019 - Nessmuk and the Sairy Gamp

George Washington Sears; better known as Nessmuk, paddled the Sairy Gamp through the Adirondack wilderness in the 1880s.

Transcript

Nessmuk and the Sairy Gamp

Preview Segment 

Here at the Adirondack Experience, we have a lot of artifacts and a lot of exhibits. Each artifact holds a unique story of its own. Join us on today’s podcast episode as we take you inside the museum. 

Today’s artifact isn’t actually owned by the ADKX. It’s on long term loan from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It is 9 feet long but only weighs 10 and half pounds! The man who had it built used the name Nessmuk. And he named the artifact Sairy Gamp. I’m talking about George Washington Sears and the tiny canoe he used to explore the Adirondack lakes and rivers.

TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast Intro - Ready to earn some extra credit? You are listening to ADKX-tra Credit, a podcast for students about the history of the Adirondack Mountains and the people that have lived, worked, and played here. The Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, is located in the heart of the Adirondack Park of New York State. 

CONTENT

George Washington Sears lived between 1821 and 1890. He was a writer and poet that loved to travel and enjoy the wild regions of the world. The Adirondacks was one of his favorite places. 

The writing that he is most famous for are the letters that he wrote for the magazine Forest & Stream. He signed the letters with the name Nessmuk. That was his pen name, which means he used that name as the author of those letters instead of his real name. It was intended as a tribute to the Native American person that taught him about the woods and camping as a boy. Forest & Stream is a magazine about hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities. It has been published since 1873 and is still in print today. 

Nessmuk shared his experiences canoeing the Adirondack waterways in his Field & Stream letters. You can imagine his letters as being a bit like a Youtube travel channel of the 1880s. Obviously, way back then they didn’t have Youtube, so he wrote letters instead. He wrote all about his travel adventures. He gives advice, describes difficulties, and tells funny stories. They were very popular and made the magazine; Forest & Stream, even more popular. People enjoyed reading his stories and they took his advice. You’ll see how that made an impact on how the Adirondacks are enjoyed by visitors today.

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The main piece of advice that Nessmuk gave was travel light and go it alone! Today we would think “that’s not safe!” I think as you listen, you’ll understand that he was encouraging people to enjoy the wilderness and don’t let lack of money or other obstacles get in the way. Kind of a ‘Just Do It’ slogan for long agoca. 

If you have listened to some of the ADKX-tra Credit episodes you may have heard me talk about Adirondack Murray and his book Adventures in the Wilderness. That book was written about eleven years before Nessmuk began his writing in Forest & Stream. Adventures in the Wilderness also described vacationing in the Adirondacks and encouraged people to go there for outdoor fun. But, Adventures in the Wilderness said you should definitely hire a guide. A guide is a person that organizes your wilderness excursion. They take you hunting and fishing. They set up camp. They row the boat. They pretty much do all the hard work and you just enjoy yourself.  

So, that’s good advice, if you can take it. Guides knew their way around the Adirondack region in a time before the maps of the area were really accurate. They had expert knowledge of the woods and outdoor activities. But, you had to pay for all that!. Guides were paid about $2.50 a day for their services. That didn’t include the hire of a boat and supplies and travel expenses. All that added up to an expensive vacation. George Washington Sears was not a wealthy man. I know I said he was a writer, but that was really a side gig that he started later in life. To earn a living for himself and his wife and three children he was a shoemaker. He understood that most people would not be able to afford a guide and all the other things. In fact, they would be really lucky to have time off from work to take a vacation. Sears was determined not to let anything stand between him and exploration of the Adirondack region.

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By the 1870s when Sears was starting to plan a trip to the Adirondack region he was in his fifties. He was not in good health, he likely had tuberculosis, which was incurable at the time. He loved adventure travel. He had been a sailor, a fisherman, and also a soldier in the Civil War. He had gone on hunting and fishing trips to Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Brazil. 

The time period in which Sears lived was when the United States was becoming industrialized. We were changing from a society where most of the people lived and worked on farms to a society that relied on big businesses and people who worked in factories. The cities were becoming very crowded and polluted. Like many others, Sears wanted to get away from all that into the clean, quiet wilderness. He realized that if he travelled with just what he could carry by himself he could afford it. He could go it alone.

In this time period, roads into the Adirondacks were scarce. Listen to the episode titled Are We There Yet? to find out more about that. The best way to get around the area especially for recreation was to use the waterways. Take a look at a map of the Adirondacks to see what I mean! There are lots of lakes, rivers, and streams, but they aren't all connected. To get from one to the other you have to take your boat out of one body of water and carry it and all your stuff to another body of water. That was one of the things that a guide would do for a traveller. But Sears wanted to go it alone. There is one more thing about George Washington Sears that I haven’t mentioned yet. He was not a big man. He was 5’ 3” tall and weighed 105 pounds. Add his small stature to the fact that he was sickly and you begin to realize that he couldn’t carry a lot of gear and a heavy boat. All the popular canoes and guideboats of the time were quite heavy. 

