Bismarck (Justin Fowler)

Title: Bismarck

General Information about Item:

  • Verbal Lore, Legend
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant:  John T. Brady ’19
  • Date Collected: 10-31-17

Informant Data:

  • John Brady is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019.  John was born in the suburbs of Chicago, IL.  He grew up just north of the city in a nice suburban town.   John was part of a boy scout group growing up.  Every summer, John and his fellow boy scouts went backpacking.  They backpacked all over the United States.  His scout troop went to various places such as New Mexico, California, Wyoming, and Wisconsin. One of his earliest backpacking trips was a section of the Appalachian Trail around North Carolina and Tennessee.  The trail started out of Hot Springs, NC.  John’s early experience with the Appalachian Trail sparked an interest and has had him continuing to hike when he so desires.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Backpackers often travel with one another and share stories along the trail.  Often there are various experts within the hiking community.  There are people who have hiked many trails or continue to hike the same trails for seemingly forever.  They have been hiking for so long seemingly everyone in the hiking community knows them.
  • Social Context: This specific term came about when talking about trail magic as well as common things that came up when talking with fellow hikers.  Often, with the sharing of information and knowledge on trails, people who are more experience and have been in more pressing situations are leaned upon in order to maximize success within the hiking community and builds community within the people hiking.  Within the hiking community certain people help others and are so well-known either as triple crowners, practicers of trail magic or simply legends who hike because they want to and can their names never die.

Item:

  • Bismarck was a hiker who thoroughly hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT).  He was very well-known throughout the hiking community as a legend because of his dedication to hiking.  Known as a hiking giant very few who have ever hiked the Appalachian Trail have never heard this legend’s nickname.

(man on the right is Bismarck)

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “So I actually got super lucky on my hiking trip, met a legend named Bismarck.  Like actually a hiking legend.  The guy hiked the Appalachian Trail essentially for a living and was always hiking with this guy, forget his name but want to say it was like Hopper and they were super chill guys.  Surprisingly, I later heard actually that he was charged of embezzlement and was under FBI investigation.  It was a whole big thing.  Another sketchy thing about him that we (the hiking community) found out later was that he was also being investigated for possibly burning down his own home with his wife inside.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found this legend to be extremely intriguing.  Not only because people who dedicate themselves to hiking become well-known within the hiking community but also because of the crazy twist within the story of the Legend that is Bismarck.

Collector’s Name: Justin Fowler

Tags/Keywords:

  • Verbal Lore
  • Legend
  • Bismarck

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