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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Clothing of the Day

The other day while preparing to give a talk on my Alaskan trip, I found myself going over the thought of what it was like in Alaska, say one hundred years ago. This is actually one of those things that always comes to me when I am out in some distant place, where there is still some hint of the surroundings left that might be similar to the way it was.

On this particular day, Ann's old beaver coat caught my eye, this is the one we bought in New York some forty years ago, and it was old then, probably from about 1900. I slapped that baby on, along with an old muskrat hat, grabbed a gun form the same vintage (actually earlier), stepped outside in the snow and fathomed how it might have been.

First off, the coat's weight was in the thirty five pound bracket, very warm, confining (it was too small) but generally not real workable. The hat was made for a pinhead (old dudes were small) but I could sense it would be warm.

It was then I realized that hiking to the Klondike would have been one hell of an event had this been my gear of choice. Mind you they did use this stuff.

What I got out of it was that it must have been tough then, not a place for some suburban yahoo or some old duffer like me. I would imagine in the summer the coat would be little more than attraction for various forms of vermin. Then too, if you wore this thing in bear country you might get shot. Worse yet, if a bear saw you, say a big male, he might fancy your company for a role in the hay---if you get the point.

I'm glad it's now---but I do like history.