Re-enactors harken back to the old days
   By Joe Bauman
  Deseret News staff writer

         "Many Bells" and her family missed the mountain man rendezvous recently at Fort Buenaventura State Park, Ogden, where fellow
  re-enactors shot long rifles, competing for frozen Thanksgiving turkeys.

        "We were actually out killing turkeys for real," explained Many Bells, who in everyday life is Annie Crawford, Sandy, wife of Scott "Little
  Powder" Crawford.
        The couple and their four children are part of a growing movement to experience a different period in history — in their case, the era of
  the mountain man.
        These rugged trappers and traders explored much of the West in the early 19th century. Adapting to the ways of the Indians, often
  marrying Indian women, they would gather for a great annual rendezvous where they would swap equipment, engage in contests and
  renew friendships.
        "It was just the last frontier period of American history, I think," said Todd "Teton" Glover, Riverton. He spends about 10 hours a week
  during the winter studying journals of mountain men, examining collections of their artifacts and making his own gear.
        A full-time member of the Utah Army National Guard, he even made his own Tennessee mountain rifle, a percussion piece in the
  turn-of-the century style — late 1700s or early 1800s. With its 42-inch barrel and beautiful stock of curly maple, it's a plain gun, he says.
        "It's a rifle to be used in the woods," he said. "I didn't want it to be too fancy, and go out there and start banging it up."
        Nevertheless, he put about 180 hours of work in building it, using a barrel already manufactured.
        Glover, 39, became interested in the mountain man lifestyle when he was in Boy Scouts. He attended a meeting at the Great Salt Lake
  Council headquarters in Salt Lake City, where mountain man re-enactors showed Scouts their gear and talked about the annual rendezvous
  at Fort Bridger, Wyo. Labor Day of the next year, when he was 15, he went to the rendezvous with some friends "and got hooked," he said.

        Today, he sometimes attends encampments that last 10 days.
        "It's kind of like a time machine," he said. "You look around and kind of get a sense that maybe this is as close as you can ever get to
  knowing what it was like for the original mountaineers, fur trappers."
        Although his wife isn't as thrilled with the re-enacting as he is, their children — daughters 14 and 9, and a 5-year-old son — enjoy the
  recreation. "The kids do frequently go to open rendezvous with me," he said.
        The attraction is something George Whetton can't quite put his finger on, the 64-year-old from Morgan said. He estimates he has been
  re-enacting for 29 or 30 years.
        He likes shooting the muzzle-loading rifles, and enjoys being in the mountains. In fact, he won a turkey at a shooting match, firing a
  bullet through a string that held the frozen bird. But firing rifles and mountain scenery are not the whole reason he is a re-enactor.
        "I just find their lifestyle very interesting. Basically, as I understand, they were beatniks or outcasts, didn't get along very well with
  society — of course, I do. And I have been very interested in the Indians and their cultures."
        Whetton wears buckskin pants and shirts that he makes himself.
        "The white man came out here from St. Louis wearing wool clothing, but they didn't last long in the mountains, and the haberdashers
  were few and far between. So, they would buy clothes from the Indians and trade for them," he said.
        He notes mountain men did most of their trapping in the late fall, because winter hides were better pelts, and that required them to
  splash through frigid water. "I've waded in streams in the winter with a pair of moccasins on, and I tell you, those guys earned every nickel
  they got in their lives."
        Annie Crawford, a k a Many Bells for her bell-covered leather dress, has been recreating the early 19th century for the past 11 years,
  along with her husband and four children. All of them enjoy the experience, and they're learning arts of another era.
        "If you ask one of my kids to start a fire with flint and steel, they could do it," she noted.
        She gave this description of making a buckskin or elk-skin shirt:

        First, all the flesh must be scraped from the inside of the hide. "Elk takes much longer than a deer because it's so big," she said.
        Then the hair is scraped or burned off the outside. "The Indians would burn it with ash, and they were very good at it. I'm not that good
  at it. We burn it off with lime, with a lime and water solution."
        Next step is to use the animal's brains to cure the rawhide. "They say that every animal has enough brain matter to tan its own hide,"
  Crawford said.
        "You have to kind of mash up the brains, but we put them in a food processor or blender." Water is added to the material, and the hide
  is soaked in the solution for about two hours.
        Finally, the re-enactors sew the hide onto a frame and work the leather. "You have to scrape it with the back of a knife or something,"
  she said. "We use a sharpened spoon."
        The entire family works on this stage, taking all day for an elk hide. The kids think this is great fun.
        They hang the hide on a tripod over a smouldering fire, so the smoke will cure it and make it waterproof — one hour for each side.
        Finally, the work begins of cutting out the pieces to make pants or a shirt. She will either lace it with long, thin strips of hide, or sew it
  together with sinew and special needles for leatherworking.
        Once it is finished, leather clothing is sure to last a long time. "Scott's had a pair of pants eight years," Crawford said.
        What's so interesting about such a difficult life?
        "I don't know," she said. "You wouldn't think it would be, but it's a very family event." About 15 years ago, it was almost entirely a
  masculine advocation. But now more women and children are involved.
        "I guess a lot of it is the primitive skills that you develop. You have to cook over a fire. You camp in a teepee or a tent."
        The laudable ethics of an earlier period seem to prevail. When they go to a rendezvous where no "flat-landers" or tourists are allowed,
  "I can let my kids run and not worry at all about where they are or what they're doing."
        The children learn to respect the privacy of others in encampments and to make and trade items, Crawford said.
        "They've learned that you have to be honest for other people to be honest with you."