Author Archives: Angie Thomas

The Enduring Beaver

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

Two hundred years after the height of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, beaver are still busy along the tributaries of the Snake, the Missouri, and the upper Green River and countless other streams that once held these fur bearing mammals. They go about their work mostly uninterrupted, much as they always have. The same cannot be said of the mountain men who once set their traps along these waters. Today, they exist chiefly in journals, memoirs, and the footnotes of historians.

Would early nineteenth-century trappers have been surprised to learn that beaver would recover, even as the profession built upon their pursuit vanished? During the early Rocky Mountain fur trade, beaver in western rivers were routinely described as “plentiful” and “abundant.”[1] Yet even as the fur trade expanded, trappers, keen observers of the landscape, recognized that familiar streams could be “trapped out,” that pelts grew harder to come by, and that profits declined where competition was heavy.[2] Whether their concern was practical or philosophical, it was real. Time has shown that while beaver populations recovered, the occupation built on their pursuit did not.

Abundant Beaver in Streams

In the early 1800s, beaver populations in rivers and streams west of the Mississippi appeared inexhaustible. Trapper Joseph Meek noted that the “beaver were very plenty on Henry’s fork” in 1830.[3] The following year, mountain man Warren Ferris described the Snake River and Henry’s Fork in glowing terms, noting that his party was able to take “from forty to seventy beaver a day,” a reflection of the optimism that characterized the early Rocky Mountain fur trade.[4] For trappers, each drainage promised a new opportunity, each river a potential bonanza. If one stream failed to meet expectations, another lay in the next drainage ahead, promising abundant fur.

This confidence was not mere fantasy. William Ashley noted in his 1825 journal information that Jedediah Smith learned from Peter Skene Ogden during his time at Flathead Post:

Mr. Smith ascertained from the gentleman who had charge of that establishment, that the Hudson Bay Company had then in their employment, trading with the Indians and trapping Beaver on both sides of the Rocky Mountains, there were about 80 men, 60 of whom were generally employed as trappers and confined their operations to that district called the Snake country, which Mr Smith understood as being confined to the district claimed by the Shoshone Indians. It appeared from the account, that they had taken in the last four years within that district eighty thousand Beaver, equal to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds of furs.

You can form some idea of the quantity of Beaver that country once possessed when I tell you that some of our hunters had taken upwards of one hundred in the last spring hunt out of streams which had been trapped, as I am informed, every season for the last four years.[5]

Early trapping parties encountered astonishing numbers of beaver, before experience and growing competition revealed the limits of even the richest streams.

Growing Awareness of Scarcity

Even as optimism prevailed, trappers’ journals reveal a growing awareness that local depletion was real. Jedediah Smith, in his 1830 letter to the Secretary of War and referring to Hudson’s Bay Company brigades, observed that “the territory … being trapped by both parties, is nearly exhausted of beavers, and unless the British can be stopped, will soon be entirely exhausted.”[6] (Read here: Jed’s Famous 1830 Letter – The Jedediah Smith Society)

Streams that once yielded abundant pelts had become increasingly labor-intensive. Trappers also noted a decline not only in the number of animals but in their size. In 1832, Robert Campbell wrote:

When we trapped the first time in the country, they would average more. It would not take 60 beavers to made a hundred pounds, as the old beavers, before they were trapped out, weighed more than young beavers.[7]

By the early 1830s, similar observations appeared with increasing frequency. Nathaniel Wyeth remarked in 1832 that the beaver “had lately been trapped out.”[8] In 1835, Osborne Russell recorded reports from Shoshone people he encountered in the Lamar Valley indicating that beaver were “comparatively scarce” in the greater Yellowstone Lake region.[9] Robert Newell, a mountain man working in the Powder River area, noted in 1838 that “times is getting hard all over this part of the Country beever Scarce and low all peltries are on the decline.”[10] By 1839, Russell reported that “Beaver also were getting very scarce” in the Bear River area.[11]

Osborne Russell further recalled:

The trappers often remarked to each other as they rode over these lonely plains that it was time for the White man to leave the mountains as Beaver and game had nearly disappeared.[12]

