Where To Start?

Buy the book "The Book of Buckskinning Vol. 1", this is the single best place to get educated about Mountain Man reenacting!

It was tax time. I had a return coming. I knew that we all wanted to go to a rendezvous and camp period style. So we had family council. I told the kids that we had a choice; we could take the money that was coming and go to Disney Land once or buy equipment for Rendezvous and be able to camp many times. Surprisingly it didn’t take a lot of convincing, the choice was unanimous, and we were going to rendezvous. We really didn’t have a lot of money so where did we start? First I bought a tent from Red Hawk Trading Company. There are a few period tent makers but I am loyal to Red Hawk. We have had our tent now for years and it’s still as strong as when we started. I bought a bakers style tent with a large 15 feet fly for shade. I went big because we had a big family and I wanted room for visitors, but if it’s just you, or you and a friend, you really don’t need much more than a couple canvases to make a lean-to. Mountain men in all reality typically didn’t have a large set up; they were transient, trapping until they weren’t catching any beaver any more then moved on to the next pond or river. After the rendezvous the year before with 90°+ weather I figured a fly was important. Next I bought a steel fire pit from one of the traders I met the year before. Most places won’t let you build a fire on the ground anymore, so you need something off the ground. I arranged for the both traders to bring the tent and stove to me at rendezvous so it would be there when I got there and I didn’t have to pay for shipping. I already had something to cook in, a 12” Dutch oven. We found some wood handled silver wear, a few enamel covered tin plates and cups, and a few metal utensils that looked old fashioned, at the local thrift store it cost us about 10 bucks. I found a couple of Dietz oil lanterns; they actually started making these in the late 1800’s but are generally accepted in the rendezvous. Some of the more serious events do not allow anything non-period but for most these lanterns work just fine. You will hear some say that candles are more period. I think this is silly. A candle only last so long and it could be a year or more before a mountain man could trade for more. How many candles do you think they would carry and how many would it take to get through a year? If anything fire was their only light.

Shelter √, fire √, food prep √, light √, now I needed clothes.

While at the thrift store I found several pairs of flat front corduroy pants for me and the boys; corduroy was a common fabric in the 1800’s but they didn’t have pockets on the outside to I took the back pockets off to be more period. We found some skirts and dresses made from calico fabric for Rhonda and our girl. Calico fabric was very common during the 1970’s and 80’s and has been around ever since and maybe before the 1800’s. Very few of us can buy all the leather it takes to make period clothes all at once, so greenhorns usually dress the way country folk would dress during that period. We brought old leather shoes to finish the look.

The hardest thing to find away from rendezvous was finding period shirts for the boys and me. I did my homework and found a pattern. They are all over the internet for purchase. I then asked my mom to teach me to sew. I made two shirts for me and one for each of the boys. Rendezvousing is all about doing it for yourself.

How did you start up?