Tahquamenon Tales

Experiences of an Early French Trader and His Native Family

By

Timothy J. Kent

ISBN:0-9657230-1-1

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Tahquemenon Tales vividly brings to life the daily activities of a French trader of the 1600s and his woodland native family. The author recreated with great authenticity the items of daily life of the early native and French inhabitants of North America, based on over fifty excavation reports of seventeenth century sites as well as hundreds of documents dating from that era. He and his family then lived for an extended period each year in the wilderness with only those items, as living-history research.

Through these stories, written in an entertaining narrative form, join the trader Silver Fox, his native wife Sunning Otter, and their sons Golden Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk. Follow them as they recreate what daily life was like three to four hundred years ago, when Native American and French cultures first met and intermingled. Experience with the family the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells as they relive in minute detail the exchanges which took place between the native and French worlds.

Paddle and sleep beneath a birchbark canoe, kindle fires with flint and steel, harvest woodland foods, compare native and French woodworking tools, produce cord from basswood bark, and brain-tan a deer hide. Join the family as they compare traditional native cooking containers to trade kettles of copper and brass, set snares and deadfall traps, mold lead gun balls, and contrast a bone awl with an iron needle and elk sinew threads with linen thread. Inside a cozy birchbark shelter, absorb with them the magic of ancient stories told beside the fire.

The tales of the family’s discoveries fill 225 pages in a large 8.5×11 inch format, presented in soft covers and perfect binding. They are copiously illustrated with 135 photographs, many in full color. The book is both entertaining and invaluable as a historically accurate and detailed account of life during the early historic era.