PFODJ Ep4 18th Century Woodsman Hunters Camp

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

hey I'm country backwoods and hungry I spend every Sunday just living good my new little fish it a little hunting on the weekend with a bow obviously back in the woods Aaron now men like to kick off my boots and get lazy much of the well-being of the frontiersmen family dependent on his hunting trapping and fishing skills it was oftentimes his chore to secure the meal where the next meal for his family a bedroll containing his wool blanket possibly some personal hygiene material and a spare hunting shirt would have been the mainstay of the hunters camp when traveling by foot he may have also had some type of fishing kit obviously his firelock or his flintlock weapon in the accoutrements to take care of and maintain that weapon and then also some type of food substance with him that he brought from the settlements possibly maple sugar cakes chocolate coffee tea some type of jerky or parks corn during his hunt or Scouts the woodsman would always be on the lookout for natural resources that could help him with things like effecting fire in this case we have what's called the water line or the grapevine wild grapevine while grapevine grows throughout the Eastern woodlands and it can be a good resource of natural tinder a tender source like this one we do not want the outer bark just like many trees what we're looking for is the fine fibers of the inner bark and we can't use our boat knife if we have that good 90 degree spine to aid us and scraping those fibers and you can see I'm scraping this fibers down and when I remove those fibers after the scraping it becomes a nice fluffy pile of hair like fibers that are nice and dry the dry tinder sources like this gray pine bark or water vine bark would be placed somewhere safe many hunters would carry what was called a market wallet or a slip pouch and it was a long piece of fabric or leather sewed it into a tube with a slit in the middle which is worn flat over the belt one side of that pouch may carry something like their tinderbox with flint steel while the other side of that slit pouch was reserved for things like dry tenders stuffing those dry tenders in that pouch folding it over like this into the belt and under the weskit would help keep those tenders dry and ready at hand from making emergency fires for the eighteenth-century hunter finding an area to bed down in Eastern woodlands was not difficult areas like this open area that we're in now with large amounts of leaf litter surrounded by adult mature hardwood trees with broad leaves like these hickories give good overhead cover and a soft bed to lay your wool blanket on what we generally look at when we're looking for a camping spot or what's called the four WS the first thing we look for is available wood is there firewood nearby that we can use to affect fire all night long it needs be water is there water in close proximity to where I'm going to camp to make it easy for me to get water boil it for disinfection or make food or medicine and then retrieve water again for the same purpose I also look at widow-makers above me are there any dead trees above me with large limbs that are going to fall on me during the night and cause me injury and the last one would be wind and when in the general sense of the term and modern day means that we're worried about things like the prevailing winds coming in and blowing smoke into our camp or maybe we want the smoke to blow into our camp a little bit drive away the bugs also the prevailing winds are going to be where weather comes from so looking at that in conjunction to the rest of our campsite can play a difference in where I decide to lay my bed for the night the 18th century woodsman had one more W that he had to concern himself with and that would have been war parties he had to keep a constant vigil on his camp to make sure that he wasn't being invaded by Native American War parties he had to make sure that he kept his fire low-key that he kept his camp location low-key that when he hunted and traveled he kept a constant visual eye on his surroundings and situational awareness was probably the most important skill that a woodsman could have

the weskit was an integral partner of the woodsman's attire it had two large pockets one on each side that would allow him to have things readily accessible to him that he may need on the trail the market wallet which would be strapped over the belt under the weskit would help keep things dry and safe on the outside in the two pockets of his weskit he may keep things that he needed while he were on the trail that he didn't want to unroll his bedroll to get out he may keep a small piece of cloth filled with jerky he may have another one that had some maple sugar candy hard candy so that he could nibble on the trail as he was moving and then he may have things obviously like just a rag for wiping his brow for bending over the creek getting it cooled down and putting it around his neck like a cloth or kerchief and in my pocket I also have my eighteenth-century fishing kit an 18th century fishing kit would have been something carried by the woodsman were he to stumble across a stream a pond something where he saw some fish and the opportunity was there to take those fish he's going to take that opportunity he's out hunting food for his family food to bring back to the settlements but he's also feeding himself he carries small rations with him to nibble on and keep him sustained while he's hunting but during his hunt he has to feed not only himself but bring me back for the family the fishing kit that I carry is very simple it's in a brain tan pouch and a brass container looking through the 18th century fishing kit you'll see that it's a very versatile kit that could catch many types of fish we first have about 25 feet of hemp line and the fishing lines would have been tied to a pole that was made on the fly it could have been made from river cane bamboo ash or willow but any straight stick will do the job the hooks of the period would have either been some type of primitive gorge hook made from bone that would be tied in the center and turned upward with the bait so that when the fish swallowed it it would pull sideways in the fish's mouth like this and gorge the hook in his throat 18th century iron hooks that were forged were made in Spain hook fashion they didn't have eyes on them they had a spade pounded on the end so that line could be barrel knotted below and pull up against the Spade to keep it on the line and I have several different sizes of hooks this leader is made from deer sinew and it's made from three pieces of deer sinew that have been hand braided to give me a heavier leader for larger hooks

