About FTC

For years, Frontier Trading Company was a program area at an Ohio Scout camp. Around 2,500 scouts attended this camp each summer, and among the typical summer camp program areas was a replica trappers camp cut out of a shaded portion of woods. The program taught American heritage, wilderness survival skills, American Indian history, and a course on textiles.

As a young scout, I couldn’t help feeling drawn to the cabins and wigwams in FTC. I grew up in an area that had been touched by Ohio’s frontier history, and as the son of a history teacher, I brought a better understanding of the time period than many of my friends at that age.

My natural trajectory on the trail to Eagle Scout led to my working in the FTC program area for four summers throughout high school. I spent most of that time in a beat-up pair of moccasin slippers from Walmart and a coonskin cap from a museum gift shop, but I was falling in love with Ohio history by the day. I started the FTC YouTube channel in my college dorm room to keep my passion for the time period alive, and since then, I have taken great strides toward a more accurate and better-researched impression of 18th-century history.