2 July 2013; Chadron NE and other places --
Getting up early (0530) and eating my usual breakfast of steel-cut oats with chopped dates, I drove down to Rapid to meet Jack, my cousins cowboy husband. I was just in time -- they were sitting down to breakfast, so I joined them for a cup of coffee.
Jack had invited me to come with him to see a "Fur Trader's Museum" in which was featured a genuine Birch bark canoe -- and many more artifacts of the Old West, especially those dealing with the fur trade. Since Jack knew where he wanted to go, we rode in his new Lincoln Towncar. They had driven out to the Ranch and back, and we drove it to Chadron and back to Hot Springs via Crawford NE before refueling. 400-some miles on 13.5 gallons.
The first stop on this tour was at an old cedar log house that was originally sited near the aforesaid Ranch. It was carefully disassembled and re-constructed at the present site. Cedar (actually a type of Juniper that grows in the semi-arid regions of the Cheyenne River breaks) is a very unusual material for a log house. Ponderosa Pine is the normal source of logs for this mode of construction, with some use of Cottonwood also noted.
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| Note log stubs; this was where first section door was located |
The cedar logs for this house would have had to be brought (dragged?) about 15 miles from where the trees were plentiful to the original building site. Since the tree does not have a tall growth habit, the logs are typically about 8 feet long; the house is constructed in eight-foot sections, with an apparent first section being added-onto by a second -- and possibly a third section, as the family needs grew. The original "Chinking" would have been either a straw-clay mixture, or a straw-manure mixture. In the re-assembly, a more durable modern cement-based mortar was used to fill the cracks between the logs.
East of Chadron about five miles is the very non-imposing Museum of the Fur Trade. It is located on the site of the Bordeaux trading post which operated in the early 1800's, trading European goods and other supplies to the Indians for furs that they harvested from the bounty of the land. The original buildings used by Bordeaux and his successor, are still standing in fairly good condition. The typical pole and dirt roof has drouth-resistant grasses and plants, including Prickly Pear cactus.
Inside the museum are muzzle-loading rifles, traps, some garments, and examples of some of the articles used in the fur trade in exchange for the valuable furs. A bundle of ten buffalo robes, in authentic packaging for shipping back East, was included in the displays. The featured display, and the main reason Jack wanted me to come down here, was the large (32') Birch bark canoe. There also were two smaller Birch bark canoes on display, one of which had been used in a restaurant as a salad bar. When the restaurant burned down, the canoe survived, but with smoke discoloration of the Birch bark and possible structural damage to the Birch bark -- the outer "skin" of the Birch bark is bubbled like paint subjected to excess heat. If it is brittle, it could fail when put in water with disastrous results. Grumpy mistakenly took the dark brown color for leather, with the "bumps" being some sort of embossed design! The Curator at the museum patiently went back to the display with Grumpy to inform him of the "heated" history of this old canoe.
Upon returning to Rapid in Jack's Lincoln, and eating a delicious dinner prepared by Ann, his wife, Grumpy boarded the trusty Red Rocket and departed into the South Dakota sunset to his abode on the banks of Spearfish Creek.
