Husky has posed some thought provoking tidbits in the OP. Others have provided excellent discussions on their interpretations of what the modern Boone might use. As a hunter, I agree with Ross in that the modern elk hunter would be a very good comparison, as a start, for similar equipment choices for the hunt. Exploration and Long Hunting (hunting for the purpose of supplying the settlements with meat and peltry) were two different tasks, though not always mutually exclusive. There certainly was crossover.
Dr. Thomas Walker's 1750 exploration into the Kentucky region for the purpose of prospecting land for future settlement, was approximately 19 years before Boone went into the Kentucky region. Dr. Walker's journal of his expedition can be located here: http://www.tngenweb.org/tnland/squabble/walker.html In original form, it can be found here:
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewis...rs/walker's journal/walker_originalcover.html This will give a good account of what his party had in equipment, though not a listing, and how they got along from day to day. This exploration lasted from 6 March 1750 - 13 July 1750.
Others went into the Kentucky region by way of the Ohio and Kentucky rivers. Simon Kenton, among others, went to Kentucky by way of dugout canoe. Kenton's accounts can be researched to show items of equipment that they took and used. Trading with native peoples certainly was a method of resupply for the river mode of infiltration, as described in written accounts. Kenton is credited with saving Boone's life during a skirmish with "Indians" at Fort Boonesborough.
I think that then or now, the equipment chosen would have been / be those items that are utilitarian, light as possible but very durable and, most importantly, proven.
Dr. Thomas Walker's 1750 exploration into the Kentucky region for the purpose of prospecting land for future settlement, was approximately 19 years before Boone went into the Kentucky region. Dr. Walker's journal of his expedition can be located here: http://www.tngenweb.org/tnland/squabble/walker.html In original form, it can be found here:
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewis...rs/walker's journal/walker_originalcover.html This will give a good account of what his party had in equipment, though not a listing, and how they got along from day to day. This exploration lasted from 6 March 1750 - 13 July 1750.
Others went into the Kentucky region by way of the Ohio and Kentucky rivers. Simon Kenton, among others, went to Kentucky by way of dugout canoe. Kenton's accounts can be researched to show items of equipment that they took and used. Trading with native peoples certainly was a method of resupply for the river mode of infiltration, as described in written accounts. Kenton is credited with saving Boone's life during a skirmish with "Indians" at Fort Boonesborough.
I think that then or now, the equipment chosen would have been / be those items that are utilitarian, light as possible but very durable and, most importantly, proven.
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