Packing Your Horse: Now that you have your halter, bridle, and saddle, what goes on the horse? To carry my gear, I use hand sewn saddle bags made by my good friend Jim Branson. I do believe we traded for them. Remember, you cannot overload your horse so try to keep it to 20-25% of the horse’s weight, including your weight.
In
my bags are lots of leather straps, a sewing kit, personal items, pipe tobacco,
copper pot and cup and about 2-3 days of food. When using a pack horse, this
will sustain you if you get separated or lose a pack animal. If doing a weekend
trek without a pack animal, this is more than enough food. It’s the same things
I have covered in other articles. Oatmeal, dried fruit and nuts, some kind of
dried vegetables, and raw meat, unless I will be hunting. On the saddle are two
canteens for water, my gun and picket hobbles with rope and pin.
On
the cantle is my Metis Coat, wool poncho, oilcloth ground tarp, oilcloth poncho
and one wool blanket. In the winter I will change out my short saddle blanket
and use a full-size wool blanket on top of the wool base pad. This gives me two
wool blankets for sleeping. This is about the maximum I can carry since Bubbles
is only about 1100 pounds. If you have a bigger horse, you can get away with
more. The longer the trip the more you will need to condition your horse and
then you can get away with more weight.
When
loading your gear nothing is more important than balance. That’s why I have two
canteens on the pommel, to balance out the weight. Everything must be equal, as
best as you can. When tying things down on the cantle getting them tight and
compressed is necessary. When you must move faster than a walk you don’t want
gear flying everywhere and off your rig.
Only
one time have I improperly loaded everything and had my saddle slide.
Eventually I found myself on the ground looking up at Bubbles’ belly. Once you
do that, I can GUARANTEE you will never load an unbalanced load again! That
“lesson” was in January, in a blizzard. Let me tell you, re-saddling and
loading your gear in snow coming that fast is miserable and embarrassing.
Once
in camp I unload my gear, picket Bubbles, and then set up camp. I cannot stress
enough that setting up camp and placement of your gear should be the same every
single time. When living by fire light, I don’t carry candles, you need to know
where everything is in the dark, especially if you must pack up and leave
before morning. When my saddle is on the ground, I pull the saddle oilcloth
over it to protect it from the elements and to store things under it.
Key
items should be close and somewhat protected. On our Ashley’s Return trek, we
did have about 12 horses stampede through camp. We were able to protect
ourselves and important gear while the rest was scattered about with some of it
damaged. Around horses, this WILL happen.
The
pictures show both sides of my horse loaded, and me departing on the winter
ride where you can see my load is simply not going to make it.
I sure hope these horse trekking articles are igniting a spark in some of you to get mounted. For fur trade it is the way they all traveled and to truly portray a trapper between 1810 and 1840 you need to be mounted. Feel free to contact me at amm2046@reagan.com with questions and I’ll see you on the trail.
Written by Gerry "Lucky" Messmer. Reprinted with permission from the author.
