Many guys get involved in living the trapper era life (at least for short stretches at a time). But the question comes up at some point; "Why are you doing that?" A fondness for leather pants? Actually the answers are as varied as the number of people involved.

I have spoken to outsiders (for lack of a kinder term) and they see it as something fun and don’t understand the perspective that this activity can be viewed as seriously as someone doing their Masters Thesis on some new era business model. Do we have fun? Well if you don’t you might want to change over to midnight bowling or tole painting. But having fun doesn’t mean the pursuit should be thought of a frivolous or just some kind of an ego based effort (my flintlock is bigger than your flintlock).

Now since I consider myself a beginner at this activity (albeit a grey bearded beginner) and would not presume to tell other what they should think or what their motivations might be, I can only tell you what I think and why I thoroughly enjoy what I am doing.

I like learning. Simple right? Well I especially like learning about things that I am warped enough to think are "cool" Being someone who can stand on his own two feet, in my humble opinion, is cool. Once you start to duplicate the living activity, you realize that it boils down to sink or swim. I’m fully aware that we, who are lucky enough to live now, have escape options. Those guys from that time obviously didn’t. But the good ones survived by knowing how to live and keep living.

From the short amount of time I have spent doing primitive camp outs, the first thing that struck me was that you are learning history from doing. That is a unique perspective. Most people learn history from reading. I never could afford a Delorean so the closest thing to going back to the 1840’s is to try and duplicate the activity on a limited basis.

If you have been doing this sort of thing for 30 years plus, I applaud you. I have a fair knowledge of a wide variety of subjects, but a very limited knowledge of most of this activity. I don’t mind being informed that my hurricane lanterns weren’t around in our time period, but I will look it up just to be sure. I won’t sneer at someone else’s clothes or camp or anything else, because I was not made to feel foolish because I didn’t have all the facts at my first camp and so why should I get a boost from ridiculing someone else who is learning like the rest of us?

If you can join us at our encampments in Southern California, I personally would love to see more people attend. I like debating the ideas and getting different perspectives on the who, what and why’s of buck skinning or whatever else you might like to call this thing. If you have particular knowledge on a subject please bring it along, or better yet write a page or two and we can put it in the Messenger or the Broadside.