Message From Charlie Richie Jr.

Normally, I’m very excited to be writing to all of our wonderful readers.  Like my father (founder & publisher of BWM for 42 years) always said and I have always agreed with him, we have the greatest collection of readers on earth.  They’re incredibly knowledgeable and are eager to share their wisdom with others, hugely passionate about the outdoors, independent & self-reliant, believe in the preservation of the Old Ways of Living, but most importantly they’re really good people who are respectful and down-to-earth.  We have always felt that we share values and have an incredible bond with our readers.  The Backwoodsman would have never made it if it wasn’t for all our readers and the contributions that they have made to this little publication that no one thought would ever make it this far.

That is the type of outdoor community that my parents wanted to create when they started, and I strongly feel that is the same community that we still have intact after 45 years of publishing.  Through thick & thin, we’ve never missed a deadline, and what has really driven us to meet those expectations was how much we cared about our readers.  We never wanted to let you down.   No matter what was happening in the Richie family, my father would say about the magazine “the show always goes on.”

Beginning with our 2025 summer Edition, we will no longer be able to offer print subscriptions.  We will still be distributed to retail stores across North America, and we will be able to sell a small quantity directly from our website (backwoodsmercantile.com).  We will still offer a digital subscription.  Also, the same barter system that we have used since the beginning with writers will still be used.  You will receive your subscription if you contribute an article to the Backwoodsman and it is published.  We will also still offer trade-ads for writers who have things to promote or sell.  That part of our business is not changing at all.

This was an incredibly hard decision to make, but it’s simply not financially feasible for us to produce all of the subscriber copies on our own, and it’s just no longer possible to be an independent publisher at any level.  Last year we had to enter a profit-sharing agreement with a media company, A360Media to survive another industry earthquake.  They only wanted to work with our retail copies, so we printed the subscriber copies using another printer on our own. If we continued to do that for each issue, we would be out of business real fast.

This all began a couple of years ago when our long-time printer who was heavily reliant on paper from China began to have problems acquiring it, and it eventually drove them out of business.  The company that we are currently working with for our retail copies, McClatchy Media, uses a paper plant based in the U.S.  The smaller printers that we would have to use are mostly dependent on global paper, which now will be a major obstacle for any company that is dependent on global paper.

We plan on taking care of all our subscribers by offering options to cover the remaining amount of issues owed to each subscriber. 

We do understand your frustration, but I was taught throughout my life to take care of our customers and that they do come first.  Customer service was a very important part of my mother’s life and role with the Backwoodsman.  I would joke with her that she loved the readers more than she loved her own family, so we have always tried our best to accommodate our readers.

Our options will be selecting issues from our current list of back issues, converting over to a digital subscription if you don’t already have one or for our subscribers who are knife lovers, we will be offering some of Charlie Richie Sr’s lower priced knives from his collection in exchange.  Please either reach us by calling our toll-free phone # at 877-465-4120 or you can contact my wife, Tiffany, who is also our business manager at tiffany.bwm@gmail.com.

The plan is to survive anyway we can at the moment, and we hope to be able to offer print subscriptions again in the future.  Bottom line is now more important than ever to keep the Backwoodsman alive.  Our hope is to ride out this storm and find a safe harbor and to continue to preserve the Old Ways of Living, and to prepare not scare.  Thank you!

Charlie Richie Jr.
Backwoodsman Magazine

For additional information you can read my editorial from our 2025 Summer Edition. 

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