Comments on: Mountain Men Wannabes: Allies of the Fur Trade

By: Joseph

Joseph — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:29:24 +0000

In reply to B. Claytor. Those guys on mountain men are murderers when a beautiful grizzly bear is walking along a river Bank minding his own business trying to survive is shot and killed for no reason is murder. I'd like to see them go hand to hand with the Bear and see how it goes. Murdering sons of bitches

By: Kenneth denton

Kenneth denton — Sat, 25 May 2019 13:55:46 +0000

Where are they getting these high prices for the furs they harvest . Not in America thats for sure .

By: Truth About Fur, voice of the North American fur trade

Truth About Fur, voice of the North American fur trade — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 02:59:19 +0000

In reply to Montel Jones.

All good points. I suppose Mountain Men has sort of been superseded by History Channel’s “Alone” where contestants use a smartphone on a selfie stick to film their suffering. But it’s all just TV, of course 🙂 I think it’s hilarious how Cyril Chauquet (“Chasing Monsters”) always manages to catch his monster fish right at the end of each episode!

By: Montel Jones

Montel Jones — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 22:46:04 +0000

My question was: do these wannabes have to obtain licenses to legally hunt, fish, and trap, like we law-abiding, tax-paying, working-stiffs (as if the latter were only only ‘paper-shufflers’)? Moreover, what is there to fear out in the wilderness when accompanied by a production crew, a medic, and a medevac-chopper on standby?
Education? If we sissys in the realworld were starving to death, how long would it take to learn the fine art of dressing out a squirrel, cooking, and devouring the thing?
B.S. I say … B.S.!

By: B. Claytor

B. Claytor — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 11:48:02 +0000

As a proud hillbilly Mountain Man with a Tomboy wife I just wanted to say I enjoy tasty animals and wearing their hides . I also love my dogs and Mules dearly . Some folks just don’t get it .

By: Lola Townsend

Lola Townsend — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 23:13:41 +0000

As someone involved in the huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ industry for 8 years, who also has a BSc in agriculture, resource management & conservation , I am probably more sympathetic than your average Joe or Jo to the fur trade and am a big fan of home-produced and wild food anyway. But, Simon Ward, there is something I would take issue with in your blog – the sort of fishing which produces few edible results, carried out with a pole and a jar of worms, maggots, boilies, groundbait etc, is indeed mainly a manly pursuit. Fly fishing, however, has many female participants – including me. The (graceful) art of catching something really edible, like trout or salmon or even grayling, on a nymph or fly you have tied yourself which mimics natural fish food is not confined to men. Women have the urge to hunt too – not just to gather and cook.

I can snare a rabbit and I can skin it, I can snare foxes too. I wouldn’t think twice about using their fur – but with any intensively-farmed animal as opposed to a wild animal, there are usually welfare issues. Cruelty towards farmed animals isn’t confined to the fur industry but it does exist and will always make big headlines. People HAVE to eat but they don’t HAVE to wear fur as long as other alternatives exist, so they choose to close their eyes to the very real cruelty (and major health issues) often involved in food production and get outraged over the fur trade instead.

Whatever instinct in people the likes of Ray Mears (the thinking person’s Bear Grylls) & Mountain Men clearly taps into, I think it would take some time to eradicate the ingrained negative images people have of the commercial fur trade. I believe the real renaissance of fur will only come about when we no longer have the resources to produce the synthetic alternatives – and this will happen. If you are trying to educate society NOW about fur, you as a reporter should be careful not to potentially alienate 50% of it by your “blokey” tone. Women are not just motivated by the fashion industry, though we do make many practical decisions about the whole family’s clothes. There’s your target audience perhaps? And how much has been written about the positive aspect of the bio-degradable nature of fur over its synthetic alternatives by the way?

In conclusion, before my comments are dismissed as coming from the voice of a lone, rather butch feminist who stomps around the wilderness in comfortable shoes, I would like to add that in my opinion, the most glamorous fur item of clothing ever shown on screen HAS to be Raquel Welch’s bikini – which would fit me too.

I found your article interesting and thought-provoking. Just please remember that some women like to get back to basics too you know – and some of us actually do it, we don’t just sit watching it.