[Ron Fontaine]

As some of you may know, FireSteel.com and SurvivalTopics.com now offer the Mountain Man FireSteel. This is a traditional FireSteel made of high carbon steel by a master blacksmith in the Green Mountains of Vermont.



I prospect for the "Flint" that goes with these FireSteels. In this case a very fine grade of jasper (shown with the FireSteel leaning against it), which is beautifully mottled with reds and greens.

This Jasper has an interesting history here in the Great North Woods.

The glaciers that once covered the land before history were over one mile thick. We know this because bedrock on the summit of Mount Washington (elevation 6288ft) has tell tale glacial striae.

Sometime after the last glaciers receded some ten or twelve thousand years ago, Native Americans ventured into the area. The landscape at that time looked much different than the thick forest that now covers the region. When the ice first left, the land was tundra - open and treeless, the home of lichens and vast caribou herds.

It was at this time that these "Paleo Indians" discovered a vein of fine jasper, a type of stone that breaks into very sharp pieces and can be fashioned into arrow heads, spear points, and cutting tools. Stones like this are very rare in these mountains and this jasper served a very important role in their hunter-gatherer economy.

Over thousands of years the Native Americans regularly visited this vein of jasper, perched high up on a ledge overlooking the valley. Here you can see some photos of me investigating the jasper mine. It seems incredible that so much material was removed using simple tools, and perhaps heating the rock with fire then quickly cooling it with water.

A hundred feet above the mine, on the open summit of the mountain, the Native Americans worked the jasper they mined, a skill known as "flint knapping". Modern archeological excavations here have unearthed a variety of fine tools created from this jasper by the paleo Indians and in future articles I will include photos of various jasper tools that were discovered.

Many people have wondered how the Paleo Indians discovered this vein of jasper, since it is placed precariously within the shear drop of a ledge high above the valley. But as a teenager I knew the answer - they simply discovered boulders of jasper at the base of the mountain and followed this trail of flint to its source.

So that is what I did today. First I visited the jasper mine. Here you can see me at the entrance and then investigating further in. The shaft is about twenty feet deep and some 12 or 15 feet high. There is still ice in the cave.





Not wanting to desecrate the mine in my hunt for FireSteel jasper, I hiked down to the base of the mountain and worked my way back up toward the mine. This was no easy task. Last years leaves are very slippery on the ground, the slope must be close to 60-degrees. The temperature was in the 90's F, sunny, and very windy. This served to quickly dehydrate me in my efforts and I sorely wished I had brought along more than two quarts of water.

Just out of a long northern winter, I am not acclimated to this kind of heat. And my 5'7 210 body (before you think I am obese, I am a quite dedicated weight lifter and so am heavy for my height) is not made to dissipate heat! Add to that another 40-pounds of prospecting gear and rocks in the pack and I was toting some serious weight on those steep slopes.

Sure enough, several hundred feet below the jasper mine is a rock "glacier", a mass of boulders of various sizes that over time break off the ledge above, accumulate, and slowly make their way downhill. This is a process that takes hundreds and thousands of years. Amongst these rocks I was able to find several blocks of fine jasper.

No doubt the Paleo Indians had already harvested whatever jasper they could find in this boulder field since obtaining it here would be much easier than breaking it off the parent rock above. But since the pile of rocks is moving inexorably downhill with gravity, on occasion a fresh piece of jasper will reveal itself from the mass. These loose pieces of jasper must have broken off from the vein above before the Indians discovered it many thousands of years ago.

Here you can see me posing with 2 chunks of jasper the Paleo Indians missed. The jasper mine is located several hundred verticle feet above me and the base of the mountains is far, far below.



I will break them up into pieces suitable for use with the Mountain Man FireSteels.

[ky.coyote]

sounds like a nice adventure,around here we have pain chert.tomas pain it might be called.In Burside Ky.Was once a major trading area for indains in north and south America.Thats untill Gen.Burside killed the people.There is a lot of history under the cumberland lake.Often people still fined arrow and spear points.I have found flint From black to clear.Most comen is gray.

[LaRemnant]

Originally Posted by Ron Fontaine

I will break them up into pieces suitable for use with the Mountain Man FireSteels.

Heck, maybe you can buy some sort of rock power saw and just cut those gems into perfect little doo hickies?

[Mac]

thanks for sharing that Ron - that was an awesome read.

I appreciate especially how you showed the traditional spot the native americans would get it... i love that stuff.

You have a big heart my friend!

Thanks for sharing

[vthompson]

Thank's Ron for the post and your pictures. I enjoyed reading your article and looking at the pictures of where the Indians harvested the flint from.

[Celticwarrior]

Very cool pics. Thanks Ron. Yeah, Jasper, Chert, Agate all are varients on the Flint idea, and all work well in survival situations. I have also found that necklaces with "stones" are often not even looked at on things like airplane flights, where firesteels and magnesium sticks might cause a fuss. They are good looking and functional at the same time. Cutting and grinding stones into appropriate shapes and such is its own artform, but one worth trying out.

Thanks again.

[tjwilhelm]

Great story, Ron! Did you actually find this particular cave as a teenager, or had you found and explored others in your teen years that gave you the experience to make finding this one easier?

I love reading the history of these kinds of things, and learning the natural science involved, too.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

[Tecumseh]

Ron, thanks for sharing that and the pics. Living history, I love it!

[walkabout]

Great artical Ron and pictures too. I love those kinds of stories as well.

If that is Jasper behind the picture of Mountain Man FireSteel. it is very pretty. And oh boy is that a nice firesteel. One needs one of those in their base cabin/camp. It looks big.

Would you be able to drink water from that cave? Chip away the ice and have a drink from the flow. If it was in the 90*'s I bet that cave felt really nice to be in. Seems like yesterday you were talking about winter still, oh how the season's change in a hurry.

Have you found any arrowheads made from Jasper in the area? Or maybe signs where the American Indians made their camps. Long time ago but maybe there be some sort of signs. Any drawings in the cave?

That's gotta be somthing just sitting there and feeling the pass and how it might have been.

[Dick]

That is cool. I’m always exploring and picking up interesting rocks, but my knowledge of what I’m finding is limited.
I guess I should be banging more rocks together to see if I get a spark. I encounter a fair bit of chert around here, but what makes for a good flint?