depending on the type fish I'm trying to catch there's a couple hardwood bobbers in here with stays in them so that it can be slid directly over the top of the line and pinned in place to give you a strike indicator or bobber and then fly-fishing was also very popular during the period and I have a couple different things here for fly-fishing I have two horsehair leaders with hand tied flies on them one very small one a bit larger on two different horsehair leaders and then I have a horse hair braided fly line again that can be used in conjunction with a makeshift rod to allow me to fly fish in a stream for trout or things like that or also for pan fish on top water in the 18th century your fire would have been kept to a minimum only what you need and nothing more you would avoid damp and green woods all together to avoid the smoke and avoid detection from the war parties your fire lock would be close at hand in any given moment seeing accoutrements and accessories right beside that bedroll would be laid out on the ground just before turning in that way if you had to leave at a moment's notice to sneak away you could do so understanding the trees that grew along the Eastern woodlands here gave the woodsman a four-season advantage for resources the black walnut that we see behind us has three main chemical compounds tannin juglone and iodine tannin good pertaining Heights is also highly astringent and prized as a medicinal iodine is a very good antiseptic that can be made into a wash or any wounds that you may have the juglone is a poison that's emitted into the ground from the roots of the tree to keep other tree's or minimize other trees from growing around the block walnut so that can achieve maximum growth and photosynthesis but that juglone can also be used to poison fish the tulip poplar which is really not a poplar at all it's actually a Magnolia but it's often called tulip poplar or yellow poplar I have four of them growing around me in close proximity is one of the tallest trees in Eastern woodlands it grows to about 135 feet generally has a conical or spade-shaped upper area to the tree that you can see in the distance if you're on high ground tulip poplar is a very good resource for many things Daniel Boone's canoe was made from tulip poplar and it was one of the first trees that was exported live to Europe because it was prized as a carving type of wood for making furniture it's also a very good medicinal because it's highly astringent because the amount of tannin value that the tree has in the Bark's and things of that nature but it also is a great resource for anything for fire once we have this bark we can begin to process it down by just twisting and turning it in our hands and that will remove the outer bark and leave us with the inner bark which is strands of material strands of inner bark material and those strands are what we want to further break down if we're using this to affect a bird nest or tinder bundle but they can also be used to make cordage and if we twist these fibers down and remove the outer bark and we can then begin to twist it into cordage and it's basically just a reverse rap technique where you're turning one bundle one direction and then twisting the other bundle back over the top you

okay so the precedence of cloth basically is we're going to take a piece of regular 100% natural material like a cotton linen osnabrück something like that something that we have with us and we're going to impregnate this with black powder and you can't use smokeless powder for this you can't use pyro Dex I'm going to use the Dove the triple left powder right out of my powder horn for my flintlock for this and what we're going to do is we're going to wet the cloth or the gun powder itself and we're going to make it moist and kind of mushy and then we're going to smear it into the cloth and when we're finished with it it's going to look something like this once it dries it will be a great color cloth to just get that cloth nice and damp and kind of wring it out a little bit and then smear the cloth into the powder like this and just saturate that cloth with the black powder and once you've got it completely blackened like this you pretty much have what you want and then you're just going to lay that out to dry and when it's finished it will look like this but getting something combustible to combined with that number just sometimes the trick and we'll shred this down really really good and then we'll get started alright so once we have our bird nest ready now we're just going to take a piece of our rub cloth and I've cut this off this is less than a full piece and I'm just gonna put that inside the nest and try to start strike my sparks down into that cloth while it's in the nest there we go well I'm Dave Canterbury with Pathfinder outdoor journal I appreciate you joining me for this episode today do me a favor take a kid to the woods god bless you stay safe and you back with another episode real soon