Mountain Men are alive and well at Fort Buenaventura

The time is 8:30 a.m. at Fort Buenaventura Park, along the Weber River at the western edge of Ogden. Exiting the parking lot onto a rocky gravel trail, the park appears to be as ordinary as any, until the path opens up to a small encampment reminiscent of frontier times.

Suddenly, time reverses. Sitting around the fire is what appears to be an early 19th century family, quietly roasting sausages over a fire. A mule appears, stomping its dusty hooves, preparing for its big moment later in the day when it will act as the central figure of the mule packing demonstration. The morning is cool and crisp, a just-risen sun reflecting orange in the pond adjacent to the worn but sturdy log cabins.

Seemingly out of nowhere, at the stroke of 9 a.m., a gunshot echoes through the nearly empty park. Immersed in the convincing authenticity of the moment, one might duck for cover. Never fear, though – this historical site isn’t under attack. Those shots are exploding from the black-powder rifles of the Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men, hitting their steel targets with apparent ease.

This group gathers at Fort Buenaventura on the second Saturday of each month for “Buckskinner Day,” intended to honor and explore the customs of the Utah mountain men of the early to mid-1800s.

The story of Fort Buenaventura begins with Miles Goodyear. Born in Connecticut in 1817 and orphaned at age 4, he spent most of his youth as an indentured servant, determined to break free and explore the frontier. At 17, he left home began walking west. In 1836, when Goodyear was 19, he encountered the Whitman-Spalding Presbyterian missionary party some 40 miles out from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The group was embarking on a westward journey along the Oregon Trail. 

Goodyear tagged along, but when the party reached Fort Hall in Idaho, he decided to part ways. An account by fellow traveler William H. Gray said Goodyear’s idea of liberty was “unlimited,” and he headed out into the Rocky Mountains on his own, spending the next decade trekking through harsh conditions – hunting, trapping and trading his way into well-earned mountain man status.

As the fur trade slowed in 1845, Goodyear decided to settle down. He constructed Fort Buenaventura along the westward bend of the Weber River, completing it in 1846. With cottonwood logs, he built four log cabins, sheds, corrals for livestock and a garden, and it was from this home base that he continued to trap, trade and assist other emigrants traveling west.

By 1847, Latter-day Saint pioneers had arrived on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. That November, the Mormon High Council of Great Salt Lake City authorized James Brown to purchase Goodyear’s land, including Fort Buenaventura, the outbuildings and all the animals, excluding his horses. Officially Latter-day Saint property, the compound was soon dubbed Brownsville, which would later become Ogden.

One of the log cabins built at Fort Buenaventura Park, now called the Miles Goodyear Cabin, is known as the first permanent home built in Utah’s modern era, making the area the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in the Great Basin. The original cabin is now under the care of the Weber County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, having been moved to Ogden’s Tabernacle Square. Though the fort visitors to the park see today is a replica of the original, it was constructed using woodworking techniques authentic to the period.

The historical value of this largely untouched place is hard to ignore, making it the perfect venue to gather the mountain men of today. The Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men have been gathering for five years with the goal of preserving for future generations the knowledge and survival skills of mountain men.

They call themselves mountain men, but their ranks include many women and children, too. On this particular morning, Scheryl Gill and her husband, Lyle, are participating in the black-powder shoot – the source of all the gunshots. Participants use traditional muzzleloader rifles that must be loaded with gunpowder and a single lead bullet. They aim for inanimate targets like cans, playing cards, and paper bullseyes on the hillside across the field. Everyone is dressed in period-appropriate fur-trade era garb. When one loses sight of the parking lot, it’s easy to feel completely immersed in the past as if inside a virtual reality simulator.

Someone must have hit a target; there’s some general hooting and hollering. Scheryl smiles and turns to display her gun, a flintlock rifle, which uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism to fire off a shot. As she bends down to load it, torn playing cards tucked into the brim of her hat come into view, which she explains are mementos of the bullseyes she’s hit.

Some of the fort’s mountain members, like Scheryl and Lyle, feel drawn to the organization for the opportunity to hone their muzzleloader skills. There are similar mountain man groups all over the West, and they take turns sponsoring rendezvous events where they can all come together. Lyle, who’s been involved with mountain man groups for more than 15 years, remembers fondly a particular rendezvous at a fort in rural Idaho. Jaydell Jacques, the club’s range master, has an even longer history with groups honoring the mountain man era, having belonged to the Utah Free Mountain Trappers before it disbanded. He grew up a Boy Scout, reveled in the outdoors and later fell in love with Utah history and black powder shooting, then became a mountain man 31 years ago.

