- Pioneer Handbooks is on-air now.

Craig Meade of Pioneer Handbooks joins John Milandred of Pioneerliving.net on his radio show "Pioneering Your Way to Freedom", for a 90 minute podcast about how-to, DIY and recipes from the pioneers and settlers of the 1800s.

We talk about where these books come from and how to use them.  With a few DIY instructions thrown in based upon pine resin, the pioneer and settler Swiss-army-knife of substances.

I also tell a couple stories about what it was like directing a TV series called Colonial House - which saw a family of five live in the year 1853 for two months.

You can listen with the player below or download the show as a podcast from iTunes with the player's iTunes button.

Listen to internet radio with Preppers Podcast Radio on Blog Talk Radio

Thanks for listening!  Please be sure to visit John's website and podcast again.  He's always got a great show lined up and is a true living pioneer.
 
[The podcast server is getting a lot of traffic (50,000+ people) so pls come back later if it's not firing up for you.]

- How to make historic hardtack.

The new Survival Tomes blog has a great recipe for hardtack.

Hardtack was a common Civil War ration.

It was basically a large cracker, that was variously left to go stale, mildewy, infested with weevils, tainted by gunpowder, turpentine and oil and generally abused before it was finally handed over to the soldier as a main component of his rations.

It was not a popular food by any means and usually needed to be soaked before it could be eaten. 





Union Hardtack Recipe (source)

Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
1/2 to 3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon of Crisco or vegetable fat
6 pinches of salt

Directions: 
 “Mix the ingredients together into a stiff batter, knead several times, and spread the dough out flat to a thickness of 1/2 inch on a non-greased cookie sheet. Bake for one-half an hour at 400 degrees. Remove from oven, cut dough into 3-inch squares, and punch four rows of holes, four holes per row into the dough. Turn dough over, return to the oven and bake another one-half hour. Turn oven off and leave the door closed. Leave the hardtack in the oven until cool. Remove and enjoy!”

Hardtack reappeared as a ration in WW1 and WW2, so it has a long history of feeding soldiers.

What was good about hardtack was that it could take huge amounts of abuse and still be a useable food.  It was very very durable.

I think the Survival Tomes blog has great promise.  It plans to focus on explaining the basic things a survivalist has to know how to do - like chop a tree down.   So it could be worth keeping an eye on.

Thank you for the link Mr. Tome.

[And thank you to the US National Park Service for the hardtack image.]

- How to make a trench fire.

Campfires are finicky beasts.  Imagine having to live by and cook with campfires every night for six months or more as a settler heading west in a covered wagon. 

You'd be starting from scratch every single night thinking how is our fuel supply, where is the wind coming from and how strong, how long since it has rained, is it too damp and the fire will struggle, is it too dry and I might risk a prairie fire, are strangers going to see my fire tonight?

There was one type of campfire that the pioneers and settlers knew about that gave them a degree of control over all of these pressing issues.

It was known as a trench fire and with some updating it is one of the most powerful campfire techniques around. 

It is also one of the simplest. This entry appears in the Prairie Traveler book of 1861:

"A great saving in fuel may be made by digging a trench about two feet long by eight inches in width and depth; the fires are made in the bottom of the trench, and the cooking utensils placed upon the top, where they receive all the heat.  This plan is especially recommended for windy weather, and it is convenient at all times.  The wood should be cut short, and split into small pieces."

To really get the most out of a trench fire the description above needs to be improved on. 

You should dig the trench so it is parallel with the wind flow. 

The downwind half of the trench will be for cooking, the upwind half of the trench will be for feeding fuel and air to the fire . 

Dig the trench so the base slopes downwards to the cooking end of the trench, which will draw the prevailing wind down into the fire creating a bellows effect.

Do not block up the end of your trench with your pot, leave a gap so hot air and smoke can escape.


You can line the base of the trench with stones to store heat and protect the fire from any dampness in the soil.

The sides of a trench fire can give way, particularly after the soil has been dried by the heat.  So rather than place your cooking pots directly on the trench you should use green logs or even better, some kind of metal cross support.

If digging is not possible, the same effect can be had by building a fire in between two parallel logs.

• A trench fire is not only protected from the wind, it takes advantage of it.  

• The likelihood of embers being blown into nearby brush is much reduced.  

• It burns much hotter with a smaller amount of fuel.  

• It saves the heat up so can keep on cooking after most of the fuel has been used.  

• Wet timber in the mouth of the trench can be baked dry before it gets to the fire.  

