Indian Summer is the Perfect Time to be in the Woods!

Taken at Letchworth State Park by the author

I love Fall with the reds and yellows of the leaves, it’s my favorite season!  And especially an Indian Summer with its warm dry days and cool, frosty nights.  It is my favorite time to be out in the woods and on the lakes, and it always has been.

“What exactly is Indian Summer¹ and why is it called that”, you ask?   Those are both good questions, so let’s answer them.

A excerpt from “Indian Summer”, published by the Maryland Weather Service, Vol 2, page 484-485

  

According to the National Weather Service’s weather historian, William R. Deedler, who wrote “Just What Is An Indian Summer…”; an Indian Summer is a period of dry, sunny, sometimes hazy and unseasonably warm weather, that occurs during late September to November, usually after a killing frost.  Mr. Deedler further explained that on a weather map, an Indian Summer would appear as a large area of high pressure along or just off the East Coast of North America.  Sometimes the cold high-pressure system that brings in the Indian Summer, as it sweeps east out of the Canadian plains, also produces the killing frost that is the hallmark of a true Indian Summer.  As this cold high-pressure system moves east, it pulls warm air from the south or southwest, northward in its wake.  This warm southern air arrives with southerly or southwesterly breezes that result from the clockwise rotation of the winds around the high-pressure system.  An Indian Summer will only last for a couple of days to a week, before it is pushed away by another cold high-pressure system moving east.

What is an Indian Summer is an easy question to answer, what isn’t so cut and dry is why it is called that?

The phrase Indian Summer is old.  The first recorded usage of Indian Summer appeared in the late 18^th century, when a Frenchman by the name of, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, wrote the following in the Letters of an American Farmer, which was published in French in 1782 and wasn’t translated into English until the 1920s:

“German-flats, [which is in central New York state – Author’s note] 17 Janvier, 1778 … Sometimes the rain is followed by an interval of calm and warmth which is called the Indian Summer; its characteristics are a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness.  Up to this epoch the approaches of winter are doubtful; it arrives about the middle of November, although snows and brief freezes often occur long before that date”².

While, Crevecoeur’s use of Indian Summer and his description of it is the first recorded usage of the, it does not tell us how it got its name. 

Some historians have thought that the term Indian Summer was used to describe the time when the Native Americans organized hunting parties or fired the woodlands to burn off the undergrowth³.  However, the earliest description of why this weather was called an Indian Summer, was recorded by Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, in Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia & Pennsylvania, from the year 1763 until the year 1783, published in 1824.

An excerpt from Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia & Pennsylvania, from the year 1763 until the year 1783, by Doddridge, page 265-266

   

On page 265 and 266, Doddridge include a short section on Indian Summer and how it got it name:

“…an explanation of the term ‘Indian Summer’…It, however, sometimes happened, that after the apparent onset of winter, the weather became warm; the smoky time commenced, and lasted for a considerable number of days.  This was the ‘Indian Summer’, because it afforded the Indians another opportunity of visiting the settlements with their destructive warfare”

From the viewpoint of the Native Americans, who were trying to push back the ever-increasing tide of settlers, intent upon encroaching on their land and way of life, this was the perfect time to visit “…the settlements with their destructive warfare”.  During an Indian Summer, the weather is warm and dry and travelling in the woods is easy.  Also the harvest is done and it is the perfect time to attack your enemies, because even if they survive your attack, they will starve to death or die from exposure, because of the burning of their barns and cabins and the destruction of their livestock and stored provisions.

 

Taken at Letchworth State Park by the author

“Okay”, you say, “thanks for the history lesson, but what does this have to do with woods-lore, survival and camping in the wilderness; and what does it mean for me today”?

What it means is that today, just like in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, Indian Summer is the perfect time to be out and about in the woods.  So, get out into the wilderness and have some fun!  Enjoy yourself.  Just don’t raid your neighbors!

 

Taken at Letchworth State Park by the author

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and my videos at BandanaMan Productions and don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube, and if you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

Notes

¹ An important disclaimer must be noted, as I climb up on a soapbox, some late 18^th and early 19^th century words and phrases that were used to describe Native Americans and things or events associated with them had negative meanings.  Not all of them had negative meanings, just some.  Unfortunately, these few have colored our modern day thinking and understanding on all of them; the modern-day assumption being that each and every one had a negative meaning.  This just isn’t true, and it is unfortunate that too many modern-day writers have made this assumption.  You can’t change the past and you surely can’t change the future by refusing to look upon it, in the present.  Okay, I am climbing off my soapbox now.

