Good topic . I cant believe I didn’t see it before . For the record, yes I have went out without flints . Mind you not on purpose . I in adversity left my flint wallet on the table at home and then left for an elk hunt up in the hells canyon rim area . . After packing back in all day I set up camp the turned to checking my rifle . What I found is that at some time the flint had fallen out . When I went to replace it , I found not a flint to be had .
It took only about an hour to round up enough rocks that sparked sufficiently well to fire my rifle ..
The funny part about all that was I had used my fire striker to look for suitable rocks . Not tell I went to replace it , did it dawn on my that in the bottom of my strike a light back was a 2 inch by 3 inch piece of chert ..
I hunted for 3 more days with a hand made rock in my flintlock . I even harvested a very nice mulie buck as well as 3 or 4 blue grouse with my rifle .
I also know folks around here that only use their own picked up rocks . When kept sharp they work rather well . Neglect them even a little and they provide only a clatch .
I also have found myself with a powder supply that was fully wet . I fell in the D@$ river . It took near a full day of digging powder out of the horn and spreading it on skunk cabbage leaves to dry in the sun , before it became usable again
SO, I can attest that these things are no myth . Maybe more difficult in some areas then in others . But minus being out in the desert somewhere , I can think of no more difficult place to look for sparking rocks then on top of the hells canyon rim .
Myself I would have to agree with Michael in this . Not because what CB says also isn’t true . The writings say it is .
However what we don’t take into account is that we are different people today . The immune systems for most folks IMO are no where near as strong as they were then .
Now for some , that’s not true but for the average person I truly believe it is .
I also believe our bodies are not as strong physically as was the common person’s 150 years ago .
With myself , I grew up on probably a 98% wild game diet . When I went into the service , that diet consisted of domestic raised beef . For the first month I was deathly sick . What went in one end , , seemingly seconds later came right out the other . The doctors attributed this to a drastic change in diet . I have no doubt that if it had not been for their diagnosis, I would have crapped myself to death , LOL .
. The whole reason the human race has been so successful is because of our ability to adapt . Our brain gives us that ability . Past that , in comparison , we are very weak creatures in compression . Without that brain power , we would be much lower on the food chain .
In compression, while the writings show that men were gathered from taverns and such to fill the trapping brigades , we have to also I think remember that these very folks had a strong base of knowledge to grow on . They could to some existent fall back on that base . fewer and fewer today have that knowledge as they have grown up in a electronic age over a physical age .
While I think even some of these folks could reason their way through the initial hard times. I don’t believe many would . Most likely those would die fro exposure and starvation before they collected the knowledge needed . Now with a guiding hand , surly that survival rate would jump .
This leads me to the issue with environment and the stress of that environment. If we use the Corp of discovery as a case study ,. The thing we notice is that as they traveled across this country , their environment changed . in many cases , they fought to adapt . What was happening is that their knowledge and past learned lessons , in some cases being found un useful. What worked well in the east or plains , simply did not work at all in the NW and Rockies. .
Imagine if you will , the simple task of starting a fire .
We would think , no real issue right . However we could find ourselves very wrong in that assumption.
Mind you , this was the age of flint and steel . In itself it works very well and its easy to find a rock to create a spark . But what catches that spark ? In the east , its fire conks. But in the west , we don’t have them . So we look at char cloth . However this doesn’t seem to really come about tell just before the civil war. So other means have to be come up with and come up with quickly .
A good example of this would be our evolution today . To light fires we rely on lighters and matches .
However its surprising how many folks cannot start a fire with flint and steel . Even among those we would think experienced woodsman in today’s world .
Every year during one of our shoots , we include a fire start in the competition for scoring .
It never ceases to amaze me at the numbers of woods wise folks who cannot and never have done this . Once shown , they pick it up quickly and most when done , run right to the trader for a steel .
The Corps had to be in this same boat , do to a change in environment. Even the likes of sacaguwea
And drouillard may have found themselves in the same boat . Their knowledge base would have been around the flint and steel with possibly little knowledge of the bow and drill which had been left behind but for a few casses by most to include native peoples .
