt fall had arrived in the Old Northwest Territory. Faint, yellow streaks emerged from behind the eastern tree line. And yet, the misty haze that hung all about the nameless creek grew thicker, perhaps even with a slight chill. Such was that October morning, in the Year of our Lord, 1796.

That 18th-century frolic was a diversion of sorts. The post hunter’s course was erratic, zigging and zagging, first left, then right, with a turn-about or a pause thrown in, all with the sole purpose of unnerving one of those luscious fowls. After the rooster rose up like a specter in the night, the woodsman’s mouth salivated at the thought of a white, tender breast-half roasting on a pointed stick over the evening fire. The craving overtook his thoughts when he first awoke.

A traditional black powder hunter walks beside a corn field

The Northwest trade gun’s turtle sight fidgeted to and fro out over the sopping tangle. A hefty swarm of death bees mingled in the breech, packed tight with ample wadding. An eager thumb maintained a gentle, hopeful pressure on the domed jaw screw that secured a sharp, English flint. All the while, bare hands, guided by unconscious knowing, maneuvered the smoothbore’s firelock around any treacherous, dripping foliage that might wet the pan’s priming.

Overhead, a milling flock of cawing, black demons winged hard to the west and the morning melee that had already erupted in the hardwoods. A chipping sparrow tottered on a red willow shoot, but did not sing. This tiny forest tenant followed the woodsman, flying out and around, then landing square in front of the Northwest gun’s muzzle. It was hard to not notice.

The still-hunt, nay, the erratic dance reserved for the fowls of the fen, continued in the direction of that first rooster. But the hired hunter, out on a simple pursuit of his own pleasure, did not wish to miss any opportunity at a bird crouched in seclusion between the wagon trail and that patch of sedge grass. And at that thought, his mouth watered again…

Common Northwest Gun Questions

I knew better than to answer William’s comment to “Big sigh…guilty as sinned” with another comment. I hope you don’t mind, sir, but your thoughts touched on a number of issues that are common questions among traditional black powder hunters.

Northwest guns might be called the “Model T” of trade guns. They were produced by contract from the late-1750s to the early-1930s. In general, depending on what trading company or partner placed the order, the specifications were sometimes vague, sometimes specific. Yet despite the discrepancies, the pattern for a Northwest gun was well established by the 1790s.

A ring-necked pheasant taken with a Northwest trade gun.

I don’t recall seeing any published statistic on the length of pull. From the originals I have viewed, that dimension varies from 13 1/2 inches to 14 inches. A 15-inch LOP was uncommon. That said, my son-in-law has long arms and needs a 15-inch LOP, which required a custom butt stock. From a modern perspective, a gun made to fit the owner is best. The idea is to enjoy shooting black powder and traditional hunting; fighting a short or long stock is no fun.

Curly Gostomski, the founder of North Star Enterprises in the mid-1960s, started making reproduction Northwest trade guns patterned after the “Barnett” and “Wheeler” guns. He was one of the first to promote the versatility of the Northwest gun—and he was a lefty. To my knowledge, he was the first to offer a left-hand trade gun lock, other than custom made locks.

I met Curly on my first trip to the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, in Friendship, Indiana. On the surface, he was gruff, with a sun-weathered complexion, but the grizzled exterior and abrupt manner melted away when he started pontificating about the virtues of the Northwest trade gun. He was a wealth of knowledge.

I purchased the last trade pistol he ever produced. I hope that is not the same sales pressure as “I purchased the last room available at this hotel…” I have three of his pistol barrels, bought off trade blankets at Friendship, a blanket gun barrel and two longer barrels. Not one of them matches in bore diameter, which I was told was standard practice for Curly, especially in his later years. Several people have told me he made his own barrels, and the bore was determined by how he tooled up for a given batch run.

Most of his barrels that I’ve seen are .600 of an inch, give or take a thousandth or three, but he made “16-gauge” and “12-gauge” guns, too. The barrels I have range from .600 of an inch to .617 of an inch, yet are all considered “20-gauge.”

When I built “Old Turkey Feathers” there was no consistency among manufacturers. The barrel came from Track of the Wolf, and in the late 1970s, all of their 20-gauge barrels measured .620 of an inch. A number of years ago, there was a shortage of barrels and barrel makers for smoothbores. The barrel that came with the Track of the Wolf kit mentioned in the previous post, measures .600 of an inch, and a Track of the Wolf representative said that the “interim maker” was tooled for the .600 of an inch bore.

The English shotgun bore size for a 20-gauge is .615 of an inch. After the barrel shortage, some manufacturers gravitated to that “true bore size,” including Track of the Wolf—and some did not. Thus the discrepancies still exist. But that is no different than the varied bore diameters found on the originals.