Many of his friends are mountain men, and what he appreciates most is working with his hands.

“This is a hobby where you can really build everything you use,” Jacques said. “You can’t build your golf clubs.”

Jacques plans his life around Saturdays, he said. “Even my own granddaughter says, ‘What’s more important than Buckskinner Day?’ I don’t even know what to say. I have to agree with her!”

This thriving community truly spans generations and is imbued with the spirit of rugged survival, dedicated to practicing the customs of the people without whom the West as we know it wouldn’t exist. The original mountain men hunted and gathered, made tools and shelters to keep themselves warm and safe. They explored deep into the wilderness, helping each other and their families.

These skills have been largely lost in modern society, as the knowledge of elders dissolves into the ether without being passed on. This is exactly what the Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men are working to prevent – the disappearance of our own, very human ability to survive. Recent skills share workshops on Buckskinner Day have included milkweed cord weaving, metal engraving and stone arrow making, and they group is always welcoming new teachers with diverse abilities to share.

Fort Buenaventura Park occupies 84 beautiful riverside acres. Beyond the shooting range, it features a playground, canoeing, fishing, walking trails and a disc golf course. Jacques said there have been some mountain men who resent the manmade structures for removing them from the historical purity of the place.

“When the state owned the park,” Jacques said, “it was just us mountain men, so it was a little cooler for us.”

However, the state started cutting its budget in 2002, and Fort Buenaventura was one of the first places to close. It soon reopened under the jurisdiction of Weber County rather than the state.

“This place has to survive, and it can’t survive just on us,” Jacques said. “We have to compromise. Occasionally, disc golfers will ask us to quit shooting, and I tell them, ‘When this target’s over, I’ll give you a couple minutes.’ ”

Looking around, passersby seem more fascinated than disgruntled with the group, who are more than happy to share their story with anyone willing to strike up a conversation with a dozen wilderness-hardened mountain people with rifles. They’re not what they appear, though, which is especially exemplified in Chuck Willis, treasurer of the Fort Buenaventura Mountain Men, who goes by Thor.

Dressed head to toe in brain-tanned, fringed leather, he’s not only a mountain man, but a mountain of a man, tall and strong the way one inevitably needs to be when you have hobbies like his. He has a certain warmth to him, smiling as he recalls his origin story.

“First time I wandered into the woods, I was 2 years old in the Adirondack Mountains with my coonskin hat on,” he said. “My parents were looking for me forever.”

As a young adult, Willis would go out into the desert equipped with absolutely nothing to practice his survival skills – “just sticks and stones and friction fires,” as he puts it. When he got to Utah in 1994 and learned about mountain man re-enacting, he traded sticks and stones for a rifle and a steel knife. Willis is quite an experienced outdoorsman: He’s hiked the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails, and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. There’s just something about the Fort Buenaventura experience that keeps him coming back.

His passion for the organization, in part, is informed by his understanding of North American history, including indigenous practices dating back to the Stone Age.

“People need to study history, because if you don’t know where you were, then you can’t know where you are,” he said. “You can’t see the progress you’ve made. The rarest commodity back then was clean water. If they came back today and saw how we’re living, they would have no idea what we’re complaining about.”

Speaking of abundance, someone passes around a loaf of home-baked blackberry orange bread. It’s delicious, of course, a true testament to the pleasures of doing things the old way. The Mountain Men are true to their values – they really live them – and there’s a tangible sense of community and care that makes them feel more like a living, breathing village than a weekend club.

And Fort Buenaventura proves an irreplaceable venue. Pausing to survey the scene, a little imagination is all it takes to transport oneself back in time to that fateful day, when Miles Goodyear broke ground on Utah’s very first Anglo settlement, only a few hundred yards from the group gathered hundreds of years later to celebrate his way of life. The sun now fully risen, cottonwoods likely older than anyone’s great-grandfather are alive with birds and squirrels. All is quiet, save the intermittent gunshot.

Jacques sighs and looks around.

“Knowing that this is the first permanent settlement in Utah – right there – is so cool. Utah has their This Is the Place monument, and granted, that has a lot of history, but to us, this, this is the place.”