We also see this in same environmental issue in the hunting Prowers of drouillard when he reached the Bitter Roots . Now there is no question , IMO to the knowledge base and skill of drouillard . Infact even L&C state in their journals that without his skill the Corps would have failed in short order .
However notice that when reaching the bitter root range the corps started to starve .
The reason for this is drouillard had lost his knowledge base . He did not realize that unlike in the east , the game here , migrates to lower levels in the early winter months . Thus the area the corps would travel through had little to no game left in it . That no mater the quality of skill as a hunter , the pickings would be practically non existent.
If not for pure luck , they all may very well have died right there all from a change of environment.
We today do not take this into account . Even those of us here who regularly take trips to the woods in what we do .
We think ahhh I have spent 3-5 days or longer out with only a blanket .
Well im here to tell you that next time you do that , think a little deeper past the experience into the effects of that experience on your body . Look past the ahhh I can do it , into an honest assessment. Past the skills needed right to the hart of the mater ..
I can tell you this . I grew up in the mountains . I have spent days to weeks out , alone , with nothing but a rifle and blanket .
But a few years back , I took some friends , all in themselves , very woods wise folks .
The trip was late fall in a time when normally the weather was good . But we found ourselves at 7000 ft in a snow storm that dumpt near a foot of fresh snow over night . The temps drop near 0 .
On the surface we all seemed to suffer little . We were warm , we had a fire , we had food . No great issue .
We even went so far as to do a couple 3 mile hunting expeditions . But what was noticed was that on the second day , camp started to get rather quite . With folks being more content to just sit around the fire. So we started talking about what we were experiencing
To a one the main issue was straight. While we were eating good and seemed comfortable , we all were losing strength. Even those who had not gon out hunting were experiencing the same thing . We were burning more calories then we were taking in .
This naturally reverted to a much deeper discussion of a period context . None of us had seen any game in our hunts our food supplies could last for another 2 days IF we had to .
We could see the snow level about 2500 ft below us . What amazed me was that the conversation took on an almost un real realization, in that our store bodies energy became almost like the level of fuel in a cars gas tank.. To a one , we all agree , we could make it down , find food . But the realization that in order to do that would take just about everything most of us had left .
that’s when things got real quite . It hit us like a brick wall . Even though our vehicles were some ¼ mile away , if we had been back some 150 years , we would have been in a very bad way . The environment, despite what we thought was preparedness, was eating us up faster then we realized .
I could go on about this for a very long time and it seems I have so I will stop here and say this one last thing .
There are many levels in this hobby we do . Basically everything from the buck skinner level , all the way up to the AMM , period trekking .
But in most cases folks don’t look deep into the real issues . They look only at their skills that they think they need to survive. They say ;Yep I can do it .
But would those very people say the same thing when taken into a greater context . If the need arose , could those you hold dear make it . Your wife , kids , friends . Would you be willing to leave those behind ?
Are you capable of experiencing the possible consequences if you don’t ?
So next time you out , look past your skills . Take a real , realistic look at the effects on your body . Both physically , mentally and environmentally.
Are you tiered and dragging hind end when you get back to the modern vehicle that will take you the miles home . When you get home do you sleep . Are you stiff after a while . Are you irritable . Maybe a little melancholy . Then ask yourself what condition would you have been if that trip had been realistically weeks or months longer .Only by truthfully looking at these things as well as you skills can you draw a reasonable conclusion to the question of if you could make it or not ..
If you then say yes ask yourself why it was that many of the folks we emulate, found themselves at what we look at as a young age . 30-40 . Either dead or down living the life of a trader , guide or passing the harder days in a village .
Myself when I was ½ my age I can honestly say yes . I know this for a fact from the years in the military and days of my youth . I was tested by the blood , not the water .
But today , based on the times I have been out , I would say no .
My wife , I don’t feel would make it physically or mentally. As much as I love her , I don’t think she would make 2 months maybe even weeks .
Mentally I could not handle that . Physically , myself I might make the first winter maybe two . But realistically , I would have to say in all honesty , that would be a very long outside chance .
Folks those mountains are alive . They have their own ways and if your not capable in every way , to adapt to those ways . Those mountains have no remorse or humanity about them
