A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Sunday 12 August 2012

How much do you think you NEED to carry?

I posted this same list a while back in a survival forum & recieved no response. This could only be because no one thought the post of any interest or use.
For those of us who try hard to interpret the life of our chosen persona, especially if that persona is a woodsman or woodswoman, then this list could be important. When we talk about life in the New World, we are talking SURVIVAL. Real survival. Surviving not only the hazzards that nature can place before us, but also the hazzards of enemy raids, & house invasion. If you relate this to a modern SHTF survival situation you will see the simularity.
Now this list, food wise, is for 24 people for just 40 days, just over a month. This is a winter trek but some game will be hunted along the way. A lot of people carry survival foods/trail foods, but just how long will these food supplies last? I think for those of us who are also into long term wilderness survival, it may pay to look at this list & re evaluate your thoughts on just how much food (and other gear) you may need to carry.

Supplies for 24 Abenakis and Iroquois who have joined our party:
24 pounds of gunpowder in one bag of half an ell
48 pounds of lead and ball in one bag of one eighth of an ell
24 butcher knives
24 flint and steel and tinderbox with tinder
24 worms
24 awls
100 musket flints
15 pairs of snowshoes
10 tomahawks
5 large axes
24 deerskins weighing 65 pounds
6 toboggans
100 arrow heads
6 stone pipes
8 ells of mazamet in 24 pairs of mittens
3 crib blankets for shoe liners
24 pounds of tobacco
2 pounds of vermilion
2 muskets
1 kettle weighing nine and a half pounds
500 pounds of whole wheat flour in 24 bags of one quarter of an ell
4 small files
5 bushels of corn meal in 12 bags of one quarter of an ell
2 bushels of peas in 8 bags of one quarter of an ell
50 pounds of grease in 5 kegs
150 pounds of salt pork and 300 pounds of hardtack in 8 bags
48 pounds of beef
72 pounds of bread
1 pot of cheap rum
Reference (7).
(Taken from "The New World Woodsman, his clothing, tools & accoutrements." By Keith H. Burgess ).

1 comment:

Gorges Smythe said...

I'm unfamiliar with the measures of an "ell" and a "pot" of rum. With these supplies, it's obvious that they intended to hunt along the way.