Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Modern day "Mountain Man"

We have a few people in the area who are not far from it and more who are capable. Many of us live in circumstances which would be called "rustic" although we are now saddled with all those modern convenienbces like a telephone, computer, and electricity to run it. I often long for the days when we were "off the grid" (up until 1997). It was really peaceful.
When I lived up in the North Thompson country, we knew a bunch of these types. Some were older, long time, trappers and ranchers; others were younger, hippie types who were moving "back to the land". Hippies or not, some of these were pretty self sufficient kids and very capable.
When I was in elementary school, we had a substitute teacher who, along with her husband, spent every summer prospecting and panning gold in the area upriver from Taylor B.C. (where we lived at the time) and, if they found good color, would spend the winter developing their "mine". She told us of the year she got in the winter meat by killing a moose as it struggled to climb up the steep bank in front of their cabin. An impressive story made even moreso when she described killing the moose with an axe! Her husband was angry with her for taking the risk but she said she didn't have time to go back to the cabin for the 303. This seems quite recent when I think of it but I guess it was over fifty years ago so, perhaps, not modern day by the reckoning of some. GD

The man I knew who closest resembled a Mountain Man was a guy I worked with down in Ohio by the name of Lynn Calvin. Lynn was the consummate professional trapper and outdoors man. He pretty much quit bow hunting because it came so incredibly easy to him. Put a shotgun in his hands, and he just didn't miss. He was as strong as an ox, and just about the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. He was single his whole life, never needing the company of a good woman to be happy, and lived off the land. Lynn ate the healthiest diet I can think of. Mostly just fruit and veggies, unless he took some fish or shot a deer, but he still managed to die of cancer. I think there's some folks out there that are just "connected" to nature on a whole different plane than the rest of us. Lynn "knew" critters and their habits. He was just a remarkable man. 'Shame to see him and his kind fading off into the sunset these days.

I would think that most of the mountain men even had a wooden leanto or a teepee to work out of in the worst of winter.

I know one.
He's an Alaskan fur trapper.
Spends all winter deep in the bush checking his snares & trapline.
The real deal.
One tough [bleep]*kker.

That mud puddle Flathead Lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the missippi, BTW... (about 188 square miles)

A guy can flat out dissapear in there if you're so inclined. I spent some of my youth there, helping with stock, and fly fishing. My Great Grandfather was a good friend of Howard Copenhavers.

Truthfully, there's better places to hunt around here, and with better access.

Just sayin' Thats all...

largest natural lake........ive got a bigger one just 40 miles down the road thats twice as big

If you want to read a great mountain man/trapper story, round up a copy of "Journal of a Trapper" by Osborne Russell. Real good reading.

They are called homeless people.

I'd probably be in the same mind of Albert Johnson.