Mountain Men: Tom FIGHTS for Survival in BRUTAL Conditions *Season 10 Marathon*

over his 42 years living high in the rugged northern rockies tom moore's endured nearly every hardship mother nature can dole out nancy and i don't take living here for granted at all i mean they're in a day that i don't look at what we've got and say wow are you lucky but he's never faced a once in a century pandemic before one that spread across montana even reaching its remotest corners with this new covet thing it's just a strange deal we're just hoping we can pull through it you know just trying to keep a little distance from everybody all right cat box we're gonna build a cat box here with a winter shaping up to be as unpredictable as ever tom's starting his season with a plan to get the most bang for his buck bobcats are bringing a lot of money they're about the only thing that's bringing lots of money on the fur trade for the last four years tom's been trapping with the help of his apprentice sean mcafee look that's a beaver under the ice nice one the pandemic has put this partnership on hold leaving tom to run his trap line alone well it's a real bummer not to be able to have sean working with me i'll have to pick up the slack but i can do that all right this is just some old scrap cedar now 77 years old tom's not as mobile as he used to be so he's aiming to trap smarter not harder a single bobcat pelt can bring in as much as 300 once tom's worked it into crafts this wire here is where the bait will hang so it'll be right in the middle of the box and now there'll be a a foot trap set at either end of it so in order for the bobcat to get to the bait he'll either have to step on the trap or over the trap there's a good chance that he won't step over we're gonna use beaver meat for bait all right we've got it baited the hard part is the trek to reopen the five mile long trap line around his home a job that tom's lately left to his much younger apprentice the first run will tell if he still has what it takes to stand his ground in the mountains here we go it's been a long time since i've run this line and it's really hard on me because i'm so damn old you know but i've got the desire to still do it you know so as long as i get my trap put out you got to have traps put out or you don't catch nothing a good place close to a trail that the bobcats would travel on a good dry spot like this to put the traps in i'm gonna take this box right here it's got bait in it i'm gonna put a trap at each end and put bobcat lure in it so the smell of one that walked behind the trail well i just chopped out a hole and all these pine needles and then we're gonna set the trap down into that hole bury the trap in it we're gonna put a stepping stick they call this right in front of the box that'll make the cat step over it and right into the trap this is what they call a cat attractant bobcats have very poor noses so you try to attract them with eye medicine which is something shiny a cat walking off the trail would maybe see that glittering in the light and they're so curious they come to stuff like that well here's the christmas ornament and once they peek in there and see that meat hang in there you got a good chance of catching one there's all kinds of little tricks to the trapping trade that i've learned through all the years this is actually a weasel trap all the weasel box is is just a little square box and it's got a nail that sticks out the back of it inside needs a bait here you hang a piece of meat on that nail and you set a trap right in the entrance to the box my weasels when i'm done doing what i do to them i can sell them for 100 bucks a piece we're gonna put this trap up on a tree for a pine martin this is a killer trap they'll go through it and hit that pin right there and then clamp on them and it'll kill them and they'll fall out of the tree and they'll be hanging here up off the ground all right better keep going here oh there's some wolf jacks i didn't expect wolf tracks they went across there and jumped across that's close to the house too and i'm gonna put a trap in here guys this was just made last night first thing we're gonna do is a little foam pad that sits underneath the jaw we're gonna put this in a plastic bag wolves are certainly the toughest thing in north america to catch when you walk up to your trap with the wolf in it yeah make your eyes sparkle we're gonna bury the trap right in the top of the snow here highly intelligent wolves are wary of anything that looks suspicious so traps need to be concealed and carefully placed quite often the moves if they're hanging in the same area they'll be back on that same trail and they'll step in the same tracks as they travel back and forth some people are catching wolves with ashes we're gonna give it a try the loggers up here lots of times at the site where they're stacking the logs and stuff they'll start a big fire i've had these guys tell me you come back to that fire two days later and it's full of wolf tracks something about the ash who knows why but it'd be exciting to see wolf tracks headed toward it tomorrow when i go to check it tom's got bobcat weasel martin and now a wolf trap set in soaking until he makes the rounds again tomorrow but for now he has to get back to the homestead before dark i just blew my snowshoe out i got a hole in my snowshoe the rawhide netting distributes the weight and