Pushing dry oak leaves down the Northwest gun's muzzle.

Old Turkey Feathers has had a rough life, but that trade gun is over forty years old—and a “go-to gun” at that. I started to show some wear and tear at that age, too. That barrel has belched out more than 12,000 rounds, probably closer to 15,000. I used to keep track of the count by the number of .125 cards used. I kept notes, too, but with the lure of natural wadding, the actual count got away from me about ten years ago.

From time to time, I’ve honed the bore, too. That’s another story, but the end result is that between honing and shooting Old Turkey Feathers now measures .628 of an inch, or just over a “19-gauge” by the English shotgun bore size chart in the back of the Dixie Gun Works catalog (2014, pg. 613).

“Gauge” refers to the number of balls that can be cast from a pound of lead that fit the bore of the gun. Thus, “20-gauge” means 20 balls to the pound. A .600 of an inch diameter ball (equivalent to the .600 of an inch bore size) weighs out at 21.5 per pound. A .620 of an inch diameter ball weighs out to 19.5 per pound, so a .615 of an inch bore falls real close to 20 balls per pound (ibid, 612).

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Big sigh…guilty as sinned…

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Dennis Neely: Traditional Woodsman

A chilly breeze held mosquitoes at bay. Light dew glistened on greening grass. The autumn olives’ pungent perfume filled the glade with expectation. Damp elk moccasins pressed north, angled west, then crested a flat-topped knoll. That May, in the Year of our Lord, 1794, was colder than normal but pleasant for chasing wild turkeys.

A returned white captive starts out after game.

“Whit, whit, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu,” a crimson cardinal twittered as Msko-waagosh’s bound blanket dropped to the ground in a fresh-scrapped nest behind a wild cherry tree. A tom gobbled in the distance, off to the west, just over the ridge crest that loomed beyond the big swamp.

A lone Sandhill crane winged south, silent, majestic, determined. Three black crows flew low over the cedar grove, bent on the River Raisin’s bottomlands, anticipating the day’s opening melee.

“Whit, whit, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu…”

An unexpected head popped up, fifty paces distant, beyond a dried and broken-over patch of the prior summer’s nettles. The gray head disappeared, reappeared, then slipped away again, all the while venturing southeast of the crooked-trunk cherry tree with the two cedar trees growing beside it.

Years before, judicious blows of a tomahawk cleared the lower, dead branches of the cedars, creating a curved haven that half-hid the returned white captive. Msko-waagosh did not budge, but his thumb massaged the firelock’s jaw screw with great anticipation.

“Whit, whit, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu, tsu…”

The hen came into full view at thirty-five paces, pecking, inspecting, herky-jerking along, following its usual routine. The hunter’s task was to allow that bird to pass, and any other hens that accompanied it, in hopes a fine gobbler strutted not far behind.

Brown eyes squinted. Breaths grew short and controlled. Purple legs marched closer and closer. Blood surged through tense arteries. The fowl never stopped or looked about, much to the hunter’s delight.

The cardinal’s morning song continued, but the intense concentration of that moment shut out the melodious distraction.

A dozen or so trade-gun lengths away, half-grown green shoots mixed with knee-deep, dead prairie grass.  The bronze-backed beauty melted into that thick tangle. The gray head popped up now and again, marking the hen’s path through the tiny clearing, angling east and off into oblivion.

Sun rays broke over the jagged tree line. Two deer wandered by. Once they walked off, two more appeared. An hour or so passed with no inkling of a gobbler existing in the glade. Cardinals came and went. Geese winged from the River Raisin. Sandhill cranes chortled. Black demons cawed and screamed. But no tom ever followed that hen.

The returned white captive scrambled to his feet. He gazed about, but saw nothing of interest. In one swift movement, his bedroll, bound with a leather portage collar, flew over his shoulders. He adjusted the headband across his breast, checked the Northwest gun’s prime and walked off to the north…

Oh, Dear…Inconsistencies Pop Up…

A couple hours after Friday’s post, “No red, no snood, no gobbler…,” an email from my great friend, Lt. Darrel Lang, popped up in my inbox. I needed a break from writing, so I opened it.

Now usually Darrel’s emails include a link, photo or topic that begs further discussion. In truth, we both just love to talk about living history, re-enacting and traditional black powder hunting so we look for whatever excuse we can find to “venture back.” With respect to Friday’s post, our discussions most often fall into the category of “like-minded individuals.”

Lt. Lang walking back to camp with a wild turkey.

