I was sitting here reading some adventures of mountain men who frequented our area during the 1800s. It got me to thinking about how sometimes, when I’m on top of a ridge somewhere in search of big game, I feel most at peace out there.
That feeling keeps me returning to the forest to satisfy the need of being one with nature. It’s something I’ve been doing since my first time hunting and I never seem to get enough of it.
It’s not about the game harvested but rather about the time spent in the mountains that calls me back. If you’re like me, your walls and photo albums are already full of trophies and photos from younger years. Now, it’s more about wandering through the forest or just sitting on a log. While you wander or sit, you think about past adventures, and maybe even challenge yourself to something new.
If you’ve spent your life in the outdoors hunting, fishing and trapping like I have, you already know that you’ll be out there somewhere on the trail until you can’t go any more. You want to experience every aspect of what you do. If hunting, you’ll participate in every season available using every weapon available from crossbow, rifle, handgun and even a muzzleloader at one time or another.
The same goes for fishing with you partaking in fly fishing, lure fishing, topwater and ice fishing. Every base needs to be covered to fulfill your quest in the outdoors.
But there are times when you’ll have lulls in your activity due to bad weather, prior commitments or family matters. Those are times when you can stay connected to the outdoors if you enjoy reading, especially if you are interested in the early history of the area and the mountain men who first lived there.
For example, if you’re from Tioga County you would enjoy the writings of George W. Sears, whose pen name was Nessmuk. He lived in Wellsboro and worked for the Tioga County Agitator, where he wrote an outdoor column. .
His most popular book, “Woodcraft,” is very well known and highly collectible nowadays. But there were numerous other publications where he wrote about his outdoor adventures such as the Porter’s “Spirit of the Times,” “The Atlantic Monthly” and “Forest and Stream” magazine. These stories offered the readers a chance to enjoy his observations about nature and the outdoor life.
Those from Potter County can delve into the history of E.N.Woodcock, a noted hunter and trapper of the region during the late 1800s into the early 1900s. He is almost as well known for the book “Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper’’ that was written by himself and published by A.R.Harding in “Hunter-Trader-Trapper” magazine from 1903 till 1913.
He also wrote two other books, “Good Ole Potter County’s” Black Forest and another that remains a mystery at present. These books tell of the half century that Woodcock spent with trap and gun, in narrow escapes and experiences in a wild, unsettled wilderness.
If this intrigues you, copies of these two books are readily available as they have been reprinted numerous times due to popularity. Even when you’re stuck indoors, you can still read and dream of being in the wilds of Pennsylvania.
David Orlowski is a writer, hunter, fisherman and outdoor enthusiast from Potter County. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association.
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