Biboon / (It is) Winter 1999

Historical Resources:

Tired of the same old rendezvous food? Can't wait for the camp dog to come by and relieve you of the chore of finishing off whatever that was you fixed up to eat? Well, here's the perfect answer to your problems.

It's "History from the Hearth:   A Colonial Michilimackinac Cookbook" by Sally Eustice (Mackinac State Historic Parks, ISBN 0-911872-67-1, $24.95).
Eustice is a long time interpreter at Fort Michilimackinac with college level work in home economics. Her book is a blend of history, nutrition, and practical cooking all wrapped in a gorgeous book that highlights interior and exterior scenes at the fort.

The first two chapters review food on the frontier and basic 18th Century cooking methods. They set the stage for the mouthwatering recipes for: soups, main dishes, fish, breads, vegetables and fruits, desserts, beverages and miscellaneous items (jellies, rendered fats and herbal remedies).

There are historical notes and quotes scattered throughout the book. Drawings and photographs show historic dishes, eating and cooking utensils, and period dress.

An extensive bibliography, listing of historical gardening sources, and a glossary complete what is a must-have reference book for serious (or just hungry) reenactors of the 18th Century fur trade.

Beaver tail anyone?

Beaver Tail:  "We just hung it over the fire and the heat of the hot fat caused the skin to split and peel back.
After it is peeled, cut it up and boil with a pot of beans. Add salt and pepper, and chopped onion."

Fried Beaver Tail:  "Dredge slices of tail meat in seasoned flour and fry till tender.
Just remember not to serve it with tomato catsup. Tomatoes were considered poisonous in the 18th century and only used as ornamental plants. The catsups of the time were made of mushrooms and walnuts!"

The Portage Path: Kinnikinnick

In one of those odd twists of history, one of the major trade goods in the fur trade was tobacco.
First grown by Native Americans, tobacco, or asemaa as it is called by the Anishinabeg, is a sacred plant.
European settlement of the continent disrupted earlier Native American trading systems and the Anishinabeg and other tribes of the north west came to favor Brazilian tobacco imported by the North West Company and its rivals.
But Brazilian tobacco wasn't always available or a person's supply would run out. In that event people would resort to various traditional mixtures of herbs, leaves and bark to create what is generically known as kinnikinnick.
In some areas, bearberry is specifically known as kinnikinnick. The dried paddle shaped leaves of this low lying plant are used.
Frances Densmore noted that the Anishinabeg made a smoking mixture of bearberry (but she did not label it kinnikinnick) and the bark of red willow (red osier dogwood) or spotted willow. Also, the dried roots of an aster were used.

LaFrenierre has made an acceptable, sweet smelling mixture using sweet grass and red osier dogwood......... The dogwood bark is prepared as follows:   Scrape off the thin red outer bark using the back of a knife; then peel the green inner bark; let the inner bark dry (or roast in a pan or over a mesh of woven dogwood twigs); blend bark with sweet grass and finely chop.

"The older Indians made their own tobacco:   Peel that skin [of the twigs] off, save the skin and they get that inside and scrape that into a pan...and put it over the flame, hot coals, not a flame, and this stuff would get browner and browner, just as brown as tobacco and then they would grind it up. Must have tasted good because it smelled good."
Flora Whitebird, Fond du Lac Ban of Lake Superior Chippewa, oral history given in 1979.

Attempt to Make Historic Cariole Results in a Serviceable and Authentic Looking Toboggan

Winter camping needs winter transportation. Tempted by the cariole sketched in Wheeler's "Toast to the Fur Trade" I plunged ahead into virgin territory for my historic skills and created...well, a toboggan.
Catch me around camp and I'll provide the sorry details. But, here's how to build a serviceable toboggan.
Review sketch in "Toast", get detailed drawing by David Christofferson (from WOLC), read Densmore.
Materials:
Two planks of green (not kiln dried) ash, rough cut (split would be better but good luck finding this),8' long by 7 or inches wide by about 3/8" thick (not more than ½);
Pieces for cross braces.... I used ash, about 1" thick by 1-2" wide; length equals width of toboggan;
Rawhide for lacing; Rope or cordage.
My wood came from Society member John Kavanagh-Beltman-check with him or local mills. A cariole will need planks at least 14' long!

Hand-plane the first 3+ feet of the planks to a thickness of 1/4"-should be uniform to achieve a more even bend. Plane the rest to give it that overall hand planed look and to smooth the bottom.

A friend (one William Stewart) who lived in the NW Territories described a bending post he had seen----basically a tree stump of the appropriate diameter. I had an aspen log roughly 18" in diameter; dug a hole and anchored it in with about 3' sticking up. Flattened one side; attached a board running parallel to the flat side leaving room between it and the stump into which will be wedged the toboggan planks. Put a 2x4 in the ground at the point where the bottom of the toboggan's front curve will be-brace it well.

