E.J. Daily and a day's catch. The last of a dying breed? Not in southern Missouri!
E.J. Daily, famous mountain man trapper from the mid 1900’s, once said of the old breed of dying-off mountain men, “It isn’t men dying off today. It’s a spirit (dying off)”. His great spirit exemplified all that was embodied within the mystic of our mountain men forefathers. Besides just money, E.J. understood that wealth meant many things - just like beauty, it is in the eye, or hand, or mind of the beholder. Through his vast knowledge of all things in nature, his wealth was defined by complete freedom from the confines of society and, at an early age, he promised himself that he would never work for another man, ever. You see, within Nature’s Economy, E.J. Daily was the peer of modern society’s Bill Gates – in his element he was rich beyond imagination.
As much as I respect and admire E.J. Daily for all that he accomplished in his life I disagree with him on one important point. The spirit of the mountain men is not dying. Rather, I believe it is in a deep trance-like slumber slowly and methodically induced by society’s modern conveniences. I also believe there still exists in a small percentage of the population those who possess that same spirit and spark of the mountain men of old. The trait simply needs to be awakened and nurtured into the burning fire that drove men like E.J. Daily, Wildcat Lynch, Jedediah Smith, and Daniel Boone. Each of these men understood the lesson of taking the road less travelled – ‘only cautiously follow the easier path, for just because it’s an easier path, it’s not always the wiser path.’ And, at the very least, never allow yourself to forget the route of the road less travelled – you never know when you might need to travel it again. It was in pursuit of this lofty mountain man ideal that my family and I recreated in the Great Outdoors last weekend.
My wife swears I am not a multi-tasker and I want to keep it that way because that way, from her looong list, she assigns me only one chore at a time. However, on my list this past weekend I wanted to beat the heat, scout for archery season, scout for trapping season, and scout for herbs and roots. In short, I needed to multi-task. So I said to her, “Honey, let’s take the kids along with some hotdogs and lemonade to the creek bank and go for a swim.” I knew it meant that I would have to cook but hey, it got me in the woods for the entire afternoon and it was an easy sell. And so we set out for the far southern reaches of the Meramec River .
After lunch on the creek bank while the kids were swimming, I strapped on the pistol and daypack and headed up river in search of beaver, muskrat, and mink sign for trapping and ginseng, goldenseal, and bloodroot for harvesting later in the fall. The American Indians and mountain men held some of the last vestiges of knowledge about medicinal herbs and roots and natural health and healing that had served humankind for millenniums, all which today seem lost on modern society. Thankfully, during this adolescence of the information age, there is great opportunity to awaken the spirit of the mountain men in each of you and regain this valuable knowledge of medicinal herbs and roots by doing something as simple as searching the internet.
The internet is a great ocean of information that can educate even the most oblivious greenhorn to the great wealth of health and healing power that is trodden under foot with each trip afield. This computer-age resource, along with various available books and guides enable a burgeoning outdoorsman to discover in a few years what formerly took some of us a lifetime to absorb while being passed down from generations of our hill folk forefathers. I believe the internet and information age will organize and revive the vast stores of knowledge our forefathers held from their direct interaction as an integral part of Mother Nature. As I have written before, I believe the perfect storm is brewing in the information age that will, ironically, bring about the resurgence of the mountain man spirit. The knowledge is there for you to read and get a head start but real understanding can only be achieved by actually experiencing and living it in the Great Outdoors.
As the evening was winding down my son and I were heading back down river to the swimming hole when I spotted something ahead on a gravel bar. Walking over and looking down my son said, “Ahh dad, you’re not going to take that with you are you? It’s still a long time until trapping season.” He knew me well and therefore knew that I, of course, had full intentions of taking it with me. It was a largest specimen of bobcat scat that I had ever encountered. It was so large, in fact, I even wondered if it might be from a mountain lion. If nothing else it would provide a valuable attractant for my bobcat sets this winter. As we approached our encampment and my son announced what I was holding, my wife, youngest son, and daughter all screamed and scattered! I, on the other hand, had to smile. I had managed to multi-task very efficiently for the day and I believe E.J. Daily would’ve been proud that the mountain man spirit is still alive and well in southern Missouri
Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.
As always Greg, your articles are a joy to read. I will say the 5th paragraph was a little too profound for me, but that's my arguementative nature. Really it would be great to spend few days in the Ozarks with you, & I playing the role of "pilgrim", in the John Wayne sense of the word, and just hang out with you.
ReplyDeleteAny time you can get here John. I'd love to take you to the woods.
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