Aspen Hiking Sticks

Well, I sure haven't had much time to get on here the last few months.  Being retired is hard work!  I mow yards and do other yard work such as shrub beds, tree trimming, etc. and it has been a long, hot, humid, wet summer!  Mowing started in April and hasn't let up yet!  I sure long to be doing the mountain man stuff and making things at my work bench; maybe in the fall, if I get enough fire wood cut by then.  Also, can't wait for HUNTING SEASON!

Back in early spring I did have enough time to get a few hand crafted aspen hiking sticks made.  These sticks are made from Rocky Mountain Aspen staves, are completely hand peeled, hand scraped, hand burnished and then finished with the same boiled linseed oil/beeswax finish I use on muzzleloader stocks.

These are the only tools I use in crafting these sticks:

They start out looking like this:

And end up looking like this:

I peel each stick with a drawknife, then hand scrape with the butcher knife and small piece of glass.  Then I burnish the stick with the deer antler to make it smooth.  This is pretty much the way gunstocks were finished in the 18th century.  Finally, I finish the sticks with several coats of BLO and a final coat of BLO/Beeswax.  The last step is to coat the bottom tip with several coats of tool handle rubber to protect it and give a little grip.
I currently have one stick that is about 48", two that are about 52", and two that are just over 60".

These sticks are $45 each plus $10 shipping to anywhere in the lower 48 states.  If you would like one of these sticks, or more info or closeup pictures, shoot me an email at turkeycreek1823@gmail.com.

Well, until I can get back on here, keep your flint sharp and your priming dry!
TC

Back In The Good Old Days!

In the fall of '85 I was working as a packer and guide for 5 Bears Outfitters in the Clearwater area of Idaho just over Lolo Pass from Montana. Our end-of-the-road camp was actually in Montana.  I'm the guy in the right middle in the green shirt. The guy next to me in the left middle is another guide and the two guys holding the elk racks are our hunters.  Shinin' times for sure.
TC

June 2nd, 1823 - Ashley Party Attacked!

On this day in 1823, General William Ashley's fur trapping expedition was attacked on the upper Missouri by the Arikara Indians.  This was a pivotal event in a pivotal year in the western fur trade.

The Ashley/Henry story began in April of 1822 when Major Andrew Henry left St. Louis with about 150 men, about 50 horses and one keel boat loaded with supplies and trade goods to "ascend the Missouri River to its source", followed on May the 8th by the keelboat Enterprise under the command of Daniel Moore.  Henry's brigade made it to the mouth of the Yellowstone by fall, having peacefully passed the Arikaras (also known as the Rees) but having had a brush with the Assiniboines who stole a large number of Henry's horses.

The second part of the expedition was not so lucky.  On about May 30th or 31st the Enterprise was lost, possibly from hitting a snag under the surface of the water or by snagging the mast on a low hanging limb and being swamped by the current.  However it happened, this was a loss to the Ashley/Henry partnership of $10,000 worth of boat and trade goods.  Henry immediately obtained credit and outfitted another keelboat and headed up the river, joining Henry's brigade at their new fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone in October.  Ashley and Henry were finally in business in "The Mountains"!  Ashley returned to St. Louis that fall and immediately began preparations for the next spring's expedition.

In the spring of 1823 Ashley outfitted two keelboats, The Yellowstone Packet and The Rocky Mountains, which left St. Louis on March 10th headed upriver to resupply and reinforce Major Henry's brigade. This party included such notable hunters as Jedediah Smith (who had gone upriver with Henry the previous year and had been dispatched to St. Louis with messages for Ashley), James Clyman, and probably Bill Sublette as well. 

By the end of May Ashley had made it to the Ree villages and began trading for horses. By the evening of June 1st, after several days of trading, Ashley had acquired about 40 horses and the men had camped on the bank of the river with the horses.  About 3am on the morning of June 2nd Ashley was awakened and told that one of his men had been killed in the Ree village.  The man, Aaron Stephens, had probably sojourned into the village to partake of the female population and ended up setting off the volatile Ree Indians.