• And it's not particularly visible at night.

This fire can also disappear real fast if you want it to, leaving hardly any trace it ever existed.

Other how-to and DIY from the pioneers and settlers can be found at Pioneer Handbooks.  If you are interested in camping like a pioneer, you can download this chapter for free.

Even if you never plan to make your own trench fire, you can still hit the Facebook Like button below and save this how-to from disappearing into history

It's easy enough to do and a good way to keep this knowledge alive.

- "How" the settlers communicated....

We've all seen it on TV and in films and some of us have even read it in books... 

The cowboy and the American Indian ride up to each other and each raises his right hand, palm outwards, and says "How".

It was like a universal greeting that seemed to work all over the west no matter who used it or what tribe was involved.

But was it true?  Did that hand sign exist and is that what it meant?

The Prairie Traveler book was written in 1858 as a guide for people heading into the west in covered wagons.  It's full of information that prospective settlers in the west needed to know.

One of the things it teaches is sign language for meeting American Indians for the first time.

"On approaching strangers these people put their horses at full speed, and persons not familiar with their peculiarities and habits might interpret this as an act of hostility; but it is their custom with friends as well as enemies, and should not occasion groundless alarm".

This kind of mock challenge during a first meeting is ethnographically common around the world. Particularly in Polynesia, where new visitors are always treated to an invitation to do battle as part of the welcoming ceremony.

For the Great Plains People, a fine charging display of horsemanship probably communicated a lot about their values and interests.

"When a party is discovered approaching thus, and are near enough to distinguish signals, all that is necessary in order to ascertain their disposition is to raise the right hand with the palm in front and gradually push it forward and back several times".

The classic "How" moment just like the TV, books and films depict!

"They all understand this to be a command to halt, and if they are not hostile it will at once be obeyed".

Alas, there is no "How" moment.  A right hand raised with palm outwards meant exactly what it means today... Stop.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Other hand signs in use included:

Who are you?..

"the right hand is raised again as before, and slowly moved to the right and left"

Are you friends?..

"they may be asked if they are friends by raising both hands grasped in the manner of shaking hands, or by locking the two fore-fingers firmly while the hands are held up"

Anger...

"give the signal of anger by closing the hand, placing it against the forehead, and turning it back and forth while in that position"

The American Indians could also communicate their tribal names in sign language.

Comanche:

"represented by making with the hand a waving motion in imitation of the crawling of a snake"

Cheyenne:

"by drawing the hand across the arm, to imitate cutting it with a knife"

Arapaho:

"by seizing the nose with thumb and fore-finger"

Sioux:

"by drawing the hand across the throat"

Pawnee:

"by placing a hand on each side of the forehead, with two fingers pointing to the front, to represent the narrow, sharp ears of the wolf"

 Crow:

"by imitating the flapping of the bird's wings with the palms of the hands"

The U.S. Army officer who wrote the Prairie Traveler had more than ten years of experience working in the western United States in the mid-1800's and he met and worked with many American Indians, so this list of hand signs is probably quite authoritative.

For those who are great fans of the kind of Western story that features cowboys and Indians Howing each other whenever they meet, we can pull one part of that legend out of the fire.

It's the word "How".  Or more correctly "Hau".  From the Lakota/Dakota Sioux language.  It means hello.  Just like the stories say it should. 

Further information about how the pioneers and settlers lived can be found at the Pioneer Handbooks library.

If you'd like to rescue this story from history, you can use the Facebook Like button below to give it a whole new life.

It's easy enough to do and a great way to keep these stories alive.

- What pioneers smoked.

For the most part the pioneers and settlers of the 1800s smoked tobacco just like people today.

But tobacco wasn't the only thing they smoked and in times of need they knew about botanic replacements for tobacco that they could turn to.

In 1857 Capt. Randolph B. Marcy was leading a contingent of U.S. Army soldiers that had to cross the Rocky Mountains in winter and without supplies.

He recounts that experience in his book The Prairie Traveler and tells of a tobacco substitute that they used.

"In this destitute condition we found a substitute for tobacco in the bark of the red willow, which grows upon many of the mountain streams in that vicinity.  The outer bark is first removed with a knife, after which the inner bark is scraped up into ridges around the sticks, and held in the fire until it is thoroughly roasted, when it is taken off the stick, pulverized in the hand, and is ready for smoking.  It has the narcotic properties of the tobacco, and is quite agreeable to the taste and smell."