prevents tom from sinking into the snow with every step i still got a ways to go there's no quick fix and with more than a mile to go tom's looking at a long walk back in wolf country i probably won't make it home before dark now homeward bound in montana's thick darkness tom's limped his way to safety after a grueling opening day on the trap line wow that was a long one wow what happened with you it's dark oh no my heel every time i'd step my heel would go through it now you got to fix that that's a big project want some coffee yeah tom needs to be out on the line at first light tomorrow to check his traps so the snowshoe repair can't wait those all have to come off and fortunately tom's brother jack moved to the yak valley two years ago which comes in handy when tom needs an extra pair of hands a new piece of rawhide woven tightly in the original diamond pattern restores both strength and flexibility there you go thomas that'll keep you out of the snow it's a lot of hard work doing what i do but it's what i am you know i've been doing this trapping for 50 years you know and i'm not i'm not done yet good deal buddy i've still got a long trapping season ahead of me go ahead and get some sleep you got some snowshoe to do tomorrow it looks like i love you brother in the rolling hills of montana's yak valley oh we got something here veteran woodsman tom orr's got a knack for finding the fur he never knew what hit him even if he's a little out of practice this little male short tail weasel first trap of the day tom ran this six mile trap line for more than four decades at 77 years old he's not as agile as he used to be so to make ends meet he's covering all the bases we've got one oh the old kind of bear set first by targeting low-hanging fruit like weasels this is a long tail whistle okay buddy come here when tom's done working on them each two dollar catch will be worth a hundred all right it's a good start another male short tail louise but not enough to keep them afloat at least we're catching stuff so his big push this season is to snare enough of the highest priced pelts on the market i've got bobcat traps out and that's what i'm really really after as a bobcat will check those traps later on today and hopefully we'll catch something [Music] with tom back in the field nancy's stepping it up at home to keep up their quota of hand-crafted items well i am going to make a brain-tanned buffalo hide coat this is a hide that tom worked very hard on and these guys are a lot of work these signature goods multiply the value of a simple pelt and support the urs throughout the off season bison hides a rare and a hand-tailored fur line coat even rarer with a thick fur providing some of nature's best insulation it will fetch top dollar if expertly done you got to watch your steps because you sure don't want to make a mistake measure many times and cut once you cannot go down to the fabric store and order another three yards of brain tan and smoke buffalo hide so it's not like you can replace it i'm cutting outside my line for a seam allowance that way i've got that much to do my stitching in i hope i'm doing this right because i can't get another one it took tom 10 days of work to flesh brain tan and smoke the buffalo hide so they'll make use of every inch the pieces will be stitched together into a one-of-a-kind overcoat worth more than a thousand dollars okay i trim this hair back so that every stitch isn't dragging through that much hair it's kind of like a puzzle you just got to keep your eye on the pieces back out on the line tom's got three weasels in his sled but he can't make it through the winter on small furs alone he's got to snare a bigger payday so he's heading out to see if an unexpected opportunity has paid off i've got two wolf traps that i sat the other day hoping that the wolves would travel back the same trail as what they traveled through there i can see there ain't nothing in that trap tom set a second trap to increase his odds a few hundred yards from the first oh wow there's a set of fresh wolf tracks in the snow well we've had some action here just as tom predicted the wolves returned to where he laid his trap it's empty trap set off without anything in it damn i just missed him which that happens i mean at least if you missed one there's some action wolves are hard to catch when they walk through the snow and stuff some of these suckers feel that trap pan go and have such a fast reflex that they jerk up from that the hardest animal in north america to trap with a price tag of one thousand dollars a single wolf pelt would be a good insurance policy to kick off what's looking to be a tough season ahead they've walked this trail both ways so we'll try it again see if it works this time well you never know when they'll be back or you know it all depends on on where they're finding game and that's so it's it's pretty complicated trap is set right underneath that track so the next wolf that comes through here if we don't miss him we might get it tom's had mixed results today but he's got one more trick up his sleeve i'm gonna take this box right here it's got bait in it i'm gonna put a trap at each end and put bobcat lure in it so the smell of one that walked behind the trap a series of bobcat boxes he built by hand to target one of the priciest pelts on the market but in trapping there are no guarantees nope there's nothing there i had