Modern mountain men reenact history

Why go back in time and retrace the footsteps of America's ancestors, from the clothing they wore to the guns they used? Recently, a couple of local modern day mountain men tried to explain why.

"I do it because I'm interested in history," said Libby's Mark Morain. "Because I enjoy learning - on a first-person basis - what our history was about."

It's a hard thing to pin down," he added. "It begins as a recreation - for fun - but for some people it becomes more than that. For some of us it gets to the point where it becomes our life."

"It is my life," he added. "It's what I do."

According to retired U.S. Navy Captain, Ted Schmidt, it became a second life he stumbled into when he attended his first "Rendezvous," re-enactments of mountain men gatherings, from 1820-1840.

"It's basically anytime before 1840," said Morain. "There are a couple of different eras that people speak about, the Colonial era or the Pre-Revolutionary era, but what most people think of as Rendezvous are the Rocky Mountain fur trade, or the Western fur trade, which began with Lewis and Clark in 1803 and goes through 1840."

At the Rendezvous, trappers, traders and Native Americans dealt mostly in beaver pelts, also trading iron, knives, needles and fabric.

"If you want to reduce it to one denominator," said Morain, "beaver are the foundation for all of our history in North America. Our whole history boils down to our quest for the beaver."

Native Americans also traded animal skins for colorful beads and cloth, which they used to embellish or even replace some of their animal skin clothing. They also traded for "Findings," or objects that appealed to their aesthetic sense.

According to Morain, an example of a finding is a sewing thimble, which was traded and then altered by drilling holes and attaching it to clothes for decoration.

The Europeans liked the braintan skins of clothes and blankets. Traditionally, the brains of the animal were mixed up, sometimes with the liver or water, and worked into the hide then smoked, changing the color from white to gradual shades of brown. Today, sometimes the brains are replaced with more modern-day emulsifiers and oils to soften the leather.

Of elk, moose, buffalo, caribou and antelope, deer is the most widely used and versatile hide. They come in a wide variety of thicknesses, are extrememly soft, and have a very strong, durable structure.

It was at a Rendezvous where Schmidt's interest in the process was piqued.

"I got into making the moccasins," he said. "They appealed to me."

He began selling the hand-sewn mocassins. As his business expanded with orders he received from Rendezvous, so did his interest in striving to use the same methods and materials his forefathers used. He eventually made other supplies for his personal use.

"It's neat to make your own guns, bullets…clothes," he said, adding "to be more authentic, you need to braintan the leather. There's nothing like braintan deerskin. I've been working with clothes all my life - it's the ultimate cloth."

Next to the Yaak River, in a cabin Schmidt built with logs he felled in 1984, his girlfriend, Judith Greyflower, braintans a hide he will eventually cut and sew into moccasins.

She also does beadwork and creates Rendezvous era objects such as dolls and bags.

As she firmly works the hide over her knees, slowly stretching it, the fibers pull apart, allowing more of the brain and lecithin mixtue to enter the hide and soften it.

The hide will then be dried and smoked, which adds creosote, making them more water resistant so they won't dry hard after getting wet, as well as giving the hide its color.

According to Morain, the interest in reenactments and Rendezous go back to a resurgence of curiousity in their firearms - more specifically the flintlocks and muzzleloading firearms.

"They liked going out and shooting the guns and learning how they worked and how our ancestors lived - how they went about their daily lives," said Morain. "The small things that we don't hear about - the tools, the clothes - all of those things were of interest to the reenactor," he added.

Diaries and first-person accounts in books are the basis for the objects used and how to use them, but according to Morain, an aspect of the recreating community is taking it one step further through Experimental Archeology.

"It's taking all of these things that we know they used and making the guns, shooting bags, etc. and putting them in similiar situations. So by using them you learn how those things were put to use and discover a lot of things that weren't written down," he said.

A good portion of the people he sells to are reenactors, according to Morain.

"I'm not saying anyone is superior to anyone else," he said, "but people who are fanatics - they're the ones who's clothing will be hand-sewn. They have documented their gear and reproduced them themselves, or purchased from someone who does.

"They go out and put it to use in that setting. That's our focus - those types of people," he said, adding that he also sells to people who do Rendezvous just for a fun social activity.

"We'll sell it to anyone who wants it - for people who do it on any level."

According to Morain, Rendezvous never completely died out, occurring throughout the country and in Libby every third weekend in July.

They continue to be a widespread, which is why business at his company, Kootenai River Traders, is good.

"The kinds of things that we make are very diverse," he said. "My wife Charlotte makes all types of clothing for reenactors. I also make clothing, but mine is made from leather or buckskin; she does the material - the fabric end of it."

Garments like shirts, pants and coats are cut from cotton, wool, linen, and fustian - a blend of cotton and linen that has the good qualities of both materials into one, according to Morain.

"It was very common material back in our early history when cotton was expensive to produce," Morain said. "Linen was very common and easy to produce - a better fabric," he said, adding that furs were used as trim.

They also sell hunting frocks, weskits, trade guns, shooting bags and plunder boxes, to name a few. A brochure can be requested by calling him at (406) 293-8239.

"We make accoutrements of all kinds - just about anything that anyone wants," he said. "We reproduce a wide variety of all things."