# George W. Sears > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/George_W._Sears > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/George_W._Sears.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Sears > Source revision: 1339735579 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) American environmentalist (1821–1890) "George Sears" redirects here. For the fictional character, see [List of Metal Gear Solid 2 characters § Solidus Snake](/source/List_of_Metal_Gear_Solid_2_characters#Solidus_Snake). "Nessmuk" redirects here. For the lake in Pennsylvania, see [Nessmuk Lake](/source/Nessmuk_Lake). This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Please help improve this article by citing more sources. Find sources: "George W. Sears" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2022) **George Washington Sears** (December 2, 1821 – May 1, 1890) was an American writer for *[Forest and Stream](/source/Forest_and_Stream)* magazine in the 1880s and an early conservationist. His stories, appearing under the pen name "**Nessmuk**", popularized self-guided canoe camping tours of the [Adirondack](/source/Adirondack_Park) lakes in open, lightweight solo canoes and what is today called ultralight camping or [ultralight backpacking](/source/Ultralight_backpacking). [Canoeing](/source/Canoeing) had been popularized by Scottish lawyer [John MacGregor](/source/John_MacGregor_(sportsman)) in the 1860s, but the typical canoe trip of the day employed expert guides and heavy canoes. Sears, who was 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m) tall and 103 pounds (47 kg), had a 9-foot-long (2.7 m), 10+1⁄2-pound (4.8 kg) solo canoe built by J. Henry Rushton of [Canton, New York](/source/Canton_(town)%2C_New_York). He named it the *[Sairy Gamp](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_834781)* (the name of a [Dickens](/source/Charles_Dickens) character) and in it he completed a 266-mile (428 km) journey through the central Adirondacks. He was 62 years old and in frail health ([tuberculosis](/source/Tuberculosis) and [asthma](/source/Asthma)) at the time. [William Henry Harrison Murray](/source/William_Henry_Harrison_Murray)'s *Adventures in the Wilderness*, published in 1869, had praised the Adirondacks as having a healthy atmosphere for consumptives and [Verplanck Colvin](/source/Verplanck_Colvin)'s enthusiastic writing about the Adirondack wilderness had further inspired the trip. The *Sairy Gamp* was acquired by the [Smithsonian Institution](/source/Smithsonian_Institution) and is now on loan to the [Adirondack Museum](/source/Adirondack_Museum). Sears grew up the eldest of ten children in South Oxford (now [Webster](/source/Webster%2C_Massachusetts)), Massachusetts. He took his pen name from a [Native American](/source/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) who had befriended him in early childhood. He was fascinated by the few books about Native Americans his family possessed, which left him with an abiding interest in forest life and adventure. A period of factory labor while still a child left him with a fondness for the writing of Charles Dickens. At age 12 he started working in a commercial fishing fleet based on [Cape Cod](/source/Cape_Cod), and at 19 he signed on for a three-year voyage on a [whaler](/source/Whaler) headed for the [South Pacific](/source/Pacific_Ocean); it was the same year (1841) that [Herman Melville](/source/Herman_Melville) shipped out of the same port bound for the same whaling grounds. On his return, his family moved to [Wellsboro, Pennsylvania](/source/Wellsboro%2C_Pennsylvania), where he lived for the rest of his life. But he continued traveling for adventure, from the upper [Midwest](/source/Midwest) and [Ontario](/source/Ontario) to an [Amazon](/source/Amazon_River) tributary in [Brazil](/source/Brazil) (in 1867 and again in 1870). Nessmuk historical marker at [Leonard Harrison State Park](/source/Leonard_Harrison_State_Park) Sears wrote *Woodcraft*, a book about [camping](/source/Camping), published in 1884, that has remained in print ever since. A book of poems, *Forest Runes*, appeared in 1887. He died at his home in Pennsylvania seven years later. Mount Nessmuk, in northern Pennsylvania, is named after him. ## Sources - Jerome, Christine (December 1998) [1994, by [HarperCollins](/source/HarperCollins)]. *An Adirondack Passage: The Cruise of the Canoe Sairy Gamp*. design by Alma Hochhauser Orenstein (2nd ed.). Lake George, NY: Adirondack Mountain Club. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-935272-94-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-935272-94-1). ## External links - [Works by George Washington Sears](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26594) at [Project Gutenberg](/source/Project_Gutenberg) - [Works by or about George W. Sears](https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20Washington%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20W%2E%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Sears%2C%20G%2E%20W%2E%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22George%20Washington%20Sears%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22George%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22G%2E%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22George%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22George%20Washington%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22George%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22G%2E%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22G%2E%20Washington%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20Washington%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20W%2E%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Sears%2C%20G%2E%20W%2E%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Sears%2C%20G%2E%20Washington%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22George%20Sears%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%22%20OR%20title%3A%22George%20Washington%20Sears%22%20OR%20title%3A%22George%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20title%3A%22G%2E%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20title%3A%22George%20Sears%22%20OR%20description%3A%22George%20Washington%20Sears%22%20OR%20description%3A%22George%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20description%3A%22G%2E%20W%2E%20Sears%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20Washington%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%20W%2E%22%20OR%20description%3A%22George%20Sears%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Sears%2C%20George%22%29%20OR%20%28%221821-1890%22%20AND%20Sears%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at the [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive) - [Works by George W. Sears](https://librivox.org/author/10511) at [LibriVox](/source/LibriVox) (public domain audiobooks) - [Biographical information, photos, and full text of two *Forest and Stream* articles.](https://web.archive.org/web/20050630074403/http://www.rtpnet.org/robroy/books/gws/N.HTM) - [Online editions of both *Woodcraft* and *Forest Runes*](http://www.zianet.com/jgray/index.html) Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat National United States Czech Republic Poland People Trove Other Open Library 2 SNAC Yale LUX --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [George W. Sears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Sears) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Sears?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.