Just before dawn the Rees commenced firing at the Ashley men and horses on the beach.  In just a few minutes the Indians had succeeded in killing most of the horses and quite a few of the men.  The rest of the men on the beach took cover behind the dead horses and attempted to return fire on the Rees.  Ashley attempted to get the keelboats in close to shore to pull the rest of his men off the exposed beach but the French boatmen were paralyzed with fear and refused to maneuver the boats in close.  A handful of men were pulled off the beach with a skiff but after the first trip the oarsman was shot and the skiff drifted down river. The men on the shore were being forced into the river, some going under, some being swept downstream and some making it to the keelboats.  Ashley pulled up his anchors and let the keelboats drift downstream several miles where he pulled the boats in to shore to regroup.  The final toll for the fur brigade was 13 dead and 11 wounded.

General Ashley dispatched The Yellowstone Packet down river to Fort Atkinson requesting military aid and sent Jedediah Smith and a volunteer French Canadian engagee to Major Henry's post at the mouth of the Yellowstone for reinforcements, then retreated downstream to the mouth of the Cheyenne River to await help.  This whole affair led to "The Arikara Campaign" by the Missouri Legion led by Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who finally reached Ashley and his men in early August.

This attempt to subdue the Rees, ineptly led by Leavenworth, did nothing more than force the Rees from their villages and alienate them further with the result that the upper Missouri was closed to travel for the fur companies.  Thus, the decision by Ashley and Henry to abandon the River as the route into the mountains and turn to overland travel.  In early September Major Henry left Fort Kiowa with a small party of men and a few horses headed for the the mouth of the Bighorn via the Yellowstone River.  This party included Hugh Glass and a young man named Jim Bridger. 

The second party Ashley dispatched got away from Fort Kiowa in late September.  This party, made up of somewhere between 11 and 16 men, was led by Jedediah Smith with Tom Fitzpatrick as second in command, and include Jim Clyman, Billy Sublette and Edward Rose.  They, with a few borrowed horses, headed southwest across South Dakota to the White River, headed for the Bighorn to meet up with Henry's brigade coming down from the Yellowstone post.Both of these parties endured harrowing adventures, with both Jedediah Smith and Hugh Glass being mauled by grizzly bears. 

But the real story, the big result, of the battle with the Arikaree Indians, was Ashley and Henry moving away from the Missouri River, heading overland to the Rocky Mountains and opening up a whole new era in the western fur trade; the era of the "Mountain Man" and the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous!

Yes, 1823 was a remarkable and pivotal year in fur trade history!

Keep yer flint sharp and yer primin' dry!
TC

14th of May, 1804 - An Historic Day!

On this day, the 14th of May, in the year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Four, the Corp of Discovery left Ft. Dubois, across the Mississippi Rive from St Louis, on an historic trek commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson.  Led by United States Army Captain Meriwether Lewis (President Jefferson's personal assistant) and Lieutenant William Clark, the expedition company was comprised of five non commissioned officers and approximately thirty enlisted men.
The company proceeded up the Missouri River in a 55 ft. keel boat and two large pirogues known as the red pirogue and the white pirogue.





After ascending the Missouri River to it's source, crossing the Bitterroot Mountains and descending the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, then returning over approximately the same route, the Corp of Discovery arrived back at St. Louis on the 23rd of September, 1806 with the loss of only one of it's members; Sgt Charles Floyd who died possibly of appendicitis on August 20th, 1804 near present day Sioux City Iowa early in the journey.

This expedition pioneered the way for the opening of the western fur trade and the rise of the class of Americans know as the mountain men. Corp member Private John Colter was given permission to muster out of the company at the Mandan villages on the return trip to head back up river with two civilians who were heading to the headwaters of the Missouri to trap beaver and became over the next four years one of the most famous mountain men in history.

