American Frontiersman Winter 2022

IF YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO A MOUNTAIN MAN RENDEZVOUS, you’re missing out. I attended my first one more than 30 years ago, and the people I met and things I saw have brought me back several times since. If you could rendezvous at a trading post that was actually used by mountain men and fur trappers in the late 1700s, you’d be fortunate, indeed. That’s what members of the American Mountain Men Association are doing in the cover inset at a reconstructed log cabin in Kentucky named the Keeling Trading Post. The history is strong there, and that group is working hard to ensure that old way of life is not forgotten. Like the inset photo, our cover art “The Wagon Scout,” is a David Wright original. For more on the…

THE MUCH-CELEBRATED AMERICAN FUR TRADE DIDN’T BEGIN ON THE UPPER MISSOURI RIVER, in the Rocky Mountains or at the famous Green River Rendezvous. In fact, it began long before the western fur trade. Before moving west, the fur trade was centered at the Grand Portage in far northern Minnesota near where the Pigeon River empties into Lake Superior, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. This famous 8.5-mile portage is how fur traders got their trade goods and furs to and from the water routes heading east from Lake Superior and west from Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. In its day, the Grand Portage trading post was the very crossroads of the North American-European fur trade. This location figured every bit as big as the later, more famous fur-trade centers to…

FOR MORE INFORMATION on this exciting chapter in the North American fur trade, read The Grand Portage Story by Erwin Thompson, a National Park Service historian, online at npshistory.com/ publications/grpo/history/index.htm. Descendants of those early Europeans and Native Americans still trade at the Grand Portage. The National Park Service, for example, buys herring from Grand Portage Reservation Band members for park demonstrations. Many native people also work at the national monument. The National Park Service stages a rendezvous and the tribe holds a powwow in August at the national monument. It attracts some 320 period reenactors, 145 campers and 5,000 visitors over four days. In the 1700s, the rendezvous was attended by about 1,200 people over a four- to five-week period. The Grand Portage Indian Reservation of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa (or Ojibway),…

Lately, I have been interested in the frontier history of my home state of Kansas. Kansas had a long and often turbulent frontier experience, hosting homesteaders, armed gangs, soldiers, cowboys, Native Americans, gunfighters, wagon trains and a slew of other frontier themes in the first years of its history. One of the hallmarks of early Kansas history was the Santa Fe Trail. Established in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail was a highway of commerce stretching from Missouri across the wild plains of Kansas to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Today, I don’t have to drive very far from my home to come upon a sign that says “The Santa Fe Trail Crossed Here”—the trail is literally all around me. One day I thought to myself, “Why not put together an impression based…

To Chuck Alexander From Crawford Neitzel Subject. .44 Colt Frontier Revolver Dear Chuck, I thought you might be interested in the history of this gun since it came into my possession when I was 12 years old, my dad who was a mining engineer came home from one of his prospecting trips thru Colorado and Idaho. He usually let me rummage through his luggage and gear. When I found this gun I tied it on my own belt as I had seen guns carried when I was living in the mining towns of Colorado. When my dad saw how I was enjoying the gun, he asked me if I would like to have it for my own. He had carefully taught me how to handle and respect a gun before, so he felt…

The American Mountain Men (AMM) isn’t your local muzzleloading club. Begun in 1968, they’re an international nonprofit organization that owns land in Wyoming and Kentucky. Their nearly 700 members share a passion for authentically living the outdoor life of the American fur-trade-era mountain man. You aren’t going to find any nylon pop-up tents, 3M Thinsulate-lined coats or magnesium fire-starters at their encampments. Instead, think 1800 to 1840: sleeping in a pine bough lean-to, wearing a wool trade-blanket coat and starting fires with flint and steel. They pride themselves on being able to survive alone under any circumstances, using only what nature, not Dick’s Sporting Goods, has to offer. Larry Mayes, an American Mountain Man since 1975, has kept tabs on the log cabins around his farm for decades. When a tornado…