The 19th-century men who spent their winters following trap lines don’t get their historical due. Often portrayed as an ignorant, hard-drinking, violent lot, they don’t get proper credit for their part in setting America’s economic foundation. Today, Wee, who lives in a tepee on an organic farm, will be encamped outside The Fort in Morrison with other re-enactors. He’ll demonstrate fire-making techniques and explain how the furs that mountaineers traded at rendezvous built the fortunes of business giants like John Jacob Astor.
How does a sculptor from Wichita end up living in a tepee, tanning hides to make his own clothes and hunting with a handmade flintlock rifle? Boy Scouts. That was an eye-opener. But my brothers and I were voracious readers, and we spent a lot of time in the library. That planted a lot of seeds.
Do you play a certain character at the rendezvous? I’m trying to put together stuff for a trapper called Antoine Clement, a French Canadian-Indian who became good friends with William Drummond Stewart. Stewart attended several rendezvous and recorded them with an artist, Alfred Jacob Miller. (Miller painted a portrait of Clement, which hangs in Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.)
Will your participate in the mountain man competition today? I don’t know if I’ll pull a Lance Armstrong and retire. I’m 54 years old, and every time I climb up in the mountains with a pack on, it reminds me of it.
…
BUCKSKIN
RENDEZVOUS
What: Spanish Market
& 1830s Rendezvous.
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. today.
Where: The Fort, 19192 Colo. 8 in Morrison.
Potentially amazing moment: When
buckskin-wearing mountain men compete. They’ll, run, throw tomahawks and knives, shoot, start fires and set traps.
Tickets: $6 adults; $3 seniors
and students; kids and Tesoro
Foundation members free.
Info: tesorofoundation.org.