Lt. Lang’s historical persona is that of a ranger mustered out from Joseph Hopkins’ Company of Rangers after the siege of Fort Detroit in 1763. We hunt together, when we can. Over the course of a couple of deer seasons a clear inconsistency existed between Lt. Lang’s portrayal based in 1763 and Msko-waagosh’s existence in the mid-1790s. The solution to that dilemma pushed me to embark on my third persona, Mi-ki-naak, a returned white captive living and hunting around the River Raisin’s headwaters in the fall of 1763.

Darrel’s cheery beginning, “Good Morning,” followed by “I read your post this morning, a good way to start the day,” started my day our right, too. In his quiet, unassuming manner, he continued with “I had a couple of observations…” Knowing Darrel as I do, when he speaks to a living history topic,  a re-enactor had best listen to his wisdom and advice, especially if it involves one of my portrayals. I took a deep breath and read on.

He noted that I had written from the perspective of Msko-waagosh, then part way down in the story I referred to my alter ego as “The woodsman…,” which Darrel stated confused him a bit. He re-read the passage. To a professional writer, re-reading to grasp an idea, objective or mental image on the part of a loyal reader points up poor communication structure—a definite failure.

“That’s not a term I would use to describe a native or a white captive,” he wrote. “It made me think that the character of the story changed…” Ouch…

I dialed as I read on. I called up my research outlines for the narratives of John Tanner, Jonathan Alder and James Smith, one at a time, as our conversation unfolded. A search for the word “woodsman” resulted in nary a single reference among the passages deemed important. I wasn’t surprised, because I knew he was right.

“To me,” Lt. Lang said, “a woodsman would be a hunter the likes of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, or Hawkeye…” The ensuing give and take brought light to the fact that so often the “returned captive” was a misfit among the folks of the settlement or station, tainted by the experience, viewed as part savage, to use the common phrase of the era.

The hour or so we spent on this topic changed my perspective on both Msko-waagosh and Mi-ki-naak. My emphasis has always been on the intricacies of the simple pursuits themselves, undertaken within the umbrella of documented, historical context. But slop-over from the current generation’s political correctness fetish toned down the realism and authenticity that these characterizations need with regard to social standing. The material culture is correct as to location and time period; the interpretation with regards to life station, and communicating that understanding, needs work.

And therein lays the crux of my reference to a constant reliance on a specific process of self-evaluation as one’s best understanding of a forgotten lifestyle improves and grows. Yes, document-based research and hands-on learning in the wilderness classroom move a portrayal forward, but so does contributions and observations from like-minded, knowledgeable living historians, like Darrel Lang and a host of others. I am and will be a better traditional black powder hunter, because he took the time to express a couple of simple impressions.  

And I can’t overlook his second observation: “…you called Red Fox’s Northwest gun ‘Old Turkey Feathers.’”  Oh, my, another inconsistency. “I’ll try not to let that happen in the future,” I pledged. Subtle awareness of an overlooked detail is a powerful motivator.

“Well, the reality, especially from a new reader’s perspective,” Darrel said as he tried to soften the blow, “is that you wouldn’t know that it was the same gun. A long-time reader would know it, and to me it stuck out when I read the story. I found it confusing as to which character you were writing about.” Forty lashes still stings, even when administered with a wet noodle.

Here again, a hand-me-down has weaseled its way into my ever-evolving portrayal of a returned white captive. To some degree, I have been a “one gun guy” for four-plus decades. “Old Turkey Feathers” is my go-to gun. That smoothbore earned its moniker more than thirty years ago and it belongs to the nameless woodsman who provides sustenance to Samuel the Trader’s meager post.

But in time-traveling reality, the Northwest trade gun that Msko-waagosh used was borrowed, which is inconsistent with most period documentation. Any hunter with a modest amount of skill, be he a Native American or a returned white captive such as John Tanner, harvested enough peltry to purchase his own arm. If he didn’t, he starved and certainly never dictated a book of his misadventures.

An assortment of parts for assembling a Northwest trade gun.

As soon as I got off the phone, I made a bee-line for the gun parts stashed in a corner of the re-enacting clothes closet. Ten or so years ago I purchased a Northwest trade gun parts assortment someone barely started. The bore mics .600-inch, which doesn’t match any of my smoothbores or round ball molds. The barrel is 42-inches long, not 36-inches, which I favor for heavy brush hunting. The lock is different from my usual choice, too. I think that is why it still cowers in the closet.

But “different” is good in this case. The finished trade gun will be period-correct, but different from “Old Turkey Feathers” or Mi-ki-naak’s French fusil. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to begin work on this gun, but if I give up my two hours of television each night, maybe… Big sigh…guilty as sinned…

Give traditional black powder hunting a try, be safe and may God bless you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments