“The River Breeds Giants!” of Small Stature by Mark Hatmaker

 

We begin a tale that takes place in Northern River country and along the way we are asked to measure our own “scientifically informed conditioning against standard feats of yore, question the wisdom of getting “big and jacked,” and peer through yet another door that tells us how myriad fighting styles percolated through the porous North American continent.

We shall center our focus on the pioneers of the Northern rivers in what was French Canada. These intrepid men were known as voyageurs [and not all were French, we’ll get to that.]

Those privy to their exploits, Washington Irving among them, noted their often soul-crushing year-long journeys into the plunging rivers, vast lakes, and seemingly impenetrable back country and mountains that made up the Canadian terrain. Irving romantically [and perhaps rightfully] called them “Lords of the lakes, Sinbads of the wilderness.”

Despite the French name, not all voyageurs were French or French-Canadian, there was a large contingent of Scots who settled in early Canada as well, and along tribal lines many of these Scotsmen bristled at being called voyageurs, they called themselves Nor’Westers, and many being refugees from the border warfare along the Anglo-Scottish border, many of these Nor’Westesr were former Border Reivers.

For those unfamiliar, Border Reivers were a particularly bellicose bunch with their own culture that hewed closely to an often aggressive code of honor. These former Border Reivers are the same stock that went on make up much of the hard and tough backcountry mountain people of the Southern Appalachians.  

To give an idea of this Nor’Wester stance on life, let us look to Forrest Carter’s explanation of “The Code” from his novel The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales [Yes, that Josey Wales of Eastwood film fame.]

“The Mountain Code.

“The Code was as necessary to survival on the lean soil of mountains, as it had been on the rock ground of Scotland and Wales. Clannish people. Outside governments erected by people of kindlier land, of wealth, of power, made no allowance for the scrabbler.

“As a man had no coin, his coin was his word. His loyalty, his bond. He was the rebel of establishment, born in this environment. To injure one to whom he was obliged was personal; more, it was blasphemy. The Code, a religion without catechism, having no chronicler of words to explain or to offer apologia.

“Bone-deep feuds were the result. War to the knife. Seldom if ever over land, or money, or possessions. But injury to the Code meant---WAR!

“Marrowed in the bone, singing in the blood, the Code was brought to the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee and the Ozarks of Missouri. Instantaneously it could change a shy farm boy into a vicious killer, like a sailing hawk, quartering its wings in the death dive.

“It all was puzzling to those who lived within government cut from cloth to fit their comfort. Only those forced outside the pale could understand. The Indian—Cherokee, Comanche, Apache. The Jew.

“The unspoken nature of Josey Wales was the clannish code. No common interest of business, politics, land or profit bound his people to him. It was unseen and therefore stronger than any of these. Rooted in human beings’ most powerful urge—preservation. The unyielding, binding thong was loyalty. The trigger was obligation.”

An explanation from fiction, yes, but one that sums up a reality, a reality well-documented in Jim Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America and Jeff Biggers’ The United States of Appalachia. [Much more on the fighting lore, culture, tactics and strategies of The Border Reives and their American counterparts to come in the Black Box curriculum. All I can say is---Vicious.]

This is not to say the voyageurs were not formidable, not at all, we are merely setting the stage for the complex interplays of several hardscrabble venturesome cultures commingling in hostile environments so that we can see what lessons of hardihood, survival, and “hands on” can be gleaned.

Lest we think the Scots and the French were the only leather-tough beef in the stew, we must look to born and bred Americans like Peter Pond, a mighty unusual figure, not quite reputable in dealings and disposition but all acknowledge him as a top-notch riverman, mountaineer, trail blazer, and all-in scuffler.

Of course, it goes without saying, there were people living in the “inhospitable” lands before these various interlopers “tamed” it. We will make much ado about these indigenous hosses down the road.

How tough was this life?

Let us start with the rewards?

Many journeys ended at a stockade called, Grand Portage [we’ll come back to that name.]

 

The stockade itself was nestled in rocky hills, surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high palisade fence. Of the many log-hewn structures within was the cantine salope, aka “harlot’s tavern,” where liquor, Native and half-breed women offered their wares.

Beside the carnal entertainment was music and dance, no self-respecting voyageur or Nor’Wester would consider himself whole if he could hot dance a jig, saw a fiddle, play a squeezebox, sing a tune et cetera. [Compare this participatory joyousness with the “I don’t dance” wallflower pretend “alphas” of today. These people lived hard and played hard.]

But, as we all know, liquor + women + long “deprivation” + a hardy stock already prone to risk-taking led to that other form of entertainment—fighting.

Actual tactics to come in The Black Box Project, suffice to say, scuffling was frequent, often, and bloody.

Survivors of bouts, would often be locked up in what passed for Grand Portage’s jail, a sturdy log structure known as pot au beurre, or “the butter tub.”

In Part 2, we’ll look at how Grand Portage got its name, offer a sample workday for you to compare your hardest WOD against, offer an old school rationale for why getting strong is manna but getting “big and jacked” ain’t the same thing at all, in fact, it was seen as a problem.

We’ll also, well, much to come…

Readers & Dabblers can stick with the blog and podcast.

Doers, might wanna have a look at the Black Box Warehouse.

[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box Subscription Service.]

Or our brand-spankin’ new podcast The Rough and Tumble Raconteur available on all platforms.