This recognition extended beyond the trappers themselves. In 1839, Dr. Friedrich Adolph Wislizenus, a German physician, botanist, and explorer, traveled west with a supply caravan to the Green River rendezvous. While documenting the regions botanical landscape, he also observed the business of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. He wrote:

The beaver formerly spread over the greater part of the United States. From the cultivated portions he has disappeared long ago; and in his present home, in the Rocky Mountains, he is beginning to become scarcer. Hundreds of thousands of them have been trapped there in the last decades, and a war of extermination has been waged against the race. The consequence is that they are now found only singly in regions that were formerly well known for their abundance of beavers. It is only in the lands of hostile Indians, the Blackfeet, for instance, that they still exist in greater numbers, because the Indians do not specially occupy themselves with beaver trapping.[13]

This awareness was practical rather than sentimental. Concern over declining beaver numbers was likely driven less by environmental alarm than by the loss of income, but mountain men clearly recognized the changes taking place in the streams. Descriptions of beaver populations shifted from “abounding” and “plentiful” to “scarce” and finally to “trapped out.” They noticed patterns of scarcity, differences between river systems, and the consequences of repeated trapping. In short, they were early experts in local population dynamics—even if they lacked the vocabulary of modern ecology.

Trapped Out, by Design

Declining numbers were not just an individual concern, they were also the result of corporate strategy. Beaver was a competitive resource and trapping out regions, or deliberately creating “fur deserts,” was intended to deny resources to rivals.[14]

Hudson’s Bay Company Governor George Simpson openly encouraged depletion of beaver in certain regions to deny Americans access. During an 1824 visit to the Columbia District, he wrote:

If properly managed no question exists that [the Snake County] would yield handsome profits as we have convincing proof that the country is a rich preserve of Beaver and which for political reasons we should endeavor to destroy as fast as possible.[15]

Wislizenus also noted the long-term consequence of this policy and what he described as “ruthless trapping”:

The Hudson’s Bay Company has established more system in beaver trapping within its territories. It allows trapping only at certain seasons, and when beavers get scarce in any neighborhood, trapping is strictly forbidden there for some years. In regions, however, on whose permanent possession the company does not count, it allows the trappers to do as they please. But if trapping is carried on in this ruthless fashion, in fifty years all the beavers there will have disappeared, as have those in the east, and the country will thereby lose a productive branch of commerce.[16]

Joe Meek noted the 1838 rendezvous was held at “Bonneville’s old fort on Green River, and was the last one held in the mountains by the American Fur Company. Beaver were growing scarce, and competition was strong.”[17] Later that year Meek and his companions “visited the old trapping grounds on Pierre’s Fork, Lewis’ Lake, Jackson’s River, Jackson’s Hole, Lewis River and Salt River: but beaver were scarce.”[18]

For the independent or company-employed trapper, declining numbers meant economic hardship. For company managers, depletion was a calculated tool. In either case, trappers were aware that beaver were a finite resource.

The Vanishing Mountain Man

The experiences of individual trappers reflect this broader shift. In his memoirs, Kit Carson recalled that by 1841, the changing landscape of the fur trade had forced many men to abandon trapping altogether:

Beaver was getting scarce, and, finding it was necessary to try our hand at something else, Bill Williams, Bill New, Mitchell, Frederick, a Frenchman, and myself concluded to start for Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas. [19]

There, Carson was hired to hunt for the fort. [20]

Mountain men became legendary almost as soon as the fur trade took shape in the Rocky Mountains. Yet their presence in the mountains proved fleeting when measured against the persistence of the beaver they pursued. By the 1830s and 1840s, changing fashions, markets, and economic conditions diminished demand for beaver hats and the need for long-term trapping expeditions. Though the beaver endured, the profession that relied on them did not.

The Resilient Beaver

Two hundred years later, the irony is unmistakable. Rivers once feared stripped bare of beaver continue to support thriving populations.

In the long contest between trapper and his prey, the beaver proved the more durable. Trappers correctly warned of local scarcity, but few foresaw how briefly their own profession would last. The rivers remain, the beaver endure, yet the mountain men are gone. Their words, however live on, offering a quiet irony and a reminder that the beaver is the unexpected victor of the story of the Rocky Mountain fur trade.