Red willow, more commonly known as red osier dogwood, can be found growing anywhere from Alaska to Virginia and across to California. 

The Native Americans had many uses for red willow and one of them was smoking red willow bark.

Red willow along with a few other herbs is what was smoked in the famous Native American peace pipes.

Collectively these herbs were called Kinnikinnick.

Other plants that were smoked by the Native Americans as well as the pioneers and settlers include: bearberry, silky cornel, bunchberry, evergreen sumac, littleleaf sumac, red sumac, arrowroot, laurel, ironwood, wahoo, squaw huckleberry, Jamestown weed, black birch, cherry bark, corn and mullein.


Capt. Marcy earned considerable recognition for leading his men on his mid-winter unsupplied crossing of the Rockies without losing a single man.  It was a great feat of heroism, leadership and perseverance. 

During Marcy's career he undoubtedly had to sit down to smoke the peace pipe many times, so he would have had a good working knowledge of red willow and how to smoke it.

In recognition of his great experience on the western frontier, Marcy was selected by the U.S. Army to write The Prairie Traveler.  It quickly became an indispensable guidebook for every family heading west on the covered wagon trails.

You can visit the Pioneer Handbooks library for a collection of free downloadable how-to and DIY from the settlers and pioneers.

If you think their ways of doing things are worth remembering, then use the buttons below to like us on Facebook and send this pioneer knowledge on a trip around the globe.

- 1861 Prairie Traveler - Wagon Planning

A new download is available at Pioneer Handbooks.

1861 Prairie Traveler - Wagon Planning

This chapter from the historic Prairie Traveler book provides planning instructions for westbound settler and pioneer families traveling  the major covered wagon train routes and trails of the 1850s.  The directions include organization of the wagon train, wagon design, the use of mules and oxen as wagon teams, stores and provisions to take and how to pack them for the trail, substitutes in times of emergency and the clothing, equipment and weapons that would be required.

The great rush west had already begun when this Prairie Traveler book was commissioned by the US Army.  It was written to inform and prepare people who would be loading their families into covered wagons and heading west.  Too many covered wagons had been found burned to the axles, settler and pioneer families slaughtered on the trail.  Too many instances of starvation and deprivation had happened due to lost and ill prepared wagon families.  This book was written to make a perilous trail journey safer and to help more pioneer and settler families colonize the west.

Today the Prairie Traveler book is considered to be a masterpiece of exploration literature and one of the most important books written during and about America’s westward expansion.  The Prairie Traveler is a handbook about how to travel and explore with a covered wagon train, and a reliable snapshot of life for America’s pioneer and settler families en route to the frontier.

- What pioneers ate.

What the pioneers and settlers ate while they were conquering the frontier and before they put down roots is a persistent question.  The best answer doesn't come from the pioneers and settlers but from the gold rush miners.

The gold miners of the 1800's are often overlooked when we think about pioneers and settlers.

This is because they didn't often hang around long enough in one place to contribute to the fabric of the community and to take a named place in history.  They came and then they left.

But the gold miners of the Californian, then Australian, then New Zealand, then South African and then Yukon / Klondike gold rushes were incredible pioneers facing hardships on a scale that few other pioneers or settlers would face.

Why?  Because the places they settled weren't selected for habitability.  They weren't chosen for favoring crops, livestock or game.

Gold miners had to go where the gold was without regard for how marginal life was going to be when they got there.

They had to carry almost everything they needed in order to be fully self-sufficient on arrival.

The food the miners took with them to the most remote gold fields gives us a great snapshot of what was considered to be the minimum food requirements for a man or woman hacking out an existence on the frontiers of the 1800's.

Nowhere was that more true than on the Klondike.

The food and equipment lists for the Klondike gold rush are the most comprehensive because the Klondike was easily the most remote of the major gold fields and it promised the most treacherous of conditions.

And thanks to an unusual gold rush law that governed the miners we have a very good idea of the kind of foods and the amounts of food that supported them while they worked the gold fields.

The Klondike gold field was at least 500 miles into the Canadian wilderness, depending upon the route of travel.  For some it was much much longer.

So regular supplies were not going to be arriving in the Klondike and everybody had to fend for themselves.

A recommended year's supply of food from The Klondike Official Guide of 1898 consisted of:

450 pounds of flour
50 pounds of oatmeal
25 pounds of cornmeal
250 pounds of good fat bacon
50 pounds of hams
25 pounds of dried apples
25 pounds of dried peaches
25 pounds of tea
10 pounds of coffee
100 pounds of sugar
120 pounds of beans
10 pounds of barley
15 pounds of rice
6 pounds extract of beef
12 pounds of baking powder
30 pounds of salt
1 pound of pepper
1 pound of mustard
12 pounds of compressed vegetables
30 pounds of canned fruits
24 pounds of jam
10 pounds of baking soda
35 pounds of dried potato and onion

The Canadian Government had the foresight to require that every miner heading into the Klondike be equipped and provisioned to be self-sufficient for a full year.  If a miner wasn't traveling with at least one ton of equipment and food he would be turned around at a checkpoint.

It's attractive to think the miners supplemented this diet with hunting and trapping.  But the same book warns that game was so scarce in the Yukon that having fresh meat during the year was unlikely.

The extra nutritional requirements for living at sub-zero temperatures have been accounted for in this list and the volume of food was increased by 50% above what would be needed in a more temperate climate.

Getting this amount of food and equipment to the Klondike gold fields was a monumental task.

Two common routes were over White Horse Pass and the Chilkoot Pass of the Boundary Ranges and then another 500 miles by boat along lakes and rivers.

To get over these passes early miners had to split their one ton load and carry it in 50 to 60 pound packs.  They would cache each pack by the side of the track after covering five miles and return for another load. 

It's said that they covered 80 miles on foot for every mile that their food and equipment progressed down the trail. 

A common estimation is that 100,000 people set out for the Klondike, 40,000 made it there and only 4000 struck gold. 

The Klondike gold rush lasted little over a year and then it was over.

The Klondike became known for destitution, failed dreams and misery to such a degree that "Ah, go to the Klondike!" was a popular way to express disgust across the United States and Canada.

Further information about how the pioneers and settlers lived can be found at the Pioneer Handbooks library.

If you'd like to rescue this story of the Klondike gold rush from history, you can use the Facebook Like button below to give it a whole new life.

It's easy enough to do and a great way to keep these stories alive.

- How settlers cured snakebite.

Snakebite was a significant problem for the pioneers and settlers as they headed into the frontier. 

Even today it's estimated that more than a million people a year are killed by snakebite around the globe.

In western countries we have antivenin so it's pretty rare for somebody to die of snakebite.  But across Africa and Asia they are still using snakebite cures not that different to the treatments the pioneers and settlers of the 1800s relied on.

The 1861 Prairie Traveler book features a handful of state of the art snakebite treatments that colonial people could use.

It was written by Capt Randolf Marcy of the US Army in 1859 as a handbook of instructions for colonists who were heading west in covered wagons.  Today it is considered to be one of the most important books ever written about the the lives of pioneers and settlers.

The book's snakebite treatments range from the obvious to the insane.  But in truth, none of them are as crazy as they seem.

Use Alcohol:  "It must be taken until the patient becomes very much intoxicated, and this requires a large quantity, as the action of the poison seems to counteract its effects". 

In short, get the victim as blazingly drunk as you can.

This is a movie classic of course.  But even today alcohol and snakebite go together like rum and coke.  A large proportion of the present-day snakebite victims that arrive at US hospitals are drunk.  And male.  And young.  And usually bitten on the hand or fingers while trying to pick up the snake or kill it.

Use Plantain and Tobacco: "placing the wounded finger in her mouth, (she) sucked the poison from the puncture for some minutes, repeatedly spitting out the saliva; after which she chewed and mashed some plantain leaves and applied to the wound.  Over this she sprinkled some finely-powdered tobacco, and wrapped the finger up in a rag".

For the Native Americans and settlers plantain had more medicinal functions than can ever be listed.  In some Native American languages its name meant "Life Medicine" and it was used for almost everything.  Its use in snakebite treatment was so well known to the pioneers and settlers that plantain was commonly known as "snakeweed".  These days we know that plantain is full of a chemical called Aucubin, which is a powerful anti-toxin.

Tobacco has been used as a kind of poultice for stings but a more common use is as a coagulant on wounds.  It stops bleeding fast and that's probably how it is being used in the plantain/tobacco  snakebite treatment.

Use Hartshorn: "Hartshorn applied externally to the wound, and drunk in small quantities diluted with water whenever the patient becomes faint or exhausted from the effects of the poison".

Hartshorn or "hart's horn" are the horns of the male red deer.  Shavings of the horns could be made into oil of hartshorn, salt of hartshorn and spirit of hartshorn, all of which feature ammonia as the active ingredient.

