Re: MtMan-List: Packs

[Casapy123@aol.com]

Jon, 

Actually, I have no use for pack baskets.  I tried them once and they are
miserable on the trail.  I would like to find a soild reference to a pack
frame, although none of what has shown up thus far convinces me.  Even the
artist, John Clymer, doesn't paint pack frames in his paintings of John
Colter and Robert Stuart.  Both paintings show a rolled -hide -looking affair
strapped to the back.  I'm sure he used "artist's license" to paint these but
they're probably close to reality.  Stuart's men appear to have one strap
that would ride across the chest.  These are makeshift methods of carrying
gear in a situation where they lost their horses.  It'll do until they find
(steal) more horses.  The pictures can be found in Walt Reed's book"John
Clymer, An Artist's Rendezvous With the Frontier West." Published by
Northland Press, Flagstaff, 1976.

Jim Hardee
AMM#1676