The Rocky Mountain fur trade may be history, but beaver continue to offer a surprise. Learn more:

How Beavers Are Restoring Wetlands in North American Deserts!

Air dropped beaver in Idaho.

[1] For examples of journal entries remarking on an abundance of fur bearers, see: Peter Skene Ogden, “Journal of Peter Skene Ogden; Snake Expedition, 1828–1829,” Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 11, no. 4 (December 1910): 394; Warren Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, eds. Paul C. Phillips and Fred A. Rosenstock (Denver, CO: The Old West Publishing Company, 1942), 97; Frances Fuller Victor, The River of the West (Columbus, OH: Long’s College Book Co., 1952; reprint of original edition), 94.

[2] Robert Campbell, A Narrative of Colonel Robert Campbell’s Experiences in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade, 1825–1835, ed. Drew Alan Holloway (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1976), 42.

[3] Victor, River of the West, 64.

[4] Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 97.

[5] Dale Morgan, ed., The West of William H. Ashley, 1822–1838, ed. Dale Morgan (Denver, CO: The Old West Publishing Company, 1964), 118, 288n211.

[6] Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1953), 343–348.

[7] Campbell, Narrative, 42.

[8] Jim Hardee, Obstinate Hope: The Western Expeditions of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Volume One, 1832–1833 (Pinedale, WY: Sublette County Historical Society/Museum of the Mountain Man, 2013), 141.

[9] Osborne Russell, Journal of a Trapper, ed. Aubrey L. Haines (Portland, OR: Champoeg Press, Reed College, for the Oregon Historical Society, 1955), 27.

[10] Robert Newell, Robert Newell’s Memoranda: Travels in the Territory of Missouri; Travel to the Cayuse War; Together with a Report on the Indians South of the Columbia River, ed. Dorothy O. Johansen (Portland, OR: Champoeg Press, 1959), 36.

[11] Russell, Journal of a Trapper, 112.

[12] Russell, Journal of a Trapper, 123.

[13] F. A. Wislizenus, A Journey to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839 (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 1912), 121.

[14] Jennifer Ott, “‘Ruining’ the Rivers in the Snake Country: The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fur Desert Policy,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 104, no. 2 (Summer 2003):166-195.

[15] George Simpson, Fur Trade and Empire: George Simpson’s Journal: “Remarks Connected with the Fur Trade in the Course of a Voyage from York Factory to Fort George and Back to York Factory, 1824–1825,” ed. Frederick Merk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931), 46.

[16] F. A. Wislizenus, A Journey to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839 (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 1912), 122. Wislizenus, Journey to the Rocky Mountains, 122.

[17] Victor, River of the West, 255.

[18] Victor, River of the West, 263.

[19] Harvey Lewis Carter, Dear Old Kit: The Historical Christopher Carson (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 79.

[20] Carter, Dear Old Kit, 79.

Love and Courtship

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

February often invites reflection on love and relationships, but courtship in the Rocky Mountain fur trade looked very different from the sentimental ideals of formal dances and letters familiar to many Americans in the early nineteenth century. Yet, trapper Jim Beckwourth observed, “Even the untutored daughters of the wild woods need a little time to prepare for such an important event, but long and tedious courtships are unknown among them.”¹

Winter Camps and the Conditions for Courtship

Winter months offered more opportunities for social interaction. With travel limited, people gathered in camps and posts, where storytelling, music, shared work, and conversation created conditions for relationships to develop. Men working for operations such as the American Fur Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, and Rocky Mountain Fur Company often spent years away from eastern homes. In this environment, bonds developed within winter camps, trading posts, and Indigenous communities rather than through the formal courtship rituals common in Euro-American society.

