George Washington Sears

George Washington Sears (1821–1890) was an American outdoor writer and poet who wrote as Nessmuk, a name borrowed from a Native American who had taught him woodcraft as a boy. A shoemaker by trade from Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, he spent as much time as he could in the woods. In the early 1880s he made celebrated solo canoe trips through the Adirondacks in tiny, featherweight boats built by J. Henry Rushton, and described them for the magazine Forest and Stream. His handbook Woodcraft (1884) preached traveling light and remains in print. He also published a book of verse, Forest Runes.