Research and Projects

I am often presented with the opportunity to recreate material culture based on research of what was worn, used, and etc. by the various people of Wisconsin’s past.

Following are a number of articles that I have written and have been published in On The Trail Magazine.

I have also written a number of articles for the now defunct. Journal of the Early Americas.

Additionally, there are a few other bits of research that I have done posted after the articles.

An article on winter footwear…

articlefootwear.pdf

An article mythbusting some ideas about coureurs de bois…

CDBfinalarticle.pdf

An article about tapaboard hats…

v13n6_walters_fix.pdf

Religion of the Voyageur (written by me, not David)…

religion0001.pdf

Right: An article on Euro-American Trappers in the Great Lakes from JOTEA

Below: an addendum from a blog post a couple months later

Hunting, Trapping, and 2 Journals

trappingarticle.pdf

At numerous locations, I have lectured on tattoos in the fur trade. Below is the most recent version of my slideshow as well as notes that accompany the slides/

A slideshow on Tattooing

tattoo notes

Marks of His Profession…

Below: an article on whole-skin tobacco pouches I wrote for The Journal of the Early Americas and my shareable version of the slideshow I used for a talk on this topic at the Eastern Woodland Conference at the Ft. Pitt Museum in Pittsburgh. NOTE: I have done a fair bit more research since both of these and they are certainly not exhaustive/comprehensive.

Without them no smoking

Without them there would be no smoking - shared.ppt

Below are a few more articles I had written for The Journal of the Early Americas

The Humble Tumpline

Stone pipe useage

Bewitching weed

Epic adventure

My graduate research was in Creole settlement in Wisconsin. Out of it came this very useful annotated list of essential readings.

annotatedbibliography.doc

Here is a lecture that I did for the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Public Television entitled Fur Trade 101.

Here is another lecture from the next year at the Wisconsin Historical Society and put on air by Wisconsin Public Television entitled Creole Wisconsin.

Check out this book if you are interested in this topic. I coauthored chapter 16.

Here is a nice tutorial (created by Allen Harrison) on converting a Victor double longspring into a more historic trap. After it is another tutorial on replacing the swivel for a more correct swivel. This is a more recent DIY.

Trap Conversion.pdf

Modifying the Victor steel trap Chain replacement.pdf

Mocs Universal

Mocs biomech

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