This was a monumental and far reaching expedition that had a very real impact on the opening of the territories gained through the Louisiana Purchase and the further expansion of this nation. It is well worth spending a little time reading about if you get the chance.

I hope this piques your interest in this most interesting part of our history.
TC

Wichita Mountains Elk Hunt

Every year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in conjunction with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, holds two elk hunts on the 59,000 acre Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge; one in December and one in January.  This refuge is located in the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma, adjacent to the Ft. Sill military reservation. The hunts are limited quota hunts and the licenses are by drawing only.  Since 2002 these are once in a lifetime licenses. Once you draw either a cow or bull license, you are no longer eligible to apply for either license.

This year my buddy Mark finally drew his tag.  You get to put down up to three choices. His first choice was a Dec. bull tag; second choice was a Jan. bull tag and third choice was a December cow tag.  You guessed it; he drew a cow tag for the December hunt.  These are 2 1/2 day hunts that run from Tuesday morning through Thursday noon.  All hunters are required to check in on Monday morning and attend the mandatory orientation meeting and orientation ride with the U.S.F.W.S. officer or Okla. Wildlife Dept. officer who is in charge of the specific area that the hunter is assigned to. The hunters are taken out each morning before daylight and dropped off at a point of his or her choosing in their hunt area in tarp covered pickup trucks that seat ten people in the bed of the truck; five on each side. The hunters are then picked up each evening 30 minutes after sunset and are required to be back at the road by that time.

This year there were 30 bull tags and 70 cow tags issued for each hunt. There were 10 hunt areas with 10 hunters assigned to each area.  I believe there were about 95 out of 100 hunters that showed up for the December hunt.  Each hunter is allowed to bring "helpers" to help them get their elk out of the field if they are fortunate enough to fill their tag, but the helpers are NOT allowed to accompany the hunters on the hunt.  At this point let me say that this is a HUNT, not a "drive out and shoot one" outing.  This is a very rugged area with a lot of elevation change and mostly covered by rocks, boulders and scrub oak and cedar and this is a mostly hike, glass, spot and stalk hunt.  It is by no means a given that you will fill your tag.

After check in on Monday and after waiting for about 2 or 3 hours for Mark to get back from his orientation ride, we drove to Lawton, about 20 minutes away, where we stayed the nights with Mark's in-laws, Mike and Jonna.  Thanks to them we would have a great place to stay for the hunt.

On Tuesday morning we arrived at the hunter check station a little after 5 am.  The temperature was around 19 degrees and it was a beautiful morning unless you had to ride in the back of a pickup on bench seats over rough two track roads in the cold darkness. That would be Mark, not me! LOL  I sat in the warm pickup with a thermos of hot coffee because I was the lowly "helper" and it was my job to sit around and wait for Mark to let his wildlife officer know when he had an elk down.

Well, I waited around all morning alternately sitting in the pickup drinking coffee and wondering around the check station keeping an eye on the tote board where they were writing the names of the fortunate hunters that had filled their tags.  Finally, around 12:30 the U.S. wildlife employee running the hunt asked if there were any volunteers to go help a hunter pack out his elk. Being ready for some action, I volunteered.  After going back to the pickup and grabbing my pack frame three of us along with the hunter's dad loaded up in the back of the wildlife pickup and we drove to where the hunter, Jake, was waiting along side the road to guide us in to where he had a cow elk down.  We then hiked in around a half a mile and proceeded to field dress, skin and load up his elk on four pack frames.