one bobcat come up to one of my sets and walk right up to the entrance of it and sniff it over and he decided that one for him i just need to i need to put some more lure in it the lure is made out of glands of the animal that you're trying to catch and if the cat gets close enough to the set to where he can smell that other cat well now here's the chance for this bobcat to steal this other cat's food that's the object of the whole thing tend to bother some that i haven't caught a bobcat and those traps have been out in what i figured would be a really good area hopefully this will do something that's the day on the trap line three weasels was i mean it wasn't much but i'll be working all night skinning some [Music] suckers i've got to do something with that weasel to make him worth that weasels are a real process not just skin they're easy to catch but they're hard to skin because they're so small i'm just getting out this weasel's foot front foot most trappers they whack all four feet off before they even start scanning but we're gonna leave these little claws on the end of his foot make this into a hundred dollar weasel instead of a two dollar weasel it's hard to make a living trapping anymore because the fur prices are so low so lots of the stuff that i trap i'll go ahead and tan it and make something out of it and sell it for way more money than i could sell the raw pelt very delicate work here we got the skin off after flushing the hide tom will let it dry overnight before brain tanning and mounting it for sale hi how are you good how'd it go today pretty good we caught some weasels didn't catch any bobcats though well maybe tomorrow maybe i don't know i've been working on the old coat here all right how's that coming it's coming twirling the fringe and i'm real close to done with that my last cuffs the last stitch all right proud of you you did a good job on that oh thank you you did a good tanning what a team in montana a winter storm has buried the yak valley in two feet of fresh snow and with animals bedding down to survive the cold tom orr is taking the day off from his trap line to complete a lucrative craft with his friend will stringfellow hey hey tom buddy you give up on me how could i give up on you will has two bow staves trimmed and seasoned pieces of rare osage orange wood if they can be whittled into four foot recurve bows they can fetch up to 500 a piece here's what i've got here tom this one here is but it's no easy task tom's a a great bowl maker i mean he's well known for his bowl making and he's a master at it actually this is really crooked i mean you know really crooked they're just half-made bows that have just kind of been whittled out to shape it's so bad but i think they were cut when they were green and there was still moisture in them and it put different crooks into the wood on them well you think you can straighten that yeah i think i think we can do it buddy at least we'll give it a try osage orange wood has been prized for centuries for its elasticity it was used by french trappers as early as the 1600s but shaping it to be a powerful and accurate tool takes time and precision we've got a fire pit and we've got a four inch around pipe that has a steel plate welded to the bottom of it are you ready we fill the pipe with water don't want to boil it because if you boil it then it comes out and puts out your fire so that it should be real close to boiling when you put the bow stave down into it and then you can bend it to the shape that you want it to be bent to all right let's go boys cold weather like this it doesn't take very long to pull that out of the steamy water and start cooling down you know so you're getting it to the jig as fast as what you can get it to and hold it there tom only has a few minutes to bend the wood on the primitive jig before it cools and is no longer pliable try to tour it a little bit more stick that back in okay with this bow heating and bend and deal if you don't get it the first time you do it again once the grip is straight tom can focus on giving the bow its signature recurve shape tips that bend towards the target it can be really hard to get them to be even don't you pull that out of there let me see what we can do with this if they're not perfectly symmetrical the bowstring will not pull evenly and the wood could crack well you got her it's holding pretty good pretty nice little recurve in it we get the first recurve tip on i know that looks good what do you think if we can do it to this end like that then we got it all right well good deal yep shoot that sucker up one more time all right here i come it's reheating it hurrying back over and getting it on the jig come on baby let's do it this time we're counting on you what does it look like now oh yeah it'll look straight tip the tip yeah oh that looks good well the big thing is put a string at it dear sinew is an ideal material for a bow string because it's both strong and flexible we're going to string it to make sure that it's tillered properly on that string don't you when the bow is strung it should be in a perfect angle but if one limb sticks down a little further than the other well then you're gonna have to shave a little bit of it off to get the bow so it's square first time striking it you want to be very very easy with it because when you pull that bow back and start putting pressure on it it better be good or