This is where a boatbuilder named John Henry Rushton and a boat that Sears would name Sairy Gamp come in.

TRANSITION - another voice 

From the office of JH Rushton

Manufacturer of canoes, pleasure and hunting boats

Canton, NY November 1, 1882

To Mr. George Sears

Dear Sir,

After reading Forest & Stream I thought I had best build that canoe as someone might inquire after it. Well, it is in the paint shop. 9 feet long, 24 inches wide, 8 inches deep, 12 deep at the outside. Weight under 11 pounds…

It looks as if it might float a hundred pounds at least. I mean to try it with my 108 in it when it is done. If it goes busted, I will build another one.

Now you must stop with this one. Don’t try any smaller one. If you get sick of this one as a canoe, use it for a soup dish.

Let me hear from you.

Yours truly,

JH Rushton

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The Sairy Gamp was actually the third boat that Sears bought from Rushton. Sears researched a variety of boats and boatbuilders to find the type of boat that would suit his needs. That’s how he found JH Rushton. He was a boatbuilder that was gaining popularity because of his well-crafted and reasonably priced boats. In the late 1870s, Sears asked him to build a canoe that weighed less than 20 pounds. That began a relationship that would benefit both men.

The first canoe Rushton made for Sears weighed 17 ½ pounds. Sears named it Wood Drake. He used it on his first trip into the Adirondacks and he wrote about it for Forest & Stream. The idea of using a light canoe and handling all your camping gear; or duffle as Nessmuk calls it, was catching on thanks to the Nessmuk letters. In those letters Sears praised Rushton's well-crafted boat. That drove up sales of Rushton boats. In his catalog Rushton began selling boats just like the one he’d sold Sears and he named them the Nessmuk. 

The next boat Sears ordered was just a little bit smaller, 16 pounds. Sears named this one Susan Nipper. He used her on another trip into the Adirondacks. Then in 1882 he requested an even smaller boat from Rushton. That was the boat that would be named Sairy Gamp. 

The peak of Nessmuk’s popularity came with his 1883 trip when he used the tiny Sairy Gamp. He wrote eight letters for Forest & Stream describing his trip. He travelled quite a long way. He started in Old Forge, then headed up the Fulton Chain to Raquette Lake and Forked Lake and down the Raquette River to Stony Creek Ponds. Next to Upper Saranac Lake, and then to Lake Clear and then headed through the Seven Carries to the St. Regis Lakes. He turned around and returned to Old Forge by a slightly different route. During this trek he was treated as a kind of celebrity. He was interviewed by reporters and invited to stay at private camps. 

The Nessmuk letters also made Rushton boats very popular and sought after as well. They are still highly valued by collectors.

Though Sears ordered two more canoes from Rushton, he never toured the Adirondacks again. It was no matter, the Sairy Gamp and Nessmuk’s letters in Forest & Stream had empowered other travellers to ‘go it alone.’

TRANSITION - another voice

We the “outers,” who go to the blessed woods for rest and recreation, are prone to handicap our pleasures in the matter of overweight; guns, rods, duffle, boats, etc. We take a deal of stuff into the woods, only to wish we had left it at home, and end our trips by leaving dead load of impedimenta in deserted camps.

I should be glad to see this amended. I hope at no distant day to meet independent canoeists, with canoes weighing twenty pounds or less, at every turn in the wilderness, and with no more duffle than is absolutely necessary.

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What did Nessmuk mean by all that? First of all, “outers” is his term for people that like to spend their vacation or leisure time outdoors enjoying nature. He’s saying that all those people will have a lot more fun if they pack lightly. Stop worrying about having stuff and get out there onto the lakes and rivers. I can see his point there. Once I packed a huge bag for a trip to California. It was so heavy I couldn’t get it off the luggage carousel at the airport. It just kept going around and around until I hired someone to help me get it out to my car. Having all that stuff didn’t make my vacation any better.

Nessmuk is remembered today as the first person to tell people that enjoying the Adirondack wilderness does not have to be just for the wealthy. Packs lightly. Carry your own gear. Canoeing and fishing and hiking are outdoor pursuits that don’t require a lot of money. The wilderness is for everyone to enjoy. 

His dream of seeing independent canoeists at every turn in the wilderness has come true. Without Nessmuk and his determination to ‘go it alone’ into the Adirondacks things might be very different today. He showed the public that even a person with obstacles like ill-health and low income can be a wilderness explorer if they want.Today anyone with the energy and spirit can enjoy the Adirondacks. 

TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast conclusion - Thank you for joining us for an episode of ADKX-tra Credit. This podcast is brought to you by Adirondack Experience, the museum on Blue Mountain Lake. Our mission is to expand understanding of Adirondack history and the relationship between people and the Adirondack wilderness, fostering informed choices for the future. If you want to learn more fun Adirondack history visit our website theadkx.org