MtMan-List: packs

["Lee Driver" <tdriver@laplaza.org>]

About being period correct about packs, I would say:

Probably the one historical incidence that most lends itself to this 
question is John Colter's long trek  in 1807, to look for the Crow 
Indians at Manuel Lisa's request.

"Carrying a thirty-pound pack containing powder, lead, traps, jerkey, 
and a buffalo robe he left the fort alone, armed with his Hawken 
rifle and skinning knife." This quote comes from _Views of Louisiana_ 
by Breckenridge in which he says he is quoting The Missouri Gazette,
presumably around 1810.

If we're to believe the reports, Colter walked 750 miles or so. I
guess we could assume he carried that same pack the whole way, but I
seriously doubt it. Anyone who's ever packed any distance at all
with a good load in something on the order of a handmade pack rig,
would be able to tell you that that pack is constantly undergoing
adjustments, improvements, redesign, and that the final version
probably worked pretty well for Colter, and not necessarily for just
anyone. We can know for certain that it was made out of period
correct elements. I think we can assume too, that he didn't go very
far, if any distance at all, before he knew he needed to have both
hands free, which narrows it into some kind of back pack. From
there, using whatever would have been available to hand, from skins
to bones to antlers to sinew to branches to shaped wood... use your
imagination. I'll guarantee you that's what Colter did, or any other
of those mountain men who ever found themselves in need of having to
carry their own gear. He'd been all the way to the Pacific and back
with L&C, so he probably already had a few good inclinations with 
regards to packing before he started on this trip for Lisa. After a 
while, walking in rough terrain, carrying 30 or 50 pounds, you'd come 
up with a design that would work for you that was period correct, 
that would be it's own documentation. The ability to come up with
solutions, then, can't be all that different from now, under similiar
constraints.I guess we'd have to assume too, that some would come up
with better solutions than others, which also would be period
correct. (I do recall that the great Jed Smith and his small 
party, on their spy mission up to Flathead House in the winter of 
1824, couldn't figure out how to make snowshoes, though. One would 
think that someone who could cooly instruct another on how to sew his 
own ear back on could come up with snowshoes, but, I guess not.)  Of 
course, just stealing or trading for a horse or two, would curtail 
the backpack research experiment some, or certainly change the 
problem to one of horsepacking.. But, once one comes up with a pack 
that works, all there is left to do is scan a picture of it onto the 
web for all us unhorsed ones to take a look at. 

Lee Driver