Courtship, Ceremony, and Exchange

Courtship in the wilderness followed familiar emotional patterns, even as it adapted to frontier realities. Contemporary author Washington Irving described the effects of winter’s isolation along the Salmon River in 1832:

Idleness and ease, it is said, lead to love, and love to matrimony, in civilized life, and the same process takes place in the wilderness … one of the free trappers began to repine at the solitude of his lodge, and to experience the force of that great law of nature, “it is not meet for man to live alone.”²

Seeking companionship, that lonely trapper turned to a Nez Perce leader, with a request shaped by the realities of frontier life:

I want … a wife. Give me one from among your tribe. Not a young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw; one that will share my lot without flinching … that can take care of my lodge, and be a companion and a helpmate to me in the wilderness.³

After two days of consultation, the leader returned with a bride, accompanied by her extended family.

The trapper received his new and numerous family connection with proper solemnity … After several pipes had been filled and emptied in this solemn ceremonial, the chief addressed the bride; detailing, at considerable length, the duties of a wife; which, among Indians, are little less onerous than those of the pack-horse; this done, he turned to her friends, and congratulated them upon the great alliance she had made. They showed a due sense of their good fortune, especially when the nuptial presents came to be distributed among the chiefs and relatives, amounting to about one hundred and eighty dollars.⁴

Within only a few days, the trapper had his bride, illustrating how ceremonial exchange established both marital and social bonds within fur trade society. Marriage and courtship in the fur trade were seldom private arrangements between two individuals. They rarely involved written love letters or formal proposals. Instead, it was often a public act involving kinship networks and reciprocal obligations, guided by cultural norms sometimes referred to as the “custom of the country.”⁵ Another onlooker explained:

If the parties are mutually agreeable to each other, there is a consultation of the family, if this is also favorable, the father of the girl, or whosoever giver her in marriage, makes a return for the present he had previously received from the lover — the match is then concluded.⁶

Contemporary observers described these marriage customs as grounded in family consultation and exchange, as opposed to the “horrors of such prolonged purgatory” common in traditional Euro-American courting.⁷

_{The Trapper’s Bride, Alfred Jacob Miller, Image Courtesy of The Walter’s Art Museum, Baltimore, MD.}

While these marriages often appeared informal to outsiders, they were socially regulated and mutually beneficial. Traders gained access to crucial survival skills, including food preparation, hide processing, clothing production, and geographic knowledge. Indigenous families benefitted from these unions by gaining stronger trade relationships and better access to valuable goods. While some marriages were temporary, many endured for decades and produced families whose descendants helped shape western communities.

Love, Loss, and Separation

Contrary to a common misconception, not all fur trade marriages ended quickly. While some traders returned east and abandoned their country marriages, leaving women and children behind, others returned east with their Native families or remarried under church law.⁸ Some remained in the West, becoming among the earliest settlers during the settlement period.⁹

Undoubtedly many of these unions were temporary leading one chronicler to describe them as “connections [that] frequently take place for a season … but are apt to be broken when the free trapper starts off … on some distant and rough expedition.¹⁰

However, time and distance sometimes did make the heart grow fonder, as demonstrated in a dramatic episode, also recorded by Washington Irving, in which two trappers sought to renew relationships with Native women—one of whom had married since their last meeting. An attempted elopement led to pursuit, confrontation, and ultimately negotiation. Violence was narrowly avoided, and the aggrieved husband accepted compensation—two horses—for his loss, remarking that they were “very good pay for one bad wife.”¹¹ Click to read full account

One could argue that the episode ended with negotiation rather than romance—but with Valentine’s Day approaching, it is tempting to imagine a measure of sentiment in the escapade. While fur trade relationships were inseparable from negotiation, survival, and cultural norms, they may also have been guided, at least in part, by genuine affection.

However, artist Alfred Jacob Miller, in the notes for his painting The Trapper’s Bride, reflects a somewhat jaded view:

A Free Trapper (white or half-breed), being ton or upper circle, is a most desirable match, but it is conceded that he is a ruined man after such an investment, the lady running into unheard of extravagancies. She wants a dress, horse, gorgeous saddle, trappings, and the deuce knows what beside. For this the poor devil trapper sells himself, body and soul, to the Fur Company for a number of years.¹²

Love on the Frontier

As we reflect on love during February, the fur trade offers a reminder that relationships have always been shaped by place, culture, and necessity, and that love on the frontier could be as complex and enduring as anywhere else. Marriage in the Rocky Mountain fur trade was neither uniformly exploitative nor purely sentimental; it was an institution shaped by mobility, mortality, cultural expectations, and economic need. Understanding these frontier relationships reveals how emotional and practical bonds, family networks, and survival were woven into the daily life of the fur trade and its enduring legacy in the Rocky Mountain West.