you'll end up with nothing [Music] what was that sound that was it it broke let's look at this on the recurve bow they've put hours of labor into crafting i wasn't even quite to the knock yet with my string and i heard that sucker crack there it is right there yeah if they want to salvage any potential profits they'll need a reliable fix all it is is a little bitty surface crack right in the middle just above the handle of the bow so it's in a spot that really don't take a lot of pressure or bending what do you think if we just put a layer to a sinu across it it'll keep it from breaking the same it comes off of an animal spine comes right off the top of the back straps it'll make it more powerful than what it is now i like the idea though gonna i was hoping was gonna be shooting those arrows by now i thought we would be too the only thing we can do now is sinew back the bow so it would reinforce this crack i think we'll be able to save it all right the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna back the bow with glue you're gonna get your hands messy the primitive glue that we use that's made out of boiled down buffalo hide scraps boiling the buffalo hide releases protein colloids that once condensed create an industrial grade adhesive we got to get this real sticky you paint the back of the bow and then you soften down strips of cenu and string by string you lay them strips of sinew out on the back of the bow and glue them down each time you run out of layer you just glue it down that'll keep that bow from ever breaking i hope let's see if we can get it to go around this hole gotta measure twice cut ones i'm gonna try to put a beaver handle a beaver tail this is a a skinned out raw beaver tail it's what they call rawhide i'll sew the beaver tail into place and then the beaver tail will really dry out and it'll shrink and it'll tighten right around that bow so it ain't going anywhere this whole operation here is pretty primitive in addition to the new handle the spine of the bow has been reinforced with sinew and covered with the skin of a western rattlesnake all right if it shoots as good as it looks i think we've made it all right there's the deer wheel can you see it yeah barely okay this will tell the truth here all right just straight oh yeah those are i've worked hard don't know yeah we've got a a lot invested in this bow so hopefully it's not gonna break or crack or anything pulling back on i'm listening to the wood listening for any crack or noise oh nice that bow when i first strung up in it made that cracking noise i thought well that's that's it but as it turned out we just kind of worked around that and and i think we've got it all repaired and the bow shoots good well i'll tell you what i like it i want to make a quiver and bow case for it maybe out of mountain lion and and then we've got some other bows will's got a few more bows too we can work on it you know we get a little spare time all right thank you buddy privileged impose where else where else can you go buy a primitive bow out yeah that's right it'll be a good sale we'll make some money it's kind of a neat thing to do to jump from trapping to finishing up a bow you know it keeps you from getting bored i guess in montana's yak valley tom orr is taking it one day at a time didn't catch a thing today didn't catch a thing to be safe he's had to take a break from his partnership with sean mcafee during the global pandemic and while he's not having a lot of luck running his trap line alone that doesn't mean sean isn't helping out where he can yesterday what he's doing here sean dropped off a potential jackpot oh look at that huh all right sean a raw pelt from a wolfy trapped on his own once fleshed and tanned it could be worth more than a thousand dollars pretty rare deal right yeah pretty rare they're mostly in museums after letting it soak overnight tom is now ready to get to work soaked it in water to bring back its flexibility and stretch to it next thing is to flush it let's scrape all this little flesh stuff all of this huh flushing a hide requires a razor-sharp blade and the steady hand of a master to scrape evenly without cutting through what we're doing is just taking the tissue out little scrapings of meat and little pieces all right we're gonna take her inside let's put it on the frame and see can i get in there this is a stretching frame this is what we put the wools on the stretcher hides out after they've been skinned it's a big old wolf stretched out a pretty good size while it stretches tom will prepare the next critical step a homemade brain tanning solution that helps soften the skin we need to get the brains boiled to tend to hide with all right we'll get back after well it looks like it's cooking let's check it and see tom's working up a pot of a trapper's special recipe the native americans all said that's a famous thing that every animal has enough brains to tan his own eye we'll find out well let's use the wolf brains tad and the wolf height little bitty hole right there get them brains out through that that's where the spinal column goes up through and attaches to the skull there's less ethan that are in brains and that's what tans these hides lecithin is a fat that's ideal for lubricating and conditioning the skin how they ever figured that out all the things there is to rub into a hide to tan it up but it took thousands of years to figure