Bill Casselman, new member, says goodbye!

Ah, that should keep ossobuco frowning the rest of the day.

My Stetson's off to you, Farmerman. I learned more in five minutes of careful reading than I normally learn in an entire Sunday. Which today is. So, happy Sunday everybody. Relax. Read the Sunday newspaper. Do the crossword. Have another cuppa. That's what I'm a-gonna do.

uhh did you see Reyns thread about a guy drinking coffee and , uhhh, "multitasking" in an Ontario Timmy Hortons?

We didnt drive Bill over the edge did we?

The downy undercoat of the beaver was so highlty prized that it made the Hudson's Bay Company rich, as well as traders in Montreal and Americans on the Missouri River system. The Injuns would use the pelts as carpets in their lodges, or sew them loosely together for capes, and use them for about two years, which would cause the long, stiff "guard hairs" to fall out. This produced the "made beaver" pelt, which was what the aboriginals traded. At York Factory (in the 17th century, a "factory" was just the place at which a factor--an agent--worked) on Hudson's Bay, 23 made beaver pelts would purchase an HBC musket, a cleaning kit, two pounds of lead, a bullet mold and a small keg of fine grained black powder. At the very beginning of the 18th century, a young coureur du bois in the employ of the Company travelled all the way to the Bitterroot range in what is now Idaho. There, that same musket, without the extras, sold for 200 made beaver pelts. Capitalism comes natural to all humans.

Prince Albert shot the whole process to Hell when he appeared in a silk hat at the great exposition in 1851 (the one at which the schooner America took the sailing prize, and the America's Cup was created). The Hudson's Bay Company has managed to survive (335 years and still going strong), but the boys in Montreal and on the Missouri had to find real work.

Farmerman
Farmerman, Sweater manufacturers are combining Merino wool and a synthetic fiber to create machine washable and dryable Merino wool sweaters. I have a bunch of them and like them. They keep you warm in the winter and save on dry cleaning bills.

I also have several machine washable suede jackets that I like. Saves the high cost of professional suede cleaning. I don't know how they treat the suede so you can toss it is the washing machine and dryer, but it comes out like new.

Another thing I don't understand is how the new stretchable suede is made. It is more comfortable to wear.

BBB

we dont kill nothin to make coats. We kill em to eat em. Dont know nothin bout suede. My wife mixes lots of diff fibres with wool, she even tried some Goretex once.

Cotton and wool blends are really hot for light soft coats

PS, my wife washes all our wool sweaters by hand, its just a slow agitation in a wool soap. We dont like the Perchlor smell on dry cleaned stuff.

that's where the expression "mad as a hatter" (as in the Mad Hatter) came from, i believe. too much mercury is a hazard to the central nervous system.

Ah, Goretex, the miracle material. Breathable, yet sheds water. Unfortunately, not both at the same time. In rain, the water forms a film on the fabric, interfering with the breathablity. In cold weather, it works until condensate from your perspiration forms a similar film. I've heard of no failures of the breathablilty function in hot, dry weather, however.

I did have a very functional goretex parka, at one time. It worked because of an engineering marvel called "pit zips". I wouldn't buy a rain jacket without them.

I can confirm that, Roger.

We've got these fancy, smancy raincoats for our meter reading uniforms, and they work, to a point. The heavier ones make you sweat inside if it warms up a bit.

Can't seem to win.

Theyd use mercuric nitrate to "carrot" or "full" a beavers fur, since the scaele were much finer and the process involved fulling washing and then actually Shaving the finished felt so it was smooth and relatively thin. beaver had a nice sheen. Nowadays we know the chemistry so well that we can merely adjust the pH of the fur being felted and the scales open and close by slight adjustments in the washes.


Set, there was a whole Cable TV series of a trip these young fellas took on a York Boat up the Saskatchewan and Nelson Rivers to York Factory Historic Site. Took em most of the late spring and summer and it was sleeting by the time they reached Hudson Bay.
Theonly thing I missed was , Where the hell did they start? I dont know where was the traditional embarkation point to carry supplies (hint hint)

This thread has taken a delightful detour.

Billy would be proud, eh?

Gore gave us a bunch of loose "wind stoppers" for Northern Expeditionary stuff. If you put on enough layers so the goretex actually acts like a Tyvex cover on a house, It works real fine. I like em for real cold weather over top everything else. Otherwise, your right you sweat then freeze to death.
Gore, being a spin off from Dupont had its primary use of their stuff for cable windings not clothing. The goretex boots and coats and stuff came later and , Im prod to say, my guys helped" test" some of it ( I wouldnt go out and spend my own money on the clothes or shoes, they are waay to pricey for what you get)

We had some goose hunters in our fields last week all dressed up in gazillion dollar camoe, and it started raining , so these guys all hopped into 15 cent "garbage bag ponchos" > You take a black 30 gal plastic zip loc garbage bag and make a hole in the top and stick your entire gazillion dollar outfit ted being into it.
Looked like a puppet show out in the back field.