 
Jake and his dad did most of the gutting and I did most of the skinning and then we took off the front shoulders and rear haunches and then removed all the rest of the meat from the carcass and put everything in game bags before loading up the packs.  As I was the one loading the packs and having a good freighter pack, I kinda loaded myself up pretty heavy.  In my cargo bag I loaded a rear haunch and the game bag containing the backstraps, tenderloins, neck roast and all the grinding meat that was taken off the carcass.  Now these are Rocky Mountain Elk but are not quite as big as their mountain state cousins, with the field dressed cows weighing around 250 to 300 and the field dressed bulls weighing in around 400-500 lbs.  I estimated that I had around 75-80 pounds in my pack and I was mighty happy that we only had about a half a mile to go to the road and not a lot of up and down in between.  While we were getting Jake's elk all cut up and packed up, another hunter came by that said he had a cow down "just over the hill" from where Jake's elk was.  We told him we would be back as soon as we got Jake's cow to the check station.  We got back around 3 o'clock and, after checking to make sure Mark didn't have an elk down, we turned around and headed for the other hunter.  He met us along the road and we started in to where his cow was down.  Just a little way from the road we had to work our way around several bull buffalo (bison) which can be quite dangerous if you get too close.  We didn't get to close!

We hiked in working our way around the shoulder of a rocky peak and ended up hiking about a mile with quite a bit of up and down.

We then gutted, skinned and cut up this hunter's cow which was on a pretty good slope.  Again I helped with the gutting and did most of the skinning and quartering.  Having been a elk guide in Idaho and Wyoming, it is just natural for me to jump in and do those things.  It's been a lot of years since that phase in my life and I definitely miss it! 

This time I took it a bit easier on myself and only loaded a rear haunch in my pack.  I think it was around 50 pounds maybe.  It was a pretty good hike out this time.

The "old man" (me) humping elk meat out of the mountains.

Well folks, we got that second cow back to the check station just before sunset.  Mark finally got back after dark having seen very little and nothing to get a shot at.  We would be back the next morning before daylight.

On Wednesday morning Mark went hunting and I, once again, hung out at the check station, drank coffee and watched the hunters come in with their elk.

Just before sunset they called for volunteers to help drag an elk up to the road for a hunter.

Having waited all day for Mark to get an elk down, I was ready to go!  We drove to where the hunter was and waited while he field dressed his cow and then we dragged her up a hill about 25 yards to the road and loaded her in the back of the pickup.

And that's how the second day ended.  Mark showed up well after dark.  He got a shot at a cow but didn't connect.  Half a day of hunting left.

The last morning there were very few hunters going out.  About sixty tags had been filled the first two days and some hunters had given up already.  Mark was the only hunter left in his area.  And I hung around the check station and drank coffee!  Just after daylight I walked over to the meat pole where the hunter from the evening before was skinning and butchering his cow.  Next to him a hunter and his helper were skinning a bull.  They had the hide down around the neck and I asked them what they were going to do with the hide.  They told me they were getting ready to throw it in the dumpster and that I was welcome to it!  I didn't waste ANY time taking them up on that!  I folded it flesh side in and put it in a game bag that I had brought with me and put it in the back of our pickup to take home and brain tan.  I also visited with the guy from the evening before.  I should have taken his cow hide but didn't.  (Stupid me!)  He and his dad cleaned up that carcass pretty dang good.

About 10:30 I got in the pickup with Marcus, the Oklahoma game warden in charge of Mark's area, and rode out to pick Mark up.  He had seen a couple of bulls at around 500 yards but no cows.  His once in a lifetime hunt was over.  He had a really good time even though he didn't get an elk.  He got to hike some beautiful country and we had an enjoyable time and some good Christian fellowship in the evenings with Mike.  I had a GREAT time gutting, skinning and packing out elk and I got that nice big bull hide which I'm currently working on to make a nice brain tanned bull elk robe.

This will be a great addition to my mountaineer's camp once I have it finished.  And I'm seriously considering going down next December just to help pack out some elk, get several elk hides and some elk brains as well.  Tanning a large robe like this is a lot of work but I would like to do several to sell.  I'll keep you posted on that.

Well, that's the story of Mark's Wichita Mountains Elk Hunt.  Anyone can apply and it's a fun hunt to do.  If you draw one of these tags let me know.  I just might meet you there to be your "helper"!

Until next time, keep yer nose in the wind and yer eyes on the skyline!

TC