Blasts from the past

The old ways live on at this annual event

Robert (“The Grey One”) and Mahrie (“Swims with Arrows”) DeGenova at the event, where he won the first turkey of the day. Del Norte Triplicate/Emily Jo Cureton

He holds the heavy steel barrel sure and steady, zeroing in on the photocopied image of a turkey tacked up 10 yards away.

Like roughly 30 other participants at the Jed Smith Mountain Men Turkey Shoot on Sunday morning, Clark shoots to win a frozen turkey or a ham.

As flint strikes gunpowder, a loud crack cuts through the forest. He misses, provoking some light teasing from the judges’ table. After all, Clark, better known to fellow Mountain Men as Trapper John, is president of the club and generally a crack shot.

Even the most static target can be evasive when your weapon of choice is a “black powder” gun — an open sight, single shot rifle that uses primitive gunpowder.

Besides, marksmanship isn’t the sole point of this annual gathering at the Rowdy Creek Gun Club.

While there’s no shortage of shooters, people are also here to see friends, swap stories over a potluck lunch and show off handmade clothes and primitive tools.

Many participants wear home sewn buckskin pants, fringe rustling as they cut through the fog mingled with gun smoke.

“If you ever wear buckskin pants, you’ll never want to take ’em off,” Trapper John says.

Not only do they feel good, but according to him, “after two weeks, no body odor.”

Handmade satchels and powder horns abound; beaded bands brighten the leathery hues topping most heads. Tomahawks whiz through the air as throwers try to split a plastic bottle in two.

These days a commitment to historical accuracy only goes so far. While the guns must be old-fashioned, the targets are made of standard printer paper; orange foam earplugs hush the deafening shots; the judges use modern scopes to check for accuracy and plenty of plain blue jeans stride among the buckskin.

“There’s no pressure here,” Trapper John explains, “Everybody’s here to have fun and relax.”

Accomplished Mountain Men aren’t necessarily male. About a third of the club’s members are women, he says.

Aura Wright joined the club just over a year ago and has since learned how to shoot a black powder gun, make a fire with flint, sew buckskin clothes and camp in the most primitive circumstances.

“Powder, patch, ball,” she recites the mantra as she gingerly pours a tiny scoop of gunpowder into her rifle, puts a cotton patch over the muzzle and pushes a bullet down the barrel.

“It’s constant learning,” Wright says after the process is finished, smiling at the loaded gun.

Beyond a regular meeting on the last Sunday of every month and the annual primitive camping rendezvous in July, the club offers a range of classes: Dutch oven cooking, furniture making, metalworking, beading and fire building, among other things.

But when Walmart is just down the street and the grocery store has everything you could ever want to eat — why be a Mountain Man?

Trapper John is a big believer in emergency preparedness — say your car rolls over in a remote area and no one comes looking for you, say it’s a life or death situation.

Potential disasters aside, a respect for history and a degree of self-sufficiency can bring out the best in people, Trapper John says. He recalls the impact Mountain Men activities have had on troubled young people, how the club has brought together his own family and so many other families milling around this morning.

“There’s something for everyone,” Joyce Lockhart says.

Ron (“Bare Paws”) Messmer prepares to hurl a tomahawk at the Turkey Shoot on Sunday. Del Norte Triplicate/Anthony Skeens

“You learn the history, it tells you about the future,” Trapper John muses. “The mountain men ain’t dead.”

The historical paradigm at work runs from about 1820 to 1840, though Trapper John pushes it back to the late 1700s with his handmade rifle.

He goes hunting 30 to 40 times a year with that gun. And while hunting with single-fire antiques is a thrill for him, with an estimated 5 percent kill rate for big game, the freezer at home is rarely stocked. 

“Ground squirrel don’t take up much room in the freezer,” he laughs, “To me your wild game is a delicacy. It’s better for you than the store-bought stuff. There’s too many chemicals in that.”

But by mid-morning the store-bought stuff is quickly disappearing from the back of his pickup  as shooters collect prizes, a choice between frozen turkey or ham, and bacon for the tomahawk and knife winners.

For more information about the club, visit www.jedsmithmountainmen.com.