Black Smithing During the Fur Trade Era

Joe's Web Page <<click here>>

Joe DeLaRonde, master blacksmith, will cover ironwork of the early Fur Trade era as it pertains not only to the American Indian, but the Mountain Man and frontier traders as well. He will also discuss the blacksmith's role on the early frontier. Particular attention will be given to axes, tomahawks and knives of the frontier trader, trapper and Native American

About the Speaker:

Joe DeLaRonde of DeLaRonde Forge has been a professional blacksmith and knife maker for 30 years, having found his niche in life under the three year apprenticeship of a tenth generation German blacksmith in 1972. Joe feels that blacksmithing in its purest form is an art. Blacksmithing is his historic connection with the past, though the revival of its traditional methods.

Joe's blacksmithing interest is primarily in the realm of the tools of the American frontier in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Joe painstakingly researches the tools, axes, tomahawks, pipe hawks and knives that he hand forges in his shop in Glorieta, New Mexico.

His work is found in private collections and museums, nationally and internationally. He was also chosen as Dixie Gun Works' "Bladesmith" for their Blackpowder Annual 2000 and has been written up in numerous articles. He is also a published author and has written several articles including the Chapter on Blacksmithing in the "Book of Buckskinning IV." Joe was the blacksmith demonstrator in the Mountain Man Camp at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Joe does demonstrations and workshops throughout the country. He was among the first to do interactive workshops over 27 year ago, where students make tools and accouterments in a blacksmithing class and then take those same tools and built a log cabin. He is currently working on a video on basic blacksmithing.

Joe's Web Page <<click here>>

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