From John K-B I borrowed a large tin tube-roughly 6' long with a 8" diameter-planks just squeezed in; laid it over a fire at an angle; filled with a couple gallons of water (need more as it boils away); once boiling, insert planks [options: flat trough style boiler or steamer, heat directly over fire].

When planks are bendable, about a half-hour or more, take them one at a time to the bending stump. Wedge one end along the flat side of the stump, slowly bend until you can brace it against the 2/4, eye up the curve, clamp plank to the 2x4. Do the same with the other one. Good luck getting the curves to match-practice likely will make perfect as might a larger stump that more closely matches the desired curve. My curves are off and with a slight twist, but they still work. Let set for a couple days. You want the wood to dry and set.

Assembly:   Prepare cross braces-2 pieces on either side of front end (reinforce and protect), 1 at the lower part of curve, 1 at very back, 2-3 in between. Mine are rough formed using a knife; on all but the front pair, make a trough about ½-¾" in from both ends on the down side of the brace through which the side rope will run. Do NOT make a trough on the brace at the bottom of the curve. Prepare rawhide lacing to fit holes you'll soon be drilling .

Clamp cross braces in place. Drill holes (I used 3/16" bit) as follows: front pair-4 holes per plank and a 5th on the outside for the rawhide "holding" the curve; other braces-3 sets of 2 holes per plank running parallel to the plank (there are other patterns; see the toboggans referenced below). For the brace at the bottom of the curve: drill hole at ends for rope to pass through the plank and brace. Soak rawhide. Use rawhide to lace braces to planks. On the main braces, start on top of outside hole, come up on its paired hole, run over brace to next set of holes, repeat-this keeps the rawhide on the bottom in short runs parallel to the toboggan.

Use thicker lacing to connect the outside hole in front braces to the rope trough on the first brace past the bottom of the curve; this helps hold the curve. Take two lengths (about 6') of rope and make eye splice at one end of each; thread one through the hole in the brace at bottom of curve and then through the troughs; repeat on other side. Pull these relatively taut, tie the two lengths together at back of toboggan. Attach a pulling rope to the eyes; this arrangement allows you to pull up slightly on the toboggan and uses the brace to support the planks.

Wax the bottom with a chunk of beeswax and voila', a toboggan-traineau to the voyageurs and nobugidaban to the Anishinabe.

[Note: if you have time, go to the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN. They have several toboggans and a cariole made by Dave Christofferson on display.]

Joseph LaFrenierre

Apple Dumpling

One apple dish which the English prepare is as follows:   take an apple and pare it, make a dough of water, flour and butter. Roll it thin and enclose the apple in it. This is then bound in a clean linen cloth, put in a pot and boiled.
When done it is taken out, placed on table and served. While it is warm, the crust is cut on one side. Thereupon they mix butter and sugar, which is added to the apples;
Then the dish is ready. Peter Kalm, 1748 (in "History from the Hearth", Sally Eustice)

Among the Anishinabeg

"The first earth was called Ca'ca....The people who lived there were not wise....Then the spirit of the creator sent a man to teach them. This man was called ockabe'wis (messenger)....The first thing he taught them was how to make a fire means of a bow and a stick and a bit of decayed wood....He taught them how to boil meat in fresh birch bark. It was a long time before they had things as he wanted them, but after a while they were made comfortable by his help. They had no minds or ideas of their own, only to do as the ockabewis told them to do. This was long before Winabojo."

The ockabewis told them that they must fast and find out things by dreams and that if they paid attention to these dreams they would learn how to heal the sick. The people listened and fasted and found in dreams how to teach their children and do everything. The young men were taught that they must regulate their lives by dreams, they must live moral lives, be industrious, and be moderate in the use of tobacco when it should be given to them. They were especially taught that their minds would not be cleaer if they ate and drank too much....After a while Winabojo was born, but he had to do as the natives did." Odinigun in Frances Densmore's "Chippewa Customs"

At Day's End...

"Trout are taken by making holes in the ice in which are set lines and bait. These are often left for many days together, and in some places at the depth of fifty fathoms; for the trout having swallowed the bait, remains fast and alive till taken up. This fish, which is found of the weight from ten to sixty pounds and upward, constitutes the principal food of the inhabitants. When this fails they have recourse to maize, but this is very expensive. I bought more than a hundred bushels at forty livres per bushel. Money is rarely received or paid at Michilimackinac, the circulating medium consisting in furs and peltries." Alexander Henry, 1762

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