James P. Beckwourth, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, as told to Thomas D. Bonner (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 148. ↩︎
Washington Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West, Edgeley W. Todd, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 112. ↩︎
Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 112. The period term “squaw,” now recognized as offensive, is quoted for historical context. ↩︎
Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 113. ↩︎
The term “custom of the country” seems to be an English translation of a term used in the French fur trade, a la mode du pays. Kathleen Barlow, “Trappers’ Brides: Intercultural Marriages in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade,” The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal 7 (2013), 94n5. ↩︎
Henry Marie Brackenridge, Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri in 1811 (Chicago, IL: The Lakeside Press, R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1904), 121. ↩︎
George Frederick Ruxton, Life in the Far West, LeRoy R. Hafen, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951), 47. ↩︎
Mildred Walker Schemm, “The Major’s Lady: Natawista,” The Montana Magazine of History 2, no. 1 (1952): 4–15. ↩︎
See J. Cecil Alter, Jim Bridger (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1925); Stanley Vestal, Joe Meek: The Merry Mountain Man (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1952); Robert Newell, Memoirs of Robert Newell, Trapper and Indian Trader, Dorothy O. Johansen, ed. (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). ↩︎
Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 356-359. ↩︎
Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 356-357. ↩︎
Marvin C. Ross, The West of Alfred Jacob Miller (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 12. ↩︎

Coming Soon – Confluence of Cultures

Coming Soon: New Art Exhibit for 2026

We’re excited to announce an upcoming art exhibit for the 2026 season, generously loaned by the Tim Peterson family. Confluence of Cultures explores the dynamic interactions between Mountain Men and Plains Indians and features 87 works of art by 45 different artists.

Museum Curator Andrea Lewis and the MMM staff are currently preparing the downstairs gallery and getting ready to install this remarkable collection. Stay tuned for more details—we look forward to welcoming you to this exhibit soon.

New Year’s Festivities in the Fur Trade Era

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

In the early 19th-century fur trade, New Year’s often eclipsed Christmas as the primary festive occasion in remote areas. While Christmas was frequently quiet, or entirely unobserved, New Year’s tended to bring camaraderie, feasting, and lively celebration.

An early example appears during the Astorians’ westward expedition of 1811–1812: Wilson Price Hunt made no mention of Christmas at all. On December 24, 1811, he wrote only of cold, muddy trails and weary travel:

On the 24th I [at last] turned away from the Canoe River, remembrance of which will always cause us some moments of unhappiness. We traveled west, crossing hills by a trail that was sometimes level enough, more often irregular, but always good. A little snow fell and a little rain.^[1]

Hunt’s next entry did not occur until December 28, when he again focused on the terrain and noted the birth of Marie Dorion’s child on December 31.^[2]

Hunt was then asked to pause a day to celebrate the New Year. As Washington Irving later described,

This was particularly urged by the Canadian voyageurs, with whom New-Year’s day is a favorite festival; and who never willingly give up a holiday, under any circumstances. There was no resisting such an application; so the day was passed in repose and revelry; the poor Canadians contrived to sing and dance in defiance of all their hardships; and there was a sumptuous New-Year’s banquet of dog’s meat and horse flesh.^[3]

Hunt’s own entry for January 1, 1812, recorded a more modest account of the celebration:

My people asked me not to travel on the 1st of January without first celebrating the new year. I agreed to the idea willingly because most of them were very tired from having daily no more than a meager meal of horse meat and from carrying packs on their shoulders while crossing the mountains.^[4]

John C. Luttig recorded the New Year’s holiday a year later in 1813. His entry of January 1 noted:

