Bear Hunting In The Smokies, 1909 -- Part 2

Backcountry Notes ^ | April 20, 2010 | Jay Henderson

[jay1949]

Originally published in Field & Stream magazine in 1909, this is the second part of an article written by Horace Kephart, a Pennsylvania-born writer and outdoorsman who moved to a cabin in Hazel Creek in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1904. Best known for his book "Our Southern Highlanders" (1913; rev. ed 1922), Kephart loved the mountains and the mountaineers and wrote using accurately-rendered Appalachian English.

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Hearing fa-so-la, shape note singing in the background...

[Raven6]

How times change... My kinfolk still live in the mountains of NC, and still hunt bear. Now, though they still use the dogs, they also use two-way radios (usually “marine band” rigs) to communicate with each other and to stay on the bear until he is tree’d.

Properly prepared, a good bear roast is some good eating. You have to marinade it for a bit in milk, to take away some of the game taste. Seared and then slow roasted. Served up with roasted potatoes and carrots... A big pan of cornbread... Gotta go - it’s lunchtime.

Raven6

PS & BTW: There is good money to be made in selling bear gall bladders to the Asian markets...

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