that out after tom's extracted the brain matter he prepares the skull to be boiled they get 200 bucks for a nice wolf skull we try to make as much money off of everything that we kill nancy will boil it and she'll cook it all and clean it all off and then whiten the skull hi i got something for you oh boy well there it is i got the brains out of it and i cut most of the meat off of it and the lower jaws and the bottom here okay so i separated that ready for the boiling okay i'll do that i'm going to put some baking soda in with this and this kind of helps to pull the meat away from the bone and it kind of whitens the skull the biggest thing you have to be careful about about cooking this is to not overcook it you don't want it to fall apart and you don't want the teeth to fall out starting to separate away from the bone nancy's got a predator in the pot so you have to cook it without damaging it all of this stuff is what you have to be careful of and the teeth that you don't overcook and lose those and they're still together all right time to start picking the skull once it's cleaned of all the remaining flesh it'll be whitened and wired together for sale where it's worth about two hundred dollars this one when you can pull it off that's great see how that's lifted away from the bone and then there's a point where you need to slice a little so you peel peel peel then you get down to where you got a scrape scrape scrape out back in the shed the cooked brains are ready to apply the brains have to be worked all the way through the hide to the hair roots on the inside of the eye i've tanned hundreds of deerskins but this is my fifth or sixth wolf maybe that i've tanned but i think i know enough we can pull this off his tail's already starting to stretch and get whiter just from that one coat of brains look at this starting to suck them right in there once dried and washed the hide is then softened the hard way breaking up the fibers and you do it by just stretching i've got a hold of his ears right here pulling his head across from now on it's all hand pulling and working it there isn't nothing about brain tanning that isn't lots of work can't be lazy you can do this most tanners don't have a very long life of tanning usually their shoulders go out on us from working heights and pulling them and stuff so there aren't very many old tanners i'll bet i'm one of the oldest going here really we might have this beat though boys it sure feels good to me it's starting to come along now next we need to get this hide on the smoker so we can have it all finished the last thing that you do with a brain tan hide is smoke it it was not smoke to me it's not even brain once smoked the wolf skin he's put hours into tanning could be his biggest payday of the season this is cedar that we're gonna put in here just to get this started and then we're gonna switch to the old rotten cottonwood the rotten stuff puts up more smoke when it gets dirty you can throw it in the water wash it it comes out soft and clean and nice all right guys we got her going honey there's the smoke all right that we need now is a wolf hide put on this sucker look at it is that beautiful or what look at that thing if that ain't a beautiful wolf i ain't never seen a beautiful woof a cloth skirt sewn onto the hide fixes it to the stove pipe to capture an even flow from the smoker we'll hang it over the smoker so the smoke goes up inside the hide and comes out the mouth after two or three hours of that it'll be sufficiently smoked [Music] take it on smoke every once well you just untie your string pick that skirt up and look up into that height and check out and see if it looks like there's enough smoke all right i think we've got it we got a smoky wolf here gosh they're big look at that should we take this skirt off yeah see what we got yeah see what we got isn't that something to think about packs of these big things running around i love it i love it good color smoke good color all right and you got the skull done too i did here check him out bit of a change i know well congratulations for the nice job you did on that sean i'll be tickled to have that i'll bet i hope so yeah the art of brain tanning is a lot of work amazing critter but well it's what i do you know this is what what i enjoy i'm happy with what i do and the life that i live [Music] tom moore's 42nd season in the yak valley has been one of the sparsest in memory we're fixing to go and do some beaver trapping now with temperatures on the rise he's making a push to finish strong and take advantage of every opportunity i got a call from this fella that lives up on the border there he's got a fever problem beaver are beneficial to the ecosystem but if the population gets out of control they wreak havoc by damming up streams and destroying trees fortunately for tom his reputation for trapping beaver is unrivaled i have no idea what i'm getting into i don't know if the water is deep i don't know it may still be frozen a salad so i've just got to go up there and look it over understanding ice conditions is key for trapping beaver in winter because it's a lot more work to chop through a frozen pond than it is to set traps in open water there's a good possibility i can't even trap it yet those are the chances you take the area is so remote that roads only take time so far i'm looking for the north fork of the yak river to reach the beaver