January the 1st, The new year was ushered in by firing a Salute and paying the Complement of the Season, every One seemed rejoiced of having lived to see another year, fine moderate weather in the Evening several Rees arrived, they brought a Present for Mr. Manuel, but he would not accept it, I took it and paid pretty high.^[5]

Alexander Ross described New Year observances some years later in 1824-25. On Saturday, December 25, 1824, he wrote: “Considerable indians; the peace pipe kept in motion. All the people a dram.” The following day, he noted: “No work today. Ordered the men to dress and keep the Sabbath.” For January 1, 1825, Ross recorded a more formal observance: “At daybreak the men saluted with guns. They were treated to rum and cake, each a pint of rum and a half pound of tobacco.”^[6]

Similarly, John Work’s journals often reflect an emphasis on New Year festivities. For example, in January 1826, his Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) brigade received extra rations, including venison, buffalo tongue, flour, and rum. Musket volleys, rum, cake, and tobacco marked the occasion:

At daylight they ushered in the new year with a volley of musketry … With this and the pint given to each of them, they soon contrived to get nearly all pretty drunk. They appeared to pass the day comfortably enjoying themselves.^[7]

_{^{Image courtesy of Dave Bell – Wyoming Mountain Photography.}}

Peter Skene Ogden, who often endured meager provisions at Christmas, also reserved celebration for the New Year. On Sunday, December 25, 1826, he recorded: “Christmas. I did not raise camp and we are reduced to one meal a day.” But on January 1, 1827, he noted more festivity in the HBC camp: “New Year’s commences with a mild day. The men paid me their respects. I gave each a dram and tobacco. Goat killed.”^{^[8]}

The following year, Ogden made no mention of Christmas at all, but recorded news of the fur trade: “Arrival of one of our men from Sickly River relieves me of anxiety. He reports they have 100 beavers and are not far. Our total number of beaver exceeds my expectations.” In 1828, New Year’s celebrations were briefly noted, but Ogden largely focused on weather and daily life:

January 1. The men paid me their respects and were politely received. The Americans followed the example and received the same treatment. The Americans leave for Salt Lake. The hunters are now making snow shoes as the depth of snow keeps increasing. The others pass their time in gambling. No cards are sold to the men at Ft. Vancouver. Still they procure them.[9]

Even in places where Christmas was traditionally observed, such as the Spanish provinces of New Mexico and California, New Year’s remained central. While in Perdido, a small town south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, James Ohio Pattie described attending a Spanish fandango on New Year’s Eve, 1827: “All our company were invited … we had the pleasure of dancing with the handsomest and richest of them.”^[10]

That same year, Harrison G. Rogers highlighted the spiritual side of the holiday at Mission San Gabriel, in California. He sent New Year’s greetings to the Padre that combined celebration with moral reflection: “Standing on the threshold of a New Year, I salute you with the most cordial congratulations and good wishes … Therefore my advice to all the human family is to be faithful, devoted to God, kind, benevolent … live for eternity.”^[11]

Sometimes the celebrations extended to Epiphany, or “Old Christmas Day.” Rogers recalled that on January 6, wine flowed, music played, and occasionally tempers flared: “Some of the men got drunk and two of them … commenced fighting … I went among them and pacified our men by telling them what trouble they were bringing upon themselves if they did not desist.”^{^[12]}

John Work’s later journals reinforce the notion that New Year’s was often more consistently celebrated than Christmas. On January 1, 1831, Work noted: “Satdy, 1. Clear mild weather. This being Newyears day none of the people went a hunting, they endeavored to regale themselves the best way they could … Each man was treated with a dram of rum and some cakes in the morning.”^[13]

Trapper Warren Ferris also remembered the first day of 1833:

The first of January, 1833, or New Years day, was spent in feasting, drinking, and dancing, agreeable to the Canadian custom. In amusements such as riding, shooting, wrestling, etc. when the weather was fair, and in the diversion of card playing when the state of affairs without would not permit athletic exercises, the month of January passed away, during which, we had changed our camp three times, in order to obtain better grass for our faithful animals. The weather was generally fine, but little snow had fallen, and we usually found plenty of game near our camp – therefore time passed away not only comfortably but pleasantly.^[14]

