What to take trekking:
A trek in the sense of "historical trekking" is a glorified walk in the
woods. The point is to get inside the head of people of the time you're
portraying; using the material goods, eating the foods, and in general doing
activities that the people of the time would have done. Most of the treks
we've held have been focused on traveling or hunting in the woods, so this list
focuses on that. If your event has a specific purpose or location, you may
vary the items you take to match that purpose.
The majority of "treks" I've done were as a native, so I address this mainly
from that point of view. Things to modify for European are listed at the
end.
For more information on trekking in general, take a look at the
Coalition of Historical Trekkers (CoHT)
For lists of items suggested for other events, check out our
Southern Indian Department
site's Basic
Equipment page.
The list:
-Clothing and adornment
per weather.
-Knives: neck knife, folding knife or belt knife
-- two of these three usually
-hawk
-Whatever shooting supplies: gun/shooting bag/horn
or bow/quiver/arrows as fit the trek. Just a stout
stick if no weapon allowed due to location and time of year.
"Pack":
-Twined/fingerwoven/corded tumpline.
-Blanket (heavy in winter, med/light in summer, two medium weight blankets if
it's to be very cold)
-Matchcoat - if a hot weather trek could use just matchcoat instead of blanket.
-38x80 strip of treated sailcloth (under me or over me, depending on weather,
scenario, etc)
Inside "pack" or in whatever bag I'm carrying
-Small bag with food -- jerked meat, parched corn, some salted/preserved pork,
some cornmeal (or grits or both), dried fruit (I like cranberries, but they
aren't exactly southern), loose tea ("real" tea or yaupon -- "black drink"), a
chunk of sugar, two small cane containers with salt and spices.
-Small sewing kit: awl, few needles in bone case,
some waxed Irish linen shoemaker's thread and artificial or real sinew. I
started keeping some forged fish hooks in this kit after my kids started coming
along. They have caught fish at treks/events regularly with a hook/linen
line/stick and whatever bait they can gather. They have fun either way.
-Strike-a-light kit
-Cooking and eating supplies: Copper/tin cup, wooden
noggin, quart or 1/2 gal brass kettle or combo of these, depending on who else
is coming along and what they are bringing. Wooden or silver soup spoon
-Length of hand-laid rope and a small meat hook -- used over fire to hang meat
or kettle.
-Small paint kit including bottle of bear oil (can use
to cook with if need be), mirror, and dry paint.
-Smoking bag holding pipe and tobacco. This has my
hunting license and vehicle key in it too, usually.
-Prisoner tie or ties
-36" square clean linen cloth (for "band-aids", pre-filter for water, or
whatever)
-Spare moccasins
-Spare wool stockings or moccasin liners
-Linen or silk kerchief/head rag/potholder/hand towel/etc
Modern or not exactly PC stuff for safety:
-British issue style canteen or small gourd bottle -
only one clearly documented case I've dug up of natives using a "canteen", but
there aren't always safe sources of water.
-Water purifier tablets -yeah, they taste bad, but I only use them when I can't
boil the water
-First aid/hygiene kit (lomotil, painkillers, small tube of antibiotic, small
amount of soap--put in a zip-loc and inside several layers of other bags)
Sometimes:
-Larger axe
-Bottle of cooking oil if fishing
-Small treated tarp if one or both kids are along
This modifies a little if I'm not portraying a native at that time --
-Leave out the paint kit
-Usually bring more variety of food, including peas, rice or breads, some salt
pork or preserved meat.
-Use a different tumpline and carry a waxed haversack.
-Carry my belt axe, which is smaller than my utility hawk.
-Carry my British issue canteen.
-May carry small sheet metal frying pan
Some of this is pictured on the gear pages.
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