ponds he has to go the rest of the way on foot the river's got to be just over here somewhere we got to be close all right [Music] the river i see the river damn i see the river in the sun there's water running over yeah looks dangerous as hell all right here we go if he's to make it to the beaver ponds on the other side this is the worst time to trust the ice walk easy on it well we got to cross the river all right let's go see we can find them ponds they must be up on that flat up there while navigating the thaw is dangerous the conditions could be just what tom needs to bring home some valuable pelts all right there's the pond this is beaver habitat right here look at that about eight beaver half of that one is if you can't catch a beaver here you can't catch a beaver i think hoping for an area ripe with targets tom's brought a variety of traps all right this is the trickery of the whole deer right here boys and this is what the beavers do they come up on the bank they'll grab a bunch of grass and mud off the bottom they'll put it up here on the edge like this and then they'll climb up on top of it and they'll excrete this beaver caster onto it well this beaver caster that i'm using here is from a different place so now the beavers live here they'll come swimming along and they'll smell that they got hell of a noses on them he'll come here to check out this new guy in town piss him off he'll be mad he'll come to investigate it and i'll bet you will have a beaver here you see the beaver dam here right in the middle of it is what they call the crossover that's where the beavers cross the dam if they're going to go down below the dam and it's usually a pretty good place to put one this is what they call a a dive stick the object of it is is the beaver will dive underneath these sticks which will put him right into the trap and the trap will clamp on him like that and kill him that's the object of the 330 counter bear it's called the safety off all right it's ready to fire now i got a bunch of traps out today and it's a long ways back to the house now tom's laid out every trap in his arsenal hoping to catch the motherload of beaver on this remote stretch of the yak river they're doing me good now he's retracing his steps back to the truck oh look at that huh we got a beaver boys looks like a nice one too [Music] oh we just set that trap four hours ago i don't think this has ever happened to me where i set a beaver trap in the morning and come back in the evening of the same day and have a beaver it's unusual to get a bite in so little time especially when trapping nocturnal animals that aren't as active during the day and luck on my side we might as well set this trap again the early catch is an unexpected bonus and a chance to double his luck in the same spot success already that's a pretty good deal i get to drag one beaver home with me tonight i'll be looking forward to coming back and checking my traps in the morning it's always exciting to wonder what's gonna happen the next day might be a big beaver day boys oh we got one boys success we got a beaver this is where i caught the one yesterday oh he's a big one nice head catch that was that submerged trap with the dive stick so he had to dive down and swim through it that's close to 50 pounder he's a big round this is getting about as big as they come all right we got more traps to check we got a trap in here we got a beaver with three beavers snared in the same place it looks like tom's found the hot spot he was hoping for don't look as big as the last one but yet we're catching beavers here tom's now sitting on 1500 worth of fur and counting this is the end of the line right here hallelujah we caught some beavers all right there's two beavers now i've caught four beaver today and one yesterday afternoon so i got five beaver that's as many beaver is what i've ever caught in one day i think tom has not only put an end to the land owner's nuisance problem he scored a late winter bonus just when he needed it most all right that's success things are i'm looking up for tom moore spring is coming soon to the isolated wilderness of the yak valley and for the oars that means it's time to go to market with all their winter wares shall we fill the box yes beavers yeah normally what we've done over the years is we've worked our fannies off all winter get ready for the rendezvous we take all our stuff there and try to sell it all rendezvous are trade fairs dating back to the 1800s where western trappers and craftsmen gathered to sell their goods we've about got a full box here i see that how about that buck's getting dressed oh right i really like this dress though and while this year's rendezvous has been canceled by the pandemic the community is coming together with a new plan want one of these walls yeah boy they're big my buddy will stringfellow has been working on this trading post now for a couple years it's not completely finished yet but got i think it's gonna be a new way for us to be able to sell our the items that we make we're gonna try it out see what happens i'll get some more stuff going here the neat thing about it it's not just me that's bringing stuff to wheels but a lot of people that do a lot of artisans that do this old-timey stuff will help supply the trading post all things from the past stuff you could never find in a modern day trading post hey are you ready for this oh yeah all right it's gonna be a heck of a trading post yeah yeah will broke ground on the trading post last year but there's still a lot to do to get it ready for business we're going to these logs that haven't been changed yet there's still lots of work to be done on the trading post just like mortar to brick chinking creates a seal between logs that can expand and contract as temperatures change so what will's done is he's packed it with insulation and it's been changed on the outside over the insulation and now we're going to over the inside so that'll make the building more warm historically chinking was made with a mix of mud or clay one of the things i've done before is work it right with the backside of this but today an acrylic compound is used that's far more durable and forgiving if you just squirt a little a little water on it it makes it so you can smooth it out a lot better this is the new modern chicken really it's a new material for an old technique back here and take a look at it appreciate your help on this it looks good maybe move on to the next project huh yeah [Music] boy suckers are heavy are they yeah we're gonna start putting some ceiling boards upstairs because all the scenery is all still exposed with fiberglass yep the lumber that we have for the ceiling is mostly red fur let's see what we got here they came from a local mill they're just beautiful hey well will and i were working the fannies off on the trading post all right yeah can you nail it yeah we'll see what happens all right tom we got one up here yeah hey i think it's gonna be a good thing the new trading post has a new ceiling oh you wanted to set it on the floor here yeah and will is helping tom unload a winter's worth of hard work oh looks like a lot of goodies we got some stuff got your old kid bow there huh yeah where should we hang it ah just wherever you think the new trading post may be far from the crowds nice wolf here's a bobcat but it's the best chance tom and nancy have during the pandemic to make back what these pelts and crafts are worth nancy and i didn't go to rendezvous last year because of the pandemic we stayed home and tanned and kept doing our projects and stuff but that's where the trading post is going to help us a lot because almost fee around oh what do you got here oh this is that buffalo hide coke that we made i can't believe nancy let you escape with that yeah really the buffalo hide coat is one of the rarest items in the box nancy had told me 10 days to tan it 17 hours of hand stitching because of the painstaking work it's also the most valuable it's still got its tail on it and could fetch more than a thousand dollars the buffalo hide coast they're always good sellers because they don't come like that anymore these are turkey wing bone this is made out of the three wing bones in a turkey's wing they're boiled down cleaned out they're hollow and it's just rawhide so it shrinks real hard and holds it all together [Laughter] it took a lot of bones around the campfire for they figured that one out i'll tell you and hopefully it'll work out good for us we're getting quite a quite a collection going here starting to come along now bare skin cinnamon there well there's some throwing tomahawks you got a bunch of them one of the things i want to do i'll set up a throwing block out there and we'll have contests and you know i'd like for this trading post to be an active trading post i want them doing something and talking about history and this trading post it's going to be really nice especially for the people here who need a place to sell their goods and then there's always people that come to visit the yak valley and you know they want to go somewhere and see some of the local people and crafts and that's the really cool thing about it nice you got stuff in the back i got stuff from our house and a few things from jack and connie all right all right this is nice you guys yeah it's working out nice there's a lot of work in here nancy and tom have been in the primitive craft business for nearly 40 years but they still appreciate every item water and the unique story it has to tell bead work beyond belief a lot of hours of stitching trap and tan and then they move on that's what they're for hey-hey all right what do you think of that nice is that in the middle uh your way just a tad okay okay that's good all right this is kind of a whole new little chapter of a good thing yeah after the year with everybody's hat yeah and kind of a fresh beginning mm-hmm yeah all right should we go home okay yeah it's really been a big challenge this year i hope we don't have to ever go through it again hopefully everything is going to work out all right and i think it's good hell it is it's going to work out right you

Channel: HISTORY

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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, the history channel, documentary history channel, history documentary, documentary, history channel full episodes, documentaries, history channel documentaries, mountain men, history mountain men, mountain men show, mountain men full episodes, mountain men clips, watch mountain men, mountain men episodes, mountain men scenes, wilderness, survival, remote living, wildlife, mountain life, wild animals, winter wilderness

Id: p2N1YGdoips

Length: 57min 0sec (3420 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 30 2022