FORT BRIDGER  — The Fort Bridger Mountain Man Rendezvous brought thousands of visitors and participants to the Fort Bridger State Historic Site over a dry, warm Labor Day weekend.

Although the majority of the participants don’t spend the long, cold winter months foraging for food and trapping beaver in the cold waters, one mountain man said the rendezvous was a success as he got a “good buffalo coat.”

When asked about the coat, he said it would come in handy as he lived in the mountains in northern Wyoming without the benefits of modern civilization. He spoke of Two Eagle from the northern Wyoming mountains who used to come to the Fort Bridger Rendezvous. A true-mountain man at heart and in his lifestyle, scruffy from top to bottom, and his black leathers with feathers were well-worn. Two Eagle attended for years and then, one year, he no longer came to the rendezvous. 

The Fort Bridger Rendezvous and black powder shoot brings to life the mountain man era when hardy men went West to trap beaver, the preferred material for hats for city gents in the east in the early 1800s. The era was short-lived as silk top hats became the norm.

But while furs were in vogue, William Ashley, an early entrepreneur, brought goods West to the men who braved the frontier and trapped the beaver. They bought their ginghams, supplies, etc. to carry the trappers through the long winter months ahead. And, when the ginghams wore out, it was back to leathers and hides for clothing. 

Dick James, the first modern “booshway,” or boss man, of the Fort Bridger Rendezvous, was again on site. Now, bent and stooped, wearing hearing aids and having a hard time walking, James did say, “God willing” he will be here again next year. The rendezvous was James’ brain-child.

He said, when the rendezvous was started 46 years ago, there weren’t any mountain man rendezvous. There were black powder shoots, and James thought it was a great idea to put the two events together. Since the beginning with 13 teepees, the Rendezvous has grown to a massive event and been reported on by the BBC in England and by a television crew in Germany. And who knows how many others? 

The Fort Bridger Rendezvous is the second largest visitor event in Wyoming. Activities at the site bring to life the facts out of the history books. 

During the weekend, the state site is dotted with teepees, lean-tos, grizzled buckskinned mountain men and women, Native Americans in ceremonial dress, children in buckskins or ginghams and more.

This scene is punctuated by the beat, beat, beat of the Native American drums, the chants of the lead singers and the intermittent sound of musket fire.