Wednesday, March 16, 2016

mountain man myth 1 of 2-post 1 of 2 today


MOUNTAIN MAN MYTH

Let’s talk about lone wolf survivalism and the need for community.  Well, specifically the need for both and the dangers of both.  We all know that nobody except the most die-hard Stone Age practitioner can completely go it alone ( and, I’d wager that while it sounds good to go Stone Age as it alone is 100% self-sufficient, both scavenging and Ratchet Tech would in the end spell their demise as better armed hunters and gatherers invaded their territory-akin to the Neanderthals getting the short end of the Darwinian beatin’ stick ).  The Idaho dude that went Galt during the Great Depression, while able to feed himself and smelt his own metal for black powder rifles, still had to pan gold to come into town for the half dozen articles he needed from civilization.  I can’t remember them exactly as I read the book in the mid to late 80’s and the last time I checked on a used copy it seemed excessively priced ( just like the book on the Dallas fellow who killed FedGov agents in my neck of the woods ).  Although, I must say, for as often as I bring The Last Mountain Man up, I really should rethink getting another copy.  I’m sure salt was one of them, and I thought something for his rifles.  Anyway, you get my point.  A far more dedicated and trained ( he was an engineer ) individual than you or I ever will be still had to interact with society for trade. 

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The old timey mountain men  had no choice but to disappear into the wilds in search of the hairy gold that was their livelihood.  Due to the distances involved you had to live out alone in the middle of nowhere.  Okay, sure, there were Indians around.  Not that they took kindly to Honky’s trespassing, so those folks offered no support or trade opportunities.  But, they didn’t exactly support themselves other than with game meat.  They weren’t out there for anything other than to mine treasure and return.  They needed to return both to get paid and replenished.  They were far from self-sufficient.  So, obviously, nobody but glossy paper survivalist magazine writers thought hiking into the wilderness with just a backpack was a brilliant idea ( I’m specifically recalling a Soldier Of Fortune offspring survival magazine in the early 80’s ).  Living off the land with minimalist supplies was never a serious teaching or study of survivalism ( at least, not one that ever stood the test of time before being debunked.  Which it was been on a regular basis and will continue to be forever more until we get the real Apocalypse and in a thousand years archeologists from the first new post-Dark Age empire will discover all the corpses strung along all the old asphalt roads leading into the mountains and wonder what kind of idiot goes to live in an area that didn’t support all that many predators beforehand ). 

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Yet, that is what today’s experts use to try to convince you that you need to stay behind in civilization and support a village on freeze dried foods.  You can’t backpack into the woods and survive, they say ( the abortion clinic bomber that did so a few years back and eluded capture for a very long time in the Eastern woods raided dumpsters for food as a resupply tactic ).  Lone Wolf Survivalists never survive on their own since no one can be skilled enough to survive alone, they say.  You need to sleep sometime, they say.  All very well and good, I say.  They are not incorrect.  They are just incomplete.  Again with the on/off, either/or, black/white.  You need to do both, lone wolf and belonging to a community, to survive.  It ain’t rocket surgery.  Because while being on your own does indeed blow and is indeed fraught with dangers, the sad fact of the matter is that groups are not just beneficial.  They are also very dangerous.  Supporting a community through the collapse is not viable due to resource constraints.  Instead of taking a community through the looking glass with you, you need to form one afterwards.  After the collapse.  More in tomorrows article.

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9 comments:

  1. "Instead of taking a community through the looking glass with you, you need to form one afterwards."
    ============

    Precisely!
    I've been talking to my only tribe member about this. We are both frustrated that the others in our small community have their heads in their asses and are incapable of being trusted with the secret handshake at this time.

    Only recently did I remember that after the few hurricanes I've been through in Florida did people try to work together, not before. A persons mindset changes due to conditions.

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    1. Florida was a good idea, but flawed. Amongst other problems all the coast residents were Gott Damn Yankee transplants and very few Southerners. No helping/caring culture as per the rest of the region, breed out by the FedGov with thirty pieces of silver. Of course, all the angry Black ghettos were still there.

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  2. With regards to Sylvan Hart James, I don't know if you had an older out of print version, or the version in the link below? But I had heard that there was one copy floating around that was said to be an autobiography about him, but really only discussed the highlights of the area where he lived, and only briefly mentioned him. Even in the copy below, one reviewer is saying that it's bunk, and that even Sylvan Hart claimed that it was, and that a better book is "A River Went Out Of Eden" by Chana B. Cox. I honestly can't say because I've never had the book, but you should probably read the reviews before getting it.

    http://www.amazon.com/Last-Mountain-Men-Story-Solitary/dp/0960356665

    You bring up a good point with regards to the mountain men, but they were probably about as self sufficient as one could be, only having to enter civilised society annually. One fellow during the Victorian era hated that rigid society so much that he abandoned it to take on a Squaw and live naked amongst the Indians, and there's a book on his life:

    My Life as an Indian: The Story of a Red Woman and a White Man in the Lodges of the Blackfeet (1907)

    I do think that it would be great to have the stone age survival skills, and it would be a great ace to have up your sleeve come the collapse. Personally, I hate almost all people, and a group survival setting will not work for me, so I plan on going into stealth mode (i.e. pretend to be poor, starving, living in a shack, cache all supplies, etc). Most people have no ability to think outside of the box, and generally fall into two camps: The left that supports all the sick things that I find disgusting; GLBT's, feminists, etc. Or the neo-conservative right that want to build more prisons to throw more guys that get caught with marijuana into, support the police state, and wage endless wars on the other side of the globe to keep us “safe” here. I hate them both.

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    1. The preferred book you cite is $90 used, so I'll never read it. But thanks for the thought.

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  3. I'm not sure which book that you're referring to James? But I saw a paperback version of Last of the Mountain Men for $11.00 at that same link:

    http://www.amazon.com/Last-Mountain-Men-Story-Solitary/dp/0960356665

    And the other book, A River Went Out of Eden for $14.00 used.

    http://www.amazon.com/A-River-Went-Out-Eden/dp/0938530569/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=0RB22K1P5T9Z8XWZ4ED8

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    1. On the Eden book, I must have gotten another edition which wasn't linked to the one you refer to. So, thanks, this one is much more reasonable. LMM might only be $11 but with shipping it is a $15 book, and a short one at that. As I read it before, it isn't worth the price, to me.

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  4. Jim while The Mountain Man is a myth (except rare cases)a modern lone wolf has the advantage of cached supplies to extend his time alone. The advantage of this survival path is if he returns to a community it has proven its self . Most preformed groups will fail due to lack of compatibility, planning or skills. Post collapse groups will have a better chance as they are proven. A lone wolf or his pack can trade between groups and decide where they would fit best.

    I have little faith in group prepping it is futile. Hell even families can't agree on who's house and what to fix on holidays. If I join a group after it will be because I offer them something and they offer me something of equal value. If not I would be a trader between groups.

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    1. And most people who join a group pre-collapse have all the modern Oil Age generation split baggage. Yep, you only want the pick of the survivors.

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    2. Gary, excellent post. It would be interesting if you turned these thoughts into an article. (Hint, hint, hint.)

      Your post has made me think of a new criteria for family members.......

      ........If I can barely make it through Thanksgiving dinner with you and your quirks, you are NOT coming to my place in a disaster.

      Idaho Homesteader

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