1996 Western National Rendezvous

Well, my wife tells me that on Facebook it is Throwback Thursday so I'm throwin' back to 1996. Back to July of '96 to the Original Western National Rendezvous!
In 1990 and again in 1996 the Western National Rendezvous was held just below Powder River Pass in the magnificent Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming!  God's Country for sure! Just below 9,000 feet in a high country park on the headwaters of the North Fork of Powder River, it was a most beautiful setting for such doin's and the weather was gorgeous as well.
So, for this Throwback Thursday I'm going to throw back to my family enjoying this great event!
I hope y'all enjoy this little trip back in time!  It sure set me to thinkin' maybe it's about time I head for rondyvoo fer sure and fer certain!
Until we make camp again, watch yer topknot!
Turkey Creek

Yours Truly with my gorgeous squaw woman!

Me with my daughter, Bridget, and my son, Ben.

My Darling Linda.

Bridget with Ty Peterson, son of our good friends Gary and Patty Peterson.

Bridget and Ben on Traders' Row.

Linda on another day at rendezvous. Notice how even at rendezvous a woman can't wear the same outfit as she wore the day before cuz another woman might notice it.

The Little Buckskinner!

The next three photos show a larg portion of the camps (not all of them) from left to right.  Pretty good size bunch of buckskinners gathered for this one!

MAN Day!

Yesterday after the church service at Lahoma Baptist Church, the men and boys of the church gathered to enjoy fun and fellowship for "MAN Day"! The best I can figure out is that MAN stands for Meat, Arms and Noise! We grilled and enjoyed such meat as steak (one lucky fellow had elk steak!), pork chops, hot links, burgers and ribs plus some kind soul provided a big crock pot of barbecued beans. We ate and enjoyed some fellowship and then proceeded out to the pastor's family farm for the real fun; the shooting of firearms!  While most brought their modern sporting rifles, modern handguns and modern shotguns (which is fine and expected), your's truly, being the dedicated traditional muzzleloading enthusiast and diehard mountaineer that I am, brought my trusty .54 flint, fullstock Hawken and my .62 long barreled Northwest Trade Gun with the hopes of introducing traditional muzzleloading to some new folks. I also brought my 15" gong and placed it out at around 50 yards so that anyone hitting the target with these guns would be appropriately rewarded with that lovely sound of lead impacting steel.  After loading up the .54 and ringing the gong a couple of times, I was rewarded by the interest of Pastor Brent Campbell and by Ben Koehn, both of whom were quite taken with the smoke, muzzle blast and mystique of the old guns! Ben chose to shoot the .62 NWTG and Pastor Brent elected to give them both a try, ringing the steel at 50 yards with the smoothbore NWTG!
Here are a few SHORT video clips of these two good men as captured on Ben's cell phone.

Ben Koehn shooting the .62 NWTG

Pastor Brent shooting the .62 NWTG

Pastor Brent shooting the .54 Hawken

We all had a great time and I had a chance to fellowship with the men of the church including my own son Ben and my son-in-law Wade.  I'm thankful to the Lord for this opportunity to get to know the men of the church better and I'm also glad for the chance to introduce some new shooters to our hobby/lifestyle and I encourage all of you to do the same whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Until next time, keep your eyes along the skyline and watch your backtrail.

Me clearing the flash hole on the NWTG.

(Photo courtesy of Ben Koehn)

August 1823; A Pivotal Decision

Well, here it is the tail end of August 2017 but it was in the tail end of another August 194 years ago that a decision was made that would bring a revolutionary change in the western fur trade.  It was the end of August in the year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Twenty Three at the fur trading post of Fort Kiowa on the Missouri River in what is now South Dakota that General William Ashley and Major Andrew Henry made the pivotal decision to abandon the Missouri River as the main route to the Rocky Mountain fur fields.

After the disastrous keel boat trip up the Missouri to get supplies to Major Henry at the mouth of the Yellowstone that ended at the Arikara (Ree) villages just above the mouth of the Grand River, Ashley sent Jedediah Smith cross country to Fort Henry to tell Henry to bring his men to battle the Rees. The resulting punitive expedition under Colonel Henry Leavenworth, and including a large faction from the Missouri Fur Company under Joshua Pilcher, did little more than stir the Rees up even more and effectively closed the Missouri River route.  After being discharged from the Missouri Legion by Colonel Leavenworth at Ft. Kiowa in late August, Ashley and Henry made that audacious decision to leave the River for good and strike for the mountain country overland, by horse and foot.  This decision would lead to the abandonment by the Ashley/Henry enterprise of the river/keel boat/fur trading post system and would lead instead to the Rocky Mountain rendezvous that took place every summer from 1825 through 1840.

As it turned out, horses were so hard to obtain that they were only able to trade for enough horses for Henry to use as pack animals.  When Henry's party left Ft. Kiowa for the mouth of the Yellowstone around the first of September, they were all on foot leading the pack animals.  Henry's outfit included one Hugh Glass whose tale of survival from a grizzly attack and his subsequent journey after being left for dead has been loosely, and I repeat LOOSELY, portrayed in two Hollywood movies; Man In The Wilderness and The Revenent. Henry's brigade also included a very young Jim Bridger who figured largely in the Hugh Glass saga.

Ashley finally got Jedediah Smith's party outfitted by the latter part of September and dispatched this party in a more direct route to the mountains, again with only enough horses to use as pack animals until they were able to trade for more horses from the various tribes they met, following the White River and striking off through the Black Hills in what is now western South Dakota.  Smith's party included Jim Clyman, Bill Sublette and Tom Fitzpatrick.  It was somewhere in this vicinity where Jedediah Smith was also attacked by a grizzly and seriously injured.  Smith instructed Clyman to sew him up and after a few days to recuperate the party set off again for the mountains finally wintering with the Crow along the Wind River.

And so was born the Mountain Man and the Rocky Mountain rendezvous.  What a momentous decision that was at Ft. Kiowa in the last of August 1823.

"The World Was All Before Them"

by Charles M. Russell

Well Compadres, this is my first post on this blog. I will try to keep it interesting and will try to post frequently.  This site will be devoted mainly to things that pertain to shooting and hunting with traditional muzzleloaders and their accoutrements, and also to things pertaining to American history, especially the western fur trade period. If I occasionally step outside of those subjects I trust that you will find those posts interesting as well. I will also share with you the guns that I build and the various accoutrements that I make. Some of those items you will find posted on the"For Sale" page as well. Also keep an eye on the "Photos" page for interesting (I hope) photos.

Well, welcome to my campfire. Those of you who know me know that I always have a pot of coffee on so I hope y'all will regularly pull up a log and pour a cup and enjoy the palaver.
Turkey Creek (aka Max Bese)