Exploring the Whelen Lean

Description

http://tentsmiths.com/period-tents-whelen-tents.html

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

in the early part of the turn of the last century Charles Alexander Sheldon used a tent on many of his hunting expeditions that was called the hunter's lean he introduced this tent to Townsend Whelan in Townsend Whelan subsequently modified it to his needs he was also a great outdoorsman in his own right for sure and that tent was introduced to David Abercrombie of Abercrombie and Fitch

as the hunter's lean in 1925 1926 time period by colonel Townsend Weiland it was developed by Abercrombie & Fitch and marketed as the Weiland lean that we see today from an Egyptian oil cloth that was green in color okay so what I have here is the entire canvas for the tent that we're about to set up and it weighs about 12 to 15 pounds weighs more than a gallon of milk for sure which is eight pounds this one is made by ten Smith's calm and you can see that I've got one rope tied around it with a carry handle so they can be put easily into a conveyance a pack basket whatever the case may be however you decide to carry it

now let's really let's do this adjust things you get it tightened up too we weren't well good so as you can see this is a pretty good-sized tent now standing straight up in this my heads hitting the awning flap here but the ridge this tent is actually right at my head level I'm 5 foot 8 so it's got a pretty good sized Ridge and you adjust that depending on display of these sides and your a-frame is going up I like it a little bit higher like this gives me plenty of room inside like I said I can stand up right here and what I would call an alcove area where I'm not going to get rain on me in a downpour obviously gets a drip edge here but you can adjust those things as well down the road this is just a good fair weather set up to provide shade and a little bit of breeze through these areas here yes this style tent has always been known as the wheeling lien and there are period photographs of Charles Alexander Sheldon in 1908 with the shelter bears similar to this on expeditions in Alaska colonel Townsend Weiland saw his design improved on his design somewhat again there's not a whole lot of things that are new and he took that design and improved it somewhat introduced it to David Abercrombie in 1925 1926 who then was the owner of abacrombie and Fitch owner and founder and he marketed David Abercrombie marketed this tent in a green Egyptian oil cloth as the Weiland lean you can see that these side wings really control the height of that Ridge as well as your scissors that you've got on both sides and across so if we were facing some inclement weather maybe it was October and it was getting ready to rain sleet / snow and get a little colder and we wanted to drop the pitch of this down and take advantage of this awning to protect us inside we can do that very easily by pulling two stakes and moving our scissors and I'll show you that now okay so now we drop this down quite a bit you can see now it's about neck level here I can't stand up in it anymore but now I have a lot more protection from inclement weather and I can drop this flap down and adjust that anywhere I want to by these two owning poles Colonel Townsend Weiland saw this design improved on it somewhat and introduced it to David Abercrombie who was then the founder and owner of Abercrombie & Fitch David abacrombie made this design from a green Egyptian cotton oil cloth and marketed it as the wheel and lean and ever since it has been known as the wheel and lean even though originally it was called the hunter's lean and I think that lends itself to a couple of discussion points a although this is called the Weiland lean Weiland didn't invent this lean someone else did and he improved on that idea and I think that that is important for us to understand there's really nobody owns knowledge in bushcraft and wood craft everybody just takes old knowledge and either puts their own spin on it or improves on it to make it better for what they are doing themselves and if someone else learns it from that person then they may assume that that person came up with the idea whether he did or he didn't just like David Abercrombie did I think that's an important realization for us because it was no different in past time periods than it is now the other thing that I wanted to discuss was this tent when I first read an article about this tent it was written by a guy who was really struggling to justify using this tent at a period type camping event for what's called classic camping and because it was attributed to Townsend Weiland in 1925 1926 that's really the latter area latter dates of that time period of classic camping really like 1880 92 18:30 is pushing the envelope on the classic camping era and so he was struggling with the fact that he wanted to use this tent because he knew it was an optimal design but it was so late in the time period by 1925 that he didn't feel it fit into the period really really well then he did further research and found out these pictures in 1908 from Charles Alexander Sheldon that this tent was created at the turn of the century and that made him happy and I think that's another lesson that we can learn or take away from this and that is that things a don't go out of style for a long period of time and people tend to revert especially older generation people tend to revert back to what they're used to or what they were comfortable with in their younger days and I'll give you an example of my wife in that you know iris Canterbury she consistently shops for 1980s bell-bottom pants so this is 2014 those pants are 34 years out of style and she still wears them to this day and I think that even things like the long weskit from the 1750s even though it was out of style possibly in the 1770s and during the Revolutionary War it doesn't mean it wasn't worn because it definitely was so don't take things so literally when it comes to a certain period interpretation yes you want to try to be correct especially if you're educating the public but also think about those things as well it's a lot easier to go backward than it is to go forward and I think that was the whole motivation with the person that wrote the article about the wheeling lien and how it came about was he wasn't afraid to go backwards if this thing was created at the turn of the century that was a drape for him but if it wasn't created until the end of the classic camping era he really didn't want to push using it a lot because it may not have fit in well with things he was doing or carrying with his turn-of-the-century Typekit and I know this is kind of an in-depth discussion on re-enacting and historical interpretations and things like that but I just don't want people to get too hung up on some of this stuff and that's the reason I created the 21st century long hunter concept the 21st century long hunter page on facebook and discussion was so that we could delve into the past to see what worked well for our ancestors and what would work just as well for us today and I think this wheel alene is a very good example of that 13 pounds is not a lot of weight especially if you have conveyance and this design is large enough for three to four people to sleep in here if they had to but for a family of two or three this would be way more than comfortable at 13 pounds I'm Dave Canterbury with Pathfinder school I appreciate you joining me for this video discussion today I thank you for everything you do for our school for our business for our family for all of our structure sponsors affiliates and Friends and I'll be back to another video soon as I can thanks guys