Reporter tells of backcountry adventure
Megan Strickland
Journalist Perri Knize donned period accurate clothing to demonstrate the lengths she went to in order to ride with an elusive and exclusive group of horsemen for a National Geographic photography assignment.
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RONAN – Journalist Perri Knize utilized extreme dedication in convincing a group of elusive and exclusive all-male historical re-enactors to allow her to follow them on a backcountry adventure through the Rocky Mountains.
Knize detailed her year-long endeavor, that resulted in a published National Geographic article, to the Mission Mountain Backcountry Horsemen group last week.
Knize said her journey began with a childhood obsession with the western United States.
“I grew up in the east and from the time I was a little kid all I really, really wanted was to live in the Rocky Mountains before white settlement to see what it was like,” Knize said. “When I go out in the mountains it’s always been about ‘how wild can I go?’ What’s the wildest landscape and how far away can I get from the modern world?’”
Knize became interested in what’s known as the “Rendezvous Era” which lasted from 1825 until 1840 when trappers forged trails through the western United States that laid the groundwork for settlers to follow.
She heard of a below-the-radar group originally formed by Vietnam War veterans called the American Mountain Men. The group consists of all males, who wear only handmade, period-accurate clothing as they trek through the backcountry on horseback and try to re-create the era.
She wanted to tag along so she could include a chapter of a book she was working on about the Rendezvous of 1838, but several obstacles were in her way.
“I said that I wanted to go to a rendezvous that’s just like they really were,” Knize said. “And they said there’s only one group that does that – the American Mountain Men. Their rendezvous are private, and you cannot go unless you are invited and sponsored and then you have to be dressed absolutely correctly. They are very strict that nothing on your person could have existed before 1840 … The goal of the American Mountain Men is that if they were to be killed in an avalanche and their bodies discovered, that no one would know they were from the 21st century unless someone looked at their dental records.”
Knize found a member of the American Mountain Men who was willing to sponsor her so she could see a rendezvous, but she had to go by car, instead of taking the 300-mile, 10-day horseback ride from Wyoming to Utah.
“I asked all the old-timers, ‘Will you let me ride with you to rendezvous with you next year? Will you let me rendezvous with you next year?’” Knize said. “And they all said, ‘No, it’s too dangerous. Can you ride your horse up that stand of timber up there? What are you going to do if two horses get tied up in your lies here? You don’t know enough. You can’t do it.’”
Knize wasn’t deterred.
“So I thought, okay, I’ll get an assignment from National Geographic magazine to ride into the rendezvous and they will have to let me do it,” Knize said.
Knize got the assignment and obtained the permission of the group’s leader, the capitain, to tag along on the ride. There was only one hitch in the plan. Knize had never saddled or bridled a horse before.
“There were three requirements I had to fulfill: I had to spend an entire year riding in steep, ugly terrain on horseback several times a week,” Knize said. “I had to become completely self-reliant with a horse in the backcountry. They were not going to babysit me, and every single item I carried on my person had to be historically accurate.”
Knize leased a horse named Chief, learned to ride in the backcountry and made friends who helped her find historically accurate equipment and clothing. In 2012, she went on the ride to rendezvous.
Aside from her helmet camera, other photography gear, and notebooks, Knize said it was like stepping back in time.
She wore brain-tanned clothes and traveled with a hard, period-correct saddle and buffalo hide to sleep and ride on.
“Part of the trip we had pack mules and the rest of the trip we did saddle packing where everything you need is under your saddle,” Knize said. “We had a couple of blankets. That’s what I slept on. Then I put the buffalo robe on top of me and then I had an oil cloth that I wrapped around me. Then I slept right on the ground.”
Knize demonstrated saddling her horse to the Mission Valley Backcountry Horsemen in Ronan. Group member Bonnie Kiser said she appreciated seeing Knize’s passion for exploring the Rocky Mountains.
“A big part of our group is keeping trails open and available for horses,” Kiser said. “We’re an advocacy group that works so people can go out and do stuff like this.”
Knize said she hasn’t been invited to ride with the American Mountain Men again, but she’d love to some day.
