17th/ 18th century gear

[Scottishwanderer]

What sort of gear were fur trappers/ explorers using at this period? I'm especially interested in the type of packs they had and their sleep systems.

Cheers

 

[Mesquite]

What sort of gear were fur trappers/ explorers using at this period? I'm especially interested in the type of packs they had and their sleep systems.

Cheers

Have a look at the UK Mountain Man forum. You ought to find what you're looking for there

 

[sasquatch]

I had no idea there was a British mountain man forum Steve!

 

[rik_uk3]

Whitney blankets and furs I would imagine.

 

[Home Guard]

"The bushcraft store" sell a few different styles of traditional firesteel which I suspect were the same used "Back in the day".

 

[Corso]

Have a look at the UK Mountain Man forum. You ought to find what you're looking for there

Thats a new one on me thanks

I tend to get most of my info from BushcraftUSA mambers

Its also worth looking at Historical or Period Trekking as a search term - tends to cover a wider time scale (including nessmuk and kephart) but they all used very similar gear

wool blankets, hawk hatches, 'hudson bay' made stuff, metal canteens, tinder boxes etc. I try and keep my loadout 'vintage' rather than period as most mountainman had pack horses etc, Nessmuk and Kephart et al's approach was lightweight camping for foot and/or cannoe

 

[Corso]

What sort of gear were fur trappers/ explorers using at this period? I'm especially interested in the type of packs they had and their sleep systems.

Cheers

I mrealised after i ignored the questions

this sort of thing covers it quite well

www.thomas-sutlers-store.com/

but basically Haversacks, Knapsacks and snapsacks were the norm anything much more than that would be attached to a horse.

sleeping wise its wool blankets/canvas tarps/tents and/or maybe a bedroll but again it gets quite heavy/bulky quite quickly

 

[Mesquite]

I had no idea there was a British mountain man forum Steve!

There is but looking at it, it seems to have gone very quiet for some while

 

[Gagnrad]

What sort of gear were fur trappers/ explorers using at this period? I'm especially interested in the type of packs they had and their sleep systems.

I don't know that the fur trade was really off the ground in the 17th century. The Hudson's Bay Company wasn't formed till 1670.

http://www.canadiana.ca/hbc/intro_e.html

Pierre Chouteau Junior wasn't even born until towards the end of the 18th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Chouteau,_Jr.

I think in general the answer is likely to be that people started off by taking what they were used to back home and replaced it with what was locally available as it wore out or as they began to appreciate the particular qualities of what native peoples were using. That was a two way thing, of course. There's a (fairly early) painting of American Indians dancing (Menominee, I think) and while they're brandishing wooden war clubs (soon doubtless to be replaced by Birmingham-made hatchets) they're all wearing calico shirts.

The European fibres for clothing (and just about everything else) in the early modern period were wool and linen. Cotton had to be imported and didn't take off in Europe until the Industrial Revolution brought new techniques for processing it. In the wilds I think you probably slept wrapped in a woollen blanket.

I think, as has already been said, that haversacks (from an old word for oats—one of the Yorkshire Regiments was known as the Havercake Lads on account of the oatcakes traditionally eaten in the area) used to be commonly used in the past as also snapsacks—picture here:

http://www.karlrobinson.co.uk/other_bags_sausage_bag.php

I don't know that you'd get that much in either sort of bag, though. The voyageurs are known to have used tumplines round packs.