² Deedler, William R.; “Just What Is Indian Summer And Did Indians Really Have Anything To Do With It?”

³ Many of the early writers, who mentioned Indian Summer, described it as “smoky” or that there was a “smokiness”.  Native Americans often fired the woodlands to burn off the undergrowth, as mentioned by Col. William Byrd in his journal, dated 1728, which was reprinted in The Westover Manuscripts, had this to say…

Page 57, “[October] 20th. … The atmosphere was so smoky all around us, that the mountains were again grown invisible.  This happened not from the haziness of the sky, but from the firing of the woods by the Indians, for we were now near the route the northern savages take when they go out to war against the Catawbas and other southern nations.  On their way the fires they make in their camps are left burning, which catching the dry leaves that lie near, soon put the adjacent woods into a flame”.

Page 61, “[October] 23d. … And the reason why a fire makes such a havoc in these lonely parts is this.  The woods are not there burnt every year, as they generally are amongst the inhabitants.  But the dead leaves and trash of many years are heaped up together, which being at length kindled by the Indians that happen to pass that way, furnish fuel for a conflagration that carries all before it”.

So, it would appear from the 1728 writings of William Byrd, that it was the custom of the Native Americans, at least in the mountainous parts of what is now the border between North and South Carolina in 1728, to burn off the woods every year.  This would reduce the chance of a forest fire, which might occur in areas which weren’t regularly burnt off.  Additionally, according to William Byrd, during late Fall, Native American war parties were moving either north or south to attack their enemies, and because they did not make sure that their campfires were out when they left their camp in the morning, were accidentally setting fire to woods.

Sources

Byrd, William; The Westover Manuscripts: Containing the History of the Dividing Line, [Printed by Edmund and Julian C. Ruffin, Petersburg, 1841] p. 57, 61 and 80-81, https://books.google.com/books?id=TMLpBsVTdWIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22The+Westover+Manuscripts%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjSpYu266jlAhWlUt8KHXpeAXIQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Westover%20Manuscripts%22&f=false, accessed 10/19/19

Deedler, William R.; “Just What Is Indian Summer And Did Indians Really Have Anything To Do With It?”, [National Weather Service, Detroit/Pontiac, MI, Fall, 1996],https://web.archive.org/web/20141009005228/http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/stories/i-summer.php, accessed 10/08/2019

Doddridge, Rev. Dr Joseph; Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia & Pennsylvania, from the year 1763 until the year 1783 inclusive, [Wellsburgh, VA; printed at the office of the Gazette, 1824] p. 265-266, https://archive.org/details/notesonsettlemen00dodd/page/n4, accessed July 26, 2011

Maryland Weather Service; Maryland Weather Service, Vol, 2, [The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MD, 1907], p. 484-485, https://books.google.com/books?id=3lPzAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Maryland+Weather+Service,+Volume+2%22+%22Maryland+Weather+Service%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizw7bE1Z_lAhVyqlkKHXruCWcQ6AEwAHoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=%22Maryland%20Weather%20Service%2C%20Volume%202%22%20%22Maryland%20Weather%20Service%22&f=false, accessed 10/15/19

Matthews, Albert; The Term Indian Summer, Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, January 1902, p. 19-28 and Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 1902, p. 69-79, as reprinted in https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qac5RC1w54hqrEV1jkzK4o2Vj2iCu4rpZ1Olwn5VRavJO15yVxtC0no66lbHfwIR8vz8cy0O2Kjp7kDa95mGnkPNuzPsHCNrm3YE_3fcHzkjv1lbtZebY4GINB-Dk9tW3NKQwwgqWsdpiakb6j2HbwGbzdcEXfB6Tox5jcntgs9gbV9-JD3ye_JPT2hj30xXLmq039MP2TNmOZK8GdDE9l1Sh8TbsbZuXJ-wu1ijNvhYrOvX0WfmjXKOsQeM7Fr7R1cq_loV, accessed 10/15/19

Sweeting, Adam; Beneath the Second Sun: A Cultural History of Indian Summer, [University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, 2003], https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0zTH_qFXiAC&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 10/15/19