American Frontiersman Fall 2019

Howdy, friends, and welcome to another packed issue of American Frontiersman . While Paul Calle’s wonderful cover artwork is called “Near Journey’s End,” this special fall 2019 edition is just getting started. Because hunting season is right around the corner, we’ve got all manner of articles to get you ready like a mountain man, with expert tips on sighting in a muzzleloader and a review of Traditions’ latest .50-caliber rifle. Then, once you’ve bagged a deer, we’ll help you butcher it properly without any waste, tan the hide for other crafting projects, smoke the venison to keep it tasty over time. We’ll even teach you how to make your own European-style skull mount and build your own cooking tripod in case you forgot to bring one along to camp. There’s more…

“Up the South Slope” By David Wright It was September of 1833. Captain Joseph Walker looked out over the vast plain of the Humboldt Sinks and felt uneasy. It was open country. He and his 60 men had traversed north of the Great Salt Lake, then followed the course of the Humboldt River for days across some of the most barren territory he had ever seen. Along the way, some of his men out on hunting expeditions reported seeing Diggers, also known as Paiute tribesmen. Walker and his men eventually came to a place where a number of lakes converged and decided it was a good place to set up camp. He ordered his men to make a crude breastwork consisting of bags of supplies and saddles. Before they were done, between 800…

“Battle of King’s Mountain” By Don Troiani The year 1780 had been a tumultuous one for the newly declared United States of America. That summer found America in its fifth year at war with the King of England. The winter of 1779 to 1780 was bitterly cold, and George Washington’s troops had wintered with very little food, blankets or clothing. These shortages continued as the pages of the 1780 calendar turned. The colonial dollar became nearly worthless. The budding country approached its breaking point. Throughout the colonies, neighbor fought neighbor, and in many cases, family member fought family member as people sided with the American cause or declared loyalty to the King of England. British sympathizers were called Tories. Vengeance became a way of life in many of the colonies, especially those in…

The yellow campfire flames dance in the cold night air and send sparks upward into the star-filled sky. A group of seasoned woodsmen sit around the fire discussing woods skills and adventures of the past. Someone mentions the name Horace Kephart, and most think of the famous Kephart knife. A few think of Kephart’s book Camping and Woodcraft, and a couple of the woodsmen remember the name as one of the “fathers” of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Almost no one thinks of Kephart as a librarian who spent much of his life not inside a tent or on the trail, but at a roll-top desk, typing outdoor book manuscripts on a battered old Underwood 5 typewriter. Early Life To understand Kephart’s interest in all things outdoors, we must first take a…

The “Five-Tool Rule” is a basic concept we use at the Pathfinder School to help teach students what types of tools are needed to properly and effectively manipulate materials like wood, bark and plant fibers to create usable objects. For the most part, if we’re practicing our woodcraft skills, we won’t be dealing with things like stone and bone. We’re trying to create objects to use in camp to replace some modern items we may otherwise be tempted to carry in. Understanding what tasks our tools need to perform to make these objects, and the scale of such projects, will dictate the sizes and dimensions of the tools we’ll carry. Basic Functions In many instances, we can create most necessary items with very small tools if we’re just making simple objects for…

BY the 1880s, the frontier was closed, the American-Indian Wars were over, and the map had few empty spaces on it. The longhunters, scouts and mountain men of an earlier time had crossed the continent in pursuit of hides, pelts and wealth, and now a new outdoorsman had entered the woods. But this new woodsman was not in the forest to take his living from it. Rather, he was there to seek adventure for its own sake—for recreation, to hunt, fish and camp, to feed his spirit more than his belly. In the vanguard of this transition was George Washington Sears, a writer for the outdoor magazine Forest and Stream. Sears wrote under the name Nessmuk in deference to the Nipmuc Indian who taught Sears woodcraft when he was a boy, and…