Ferris’s account of 1834 also emphasized New Year’s celebrations:

The new year was ushered in with feasting and merriment, on dried buffalo meat, and venison, cakes and coffee; which might appear to people constantly accustomed to better fare, rather meagre variety for a dinner, not to say a feast. But to us who have constantly in mind the absolute impossibility of procuring better, and the no less positive certainty, that we are often compelled to be satisfied with worse, – the repast was both agreeable and excellent; for think not, that we enjoy, daily, the same luscious luxuries of cake and coffee, that announces the advent of 1834; by no means.^[15]

Taken together, these accounts demonstrate that New Year’s was often the primary festive occasion for fur traders. Scarce provisions, harsh winters, and isolation meant Christmas was often modest, or skipped entirely, while New Year’s offered a reason to gather and feast. Cultural influence from French Canadian, Scottish, and Spanish traditions shaped these rituals, blending merriment with the rhythms of frontier life.

All images courtesy of Dave Bell – Wyoming Mountain Photography.

[1] Wilson Price Hunt, The Overland Diary of Wilson Price Hunt, Hoyt C. Franchère, ed. (Ashland, OR: The Oregon Book Society, 1973), 51.

[2] Wilson Price Hunt, The Overland Diary of Wilson Price Hunt, Hoyt C. Franchère, ed. (Ashland, OR: The Oregon Book Society, 1973), 51-52.

[3] Washington Irving, Astoria: Or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains, Edgely W. Todd, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 308.

[4] Wilson Price Hunt, The Overland Diary of Wilson Price Hunt, Hoyt C. Franchère, ed. (Ashland, OR: The Oregon Book Society, 1973), 52.

[5] John C. Luttig, Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, 1812-1813,Stella M. Drumm, ed. (St. Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society, 1920), 110.

[6] T. C. Elliott, ed., “Journal of Alexander Ross—Snake Country Expedition, 1824,” The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 14, no. 4 (December 1913): 387.

[7] T. C. Elliott, ed., “Journal of John Work, Dec. 15th, 1825, to June 12th, 1826,” The Washington Historical Quarterly 5, no. 4 (October 1914): 264.

[8] T. C. Elliott, ed., “The Peter Skene Ogden Journals,” The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 11, no. 2 (June 1910): 212.

[9] Peter Skene Ogden, “Journal of Peter Skene Ogden; Snake Expedition, 1827-1828,” The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 11, no. 4 (December 1910): 367-368.

[10] James Ohio Pattie, Pattie’s Personal Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and in Mexico, June 20, 1824–August 30, 1830, Timothy Flint, ed. (Cleveland, OH]: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905), 167.

[11] Harrison Clifford Dale, ed., The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific, 1822–1829 (Cleveland, OH: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1918), 213-214.

[12] Harrison Clifford Dale, ed., The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific, 1822–1829, with the Original Journals (Cleveland, OH: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1918), 219-220.

[13] John Work, The Snake Country Expedition of 1830-31; John Work’s Field Journal, Francis D. Haines, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 61.

[14] Warren Angus Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 1830–1835, Leroy R. Hafen, ed. (The Old West Publishing Company, Denver, CO: 1983), 260.

[15] Warren Angus Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 1830–1835, Leroy R. Hafen, ed. (The Old West Publishing Company, Denver, CO: 1983), 310-311.

A Fur Trade Christmas: Rufus B. Sage and Holiday Ingenuity

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

Celebrating Christmas in the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountains required creativity, and sometimes a bit of improvisation. Fur trade journals offer glimpses into how trappers, traders, and their Native neighbors adapted familiar traditions to unfamiliar landscapes. One of the most vivid accounts comes from Rufus B. Sage, who described a remarkably festive Christmas dinner crafted from whatever resources the camp could gather.

Towards the end of November 1841, Sage, a member of a party employed by Lancaster P. Lupton, set out from the company’s Fort Lancaster on the South Fork of the Platte River in hopes of trading with the Brule Sioux. On Chadron Creek, a few miles from its confluence with the Upper White River (in present northwestern Nebraska), the men planned to build cabins for their winter quarters.¹ From the newly constructed lodging, Sage wrote:

Dec. 25th. Christmas finds us in our new residence, which, with the exception of a chimney, is now completed.