True hartshorn was replaced by other compounds of ammonia that didn't require the rare horns of a red deer stag.  The pioneers and settlers of the 1800s almost certainly would have been carrying hartshorn salt with them, or baker's ammonia.  It was the baking powder of the day and is probably the version of hartshorn being recommended in this snakebite cure. It can still be purchased as  a baking ingredient.

Use a Turtle: "The blood of the turtle was much cried up, which, on account of this extraordinary virtue, the inhabitants dry in the form of small scales or membranes, and carry about them when they travel in this country... Whenever any one is wounded by a serpent, he takes a couple of pinches of the dried blood internally, and applies a little of it to the wound".

Not much to be said really.  You can buy a bottle of turtle blood at any Walmart store in China.  Where 1.3 billion people consider turtle blood to be second only to deer penis for its health giving properties.  This particular snakebite cure comes from Africa and it's almost certain that there's somebody in Africa using this remedy as you read this.

Use lots of Chickens: "An incision having been made in the breast of a living fowl, the bitten part is applied to the wound.  If the poison be very deadly, the bird soon evinces symptoms of distress, becomes drowsy, droops its head, and dies.  It is replaced by a second, a third, and more if requisite.  When, however, the bird no longer exhibits any of the signs just mentioned, the patient is considered to be out of danger.  A frog similarly applied is supposed to be equally efficacious".

It makes you wonder how many people passed away staring at chicken #3 strapped to their thigh.

What's mind-blowing is that modern science shows that this remedy would appear to work most of the time.  Indeed, all of these snakebite remedies would seem to work most of the time.

The people who recommended and used these treatments were not fools. They were as smart as us.  And they were as interested in evidence-based outcomes as we are. 

What they didn't know is that venomous snakes are careful with their venom.  Making venom is too physiologically expensive to squander it in every bite.  So snakes use it sparingly.

Most bites from venomous snakes don't involve venom.

When they do use venom, most of the time it's less than a lethal dose.

Most snakebites aren't from venomous snakes. 

And a good number of venomous snakes aren't actually deadly.

Which means that most of the snakebite victims who have used the Boer three-chicken-cure for snakebite have probably survived.  [Providing they didn't get some kind of sepsis from mating their open wound with a chicken's.]

To the pioneers and settlers, these treatments appeared to work.  They were valid and validated.

The point of this blog post isn't to reveal crazy and quaint approaches to snakebite treatment.  The point is that even the crazy and quaint actually make some kind of sense in the light of what was known at the time.  Context matters.

You can visit the Pioneer Handbooks library for a collection of free downloadable how-to and DIY from the settlers and pioneers.

These snake bite cures and more can be found in the Prairie Traveler chapter on pack mules.

If you think the pioneer and settler ways of doing things are worth remembering, then use the buttons below to like us on Facebook and send these historic snakebite cures on a trip around the globe.

[Safety notes:  Leave snakes alone and they'll leave you alone.  Don't even bother trying to kill them, just walk away.  If you get bitten go to a hospital.  If you are serious about the outdoors, learn first aid for your locality as different types of snakebite require different first aid treatments.]

- How the pioneers went west.

Anybody who is interested in how the pioneers and settlers lived is going to appreciate this map.

Printed in 1861 it shows all the major wagon train routes into the west.

This map comes from The Prairie Traveler book, which was the definitive guide for settlers heading into the western frontier.

The names of some of these routes are still well known...

The Oregon Trail
The Santa Fe Trail
The California Trail.

What has been forgotten is how complex this interlinked network of trails was.

But of course it wasn't the European settlers and pioneers that created this network.

They didn't hack these trails out of the wilderness.

These wagon trails are almost all based on traditional Native American trails and animal migration trails.  Often they were one in the same.

A person in the year 1300 could have traveled these routes, just like people did in the 1800's.

I haven't placed this map on top of a modern map, but I would bet that a lot of these routes still exist today with less romantic names like State Highway 101.

The Prairie Traveler is considered to be the most important book in the history of the westward expansion.  It provided day by day itineraries for someone traveling any of these trails.  It detailed where to find water, where to find grass and wood, where to camp and when to be armed against 'Indians'.

Over the next few weeks we will be making large parts of this historic book available for download at PioneerHandbooks.com.

If you are a descendant of one of these pioneering people, or if you live in the west, this is a map of how you got to where you are.

You can save it from history by hitting the Facebook Like button below and sending it on a digital trip around the globe.

It's easy enough to do and a great way to keep this knowledge alive.