ANYBODY remember CORFAM?

reyn said
yeh but Ill bet he woulda fit right in like a guy that fits right in

...or, maybe he would just check the bottom of his shoes?

HBC would resupply directly from Merry Old, with "the Spring Fleet" (although for much of their history it was but a single ship). In late winter, they'd sail for the Scots islands (Hebrides, Shetlands, etc.) where they'd recruit. The Royal Navy also recruited there, with no local authority to interfer with the press gangs, and sufficient Marines in a squadron to overawe the locals. The Scots of the islands were a hardy lot, wresting a bare living from the land and sea. The Royal Navy would take no one under 5'4"--so HBC populated the interior of Canada with short, tough Scots.

They'd shoot for arrival in the Davis Straits in late April, and then into Hudson's Bay and down to York Factory, then south to the factory at Churchill, and finally they'd meet a convoy of canoes in James Bay, before heading back to England. They'd need to be off before the end of July to be sure they could make the Davis Straits again before the weather closed in.

There was a Scots doctor at Montreal who used to walk great distances in the interior. He once walked from York Factory to Montreal in under two weeks, arriving in time to bathe and dress for a dinner engagement on the Saturday. He was the one who found the remains of the Franklin expedition. He followed the logic of the Slave Indians when taking long trips overland--he'd take some pemmican for the nutritional value, and for the rest, fire arms and ammunition--he'd take a band of young men who'd hunt as they marched. If i recall or can find his name, i'll post it.

My rain jackey has those pit zips. Very comfy.


I am so impressed with Mrs. Farmerman and her felting work. That is so cool that you appreciate her art, Mr. F, and know enough to wow us with it.

Setanta
Setanta, I found this re Dr. John Rae.---BBB

http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/learning/ebooks/Adventurers/Adventurers-Ch3.pdf

John Rae finds the remains of the Franklin Expedition.

-----------------------------------------------

Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot
by Ken McGoogan

"In June 1833, in the rugged Orkney Islands of northern Scotland, a restless, energetic young ship's doctor stood on the deck of a weather-beaten fur-trading..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com

In the spring of 1854, John Rae, a Scottish immigrant to Canada, led a small party of explorers across the Boothia Peninsula to map the missing link in the fabled Northwest Passage. That signal accomplishment, along with Rae's other contributions to Canadian and world geography, should have earned him glory. Instead, Ken McGoogan tells us, Rae faded from the record.

Rae's trouble, McGoogan writes, came from unpleasant reports that he filed about the fate of an earlier expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, whose remains he discovered along the way. Lost "in a hummocky wasteland of yawning crevasses and ten-foot pressure ridges assailed by blizzards and blowing snow," the unfortunate party--or so Inuit hunters reported to Rae--resorted to eating the dead. The news scandalized Victorian society, drawing vigorous objections from none other than Charles Dickens, who argued that proper British heroes were incapable of such acts and had to have been done in by the Inuit themselves. Rae, the messenger, was effectively killed by the tidings he brought, and written out of the history books. In this insightful and adventure-packed book, McGoogan restores Rae's name to the long roster of heroes of Arctic exploration. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist and journalist McGoogan (Kerouac's Ghosts) combines deft storytelling with 19th-century period detail in this gripping account of "arguably the greatest Arctic explorer of the century." McGoogan shows how Rae became a Scottish hero by solving the two great mysteries of 19th-century Arctic exploration: "he discovered both the fate of the Franklin expedition and the final navigable link in the Northwest Passage, at last connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the top of North America." But the bulk of the book details how this accomplishment was unjustifiably turned against Rae.

Although Sir John Franklin's earlier, 1845 attempt to find the final Northwest Passage link was "the most expensive naval expedition ever mounted" by England, it ended with the mysterious disappearance of Franklin and his entire crew. During Rae's later, successful expedition, he found proof that Franklin's crew was dead and had cannibalized their dying mates in a failed attempt to survive. When Franklin's wealthy widow, Lady Jane, began a smear campaign against Rae, she enlisted the help of Charles Dickens to write articles arguing that the Inuit "savages" who had helped Rae discover the bodies must have been the cannibals. McGoogan's extensive research reveals compelling evidence that Franklin's crew and not the Inuits were cannibals.

Although Rae's accomplishments were not fully appreciated in his time, McGoogan's fascinating account should help to give Rae his rightful place in the history of Arctic explorations.

Good work Aunt Bee--that's the boy. He's more fascinating for his innovations in arctic exploration method than the discovery of the remains of the Franklin expedition. I don't know, but i suspect he didn't care a damn about Lady Franklin's smear campaign.

sounds like a good read. Im a sucker for expeditions. I hope our little library has this book.

Who is Bill Casselman anyway, and why does he think he is exempt from following the rules? I don't think anyone is being mean. Just a little miffed maybe at the man for daring to insult our site and our mods.