Outdoor enthusiasts are familiar with the phrase "Hunting Beard", but much like telling camp stories of Sasquatch, no one knows when the tradition started. Through out history, hunters and mountain men have always grown and maintained flowing manes of facial hair. Fundamentally, the purpose of a hunting beard was to provide warmth and protection for the hunter. Today, a beard directly connects the hunter to their primal roots.
The evolutionary history of bearded hunting clans can be traced back for some 4 million years, as one of the oldest of all surviving mammal groups. Most paleontologists consider that these "clans" share a common ancestor with early primates and probably lived during the late Cretaceous together with the last dinosaurs. It was during this time that the oldest known Big Game Hunting Clans flourished in North America, but they were also widespread in Eurasia and Africa.
During the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene, things looked bleak for the Clans, as heat exhaustion and chaffing were major concerns. With the beginning of modern climates, marked by the formation of the first North American ice, many primates went extinct but the bearded clans survived and are known today as...THE DEERBEARDS
What is a DeerBeard?
"Deer Beards" are special for these are the beards grown by otherwise cleanly shaved men, solely for the hunting season. Unlike our bearded ancestors, modern day hunters spend far less time engaged in their favorite past-time. Scientists blame Mans transformation from "Hunter/Gatherer" to "Sitter/Sleeper" on a steady food supply, but some experts blame the invention of the "Drive Thru window", cable and the term "WIFE". Today, the typical hunter gathers only once a year to relive the glory of eons past.
Growing a Deer Beard affords these domesticated coach potatoes an opportunity to achieve the special bond that starvation and scurvy created in our forefathers. Shedding most modern conveniences, these hunters return to their original state of MEN! Men of the woods, men who eat jerky, cold chili and say things like "If it's Brown, It's Down" and "If growing a beards wrong, I don't want to be right."
A Deer Beard affords the common man an opportunity to connect to something special. It is the membership card into the Club of Men. It says "I take my coffee black, change my own oil and can drop a deer from 200 yards."
Happy Hunting,
