5/2/2023 0 Comments Mountain menTo join the AMM, a “pilgrim” needs a member to sponsor and mentor him through a score of requirements and a couple of levels: “bossloper” and “hiveranno.” But regardless of rank, the goal is always the same. When I took it out, it looked like a 19th-century tie-dye.” So I put everything in a plastic bucket, added red-brown dye, and let it sit for four days. But when I put it all on, I looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy. “I ordered white cotton, double-button-front britches, a shirt, and moccasins. Getting the gear right is its own challenge. That means we wear hides and skins and learn Western skills”-how to skin a muskrat, ride a horse, throw a knife, pilot a bullboat. Out West, we emulate the fur trade as it existed in the Rocky Mountains. “East of the Mississippi,” he says, “mountain men were called long hunters. But regional differences matter, says Mike “Tio Miguel” (Uncle Mike) Morgan, a trapper and ex-Navy captain who joined his friend Olsen’s Montana Brigade in 1998. They all follow the same mountain man code. Today it’s a nationwide organization, with local brigades, gatherings in each state, and a national rendezvous each year. That’s when a man named Walt Hayward founded the AMM with six other avid outdoorsmen and history buffs. The fur trade died out in the middle of the 19th century, as fashions changed and fur prices plunged. Called the Rendavouze Creek Rendezvous, it was a boisterous, multiday affair-a chance for mountain men to sell their furs, replenish their supplies, and socialize again after months alone in the wild. In 1825 the first annual trappers’ gathering was held near McKinnon, Wyoming. The Western fur trade began after the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1805–06. “When I grew up, I read books on Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and Daniel Boone,” says Scott “Doc Ivory” Olsen, a dentist in Dillon, Montana, and a 25-year AMM member. Indeed, the American Mountain Men (AMM) association strives to preserve “the traditions and ways of this nation’s most fearless pioneers and daring explorers” and “share the fraternal concept to teach, share, and learn the skills needed and required to survive and live as the great American mountain men did.”įor most reenactors, interest in the bygone era began at a young age. And they love to share that knowledge.”įur Trade reenactors get into their roles and talk about what life was like for the rugged individuals they emulate. They love knowing the old stuff, the authentic stuff-things that are no longer taught. He found “a welcoming bunch who are really curious about what it took to live before the conveniences of modern life. Photographer David Burnett recently spent two seasons among them. But for a week each year they shake off the yoke of civilization and return to a time when survival meant self-reliance. Like the better known reenactors of the Civil War, they’re dentists or lawyers or mailmen in real life. They’re American mountain men-reenactors of the fur trade that flourished in North America from roughly 1800 to 1840. And as they roast slabs of buffalo meat over a fire sparked with flint and steel, they share tips on how best to trap beavers and load a flintlock rifle. They tether their horses and mules to trees. Dozens of rugged-looking men mill around an encampment. These people are passionate about the past and many like to teach and pass on the life style and skills of the Fur Trade Era.This story appears in the July 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine.Įach year around the Fourth of July, in a vale in the Rocky Mountains, a scene from another century plays out. These people try to bring history alive and create an understanding about the early history of the American West. Today's Mountain Men are people that love history and try to recreate the past. These are the men that wrote the stories on the land of early Wyoming. John Colter, Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, Tom “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Joe Meek, Bill Sublette, and Davy Jackson, just to name a few. So, who were the original mountain men? They were a breed all their own - remarkable men with remarkable stories of adventure, men whose names became legend. Additionally, there will be a Tomahawk and Knife competition, primitive archery, storytelling, and the famous Candy Cannon for the kids. You will find that there is plenty to do at a rendezvous, from finding unique historic goods and making your best trade with the traders, to learning about the history of Jackson Hole and the early mountain men that traveled the trails. The Mountain Man Rendezvous is a pre-1840 era Fur Trade re-enactment, where Mountain Men, from all over the west, will gather in Jackson to sell and trade their goods in the finest tradition of Davy Jackson.
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