This great annual festival is observed with all the exhilarating hilarity and good cheer that circumstances will allow. Several little extras for the occasion have been procured from the Indians, which prove quite wholesome and pleasant-tasted. One of these, called washena, consists of dried meat pulverized and mixed with marrow; another is a preparation of cherries, preserved when first picked by pounding and sun-drying them, (they are served by mixing them with bouillie, or the liquor of fresh-boiled meat, thus giving to it an agreeable winish taste;) a third is marrow-fat, an article in many respects superior to butter; and, lastly, we obtained a kind of flour made from the pomme blanc, (white apple,) answering very well as a substitute for that of grain.

The above assortment, with a small supply of sugar and coffee, as well as several other dainties variously prepared, affords an excellent dinner, — and, though different in kind, by no means inferior in quality to the generality of dinners for which the day is noted in more civilized communities.² [Emphasis in original.]

Despite the isolation of winter camp, Sage and his companions found ways to make the day special. Their celebration blended “procured goods” and the skills of the diverse people around them. It was not the Christmas feast they might have known back home, but it was a feast nonetheless, and one made meaningful by the effort and cooperation involved.

Accounts like Sage’s show how Christmas in the fur trade was shaped by both location and circumstances. At major posts, celebrations might include abundant meals, music, dancing, or occasional rowdiness. In small winter camps, the holiday became a communal effort, with trappers, traders, and Native or Métis families improvising meals, songs, and games from limited supplies.

These gatherings highlight how mobility, scarcity, and cultural diversity influenced holiday traditions on the frontier. By sharing labor, blending customs, and celebrating with whatever was at hand, fur trade communities created hybrid holidays that preserved identity while fostering intercultural cooperation.

Whether in a bustling fort or a snowy mountain camp, Christmas offered a rare respite from the hardships of the fur trade—a moment to pause, connect, and find joy in the rugged landscape they called home.

All images courtesy of Dave Bell – Wyoming Mountain Photography.

Charles E. Hanson, Jr. and Veronica Sue Walters, “The Early Fur Trade in Northwest Nebraska,” Nebraska History 57 (1976): 291-314. ↩︎
Rufus B. Sage, Rocky Mountain life: or, Startling Scenes and Perilous Adventures in the Far West during an Expedition of Three Years (Boston: Wentworth & Company, 1857), 113. ↩︎

A Harvest All Their Own; Thanksgiving in the Rocky Mountains During the Fur Trade?

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

Mountain men and fur traders in the Rocky Mountains did not celebrate Thanksgiving as we know it today. The national holiday was not established until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it during the Civil War, hoping “to heal the wounds of the nation.”[1]

That said, trappers were certainly familiar with the idea of giving thanks. Many Native American tribes and colonial communities across North America held harvest festivals each fall to celebrate the end of the growing season and to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. [2] Mountain men, whether originating from these colonial communities or living among and trading with Native Americans, may have joined in these seasonal celebrations.

By late November, when we celebrate Thanksgiving today, the mountain men were engaged in their own kind of fall ritual, one focused on winter preparations and survival. Fall marked the peak of the beaver trapping season, when the animals’ winter coats were at their thickest and most valuable. As the fall hunt drew to a close, trappers, like the beaver they pursued, were busy readying themselves for the harsh winter ahead.

In his 1830s journal Adventures of a Mountain Man, trapper Zenas Leonard described how the men spent early November:

On the 1st day of November we commenced travelling up the valley, on search of a suitable place to pass the winter, and on the evening of the 4th, we arrived at a large grove of Cottonwood timber, which we deemed suitable for encamping in. Several weeks were spent in building houses, stables, &c. necessary for ourselves, and horses during the winter season. This being done, we commenced killing Buffaloe, and hanging up the choice pieces to dry… We also killed Deer, Bighorn Sheep, Elk, Antelope, &c., and dressed the hides to make moccasins.[3]

^{Photo by Dave Bell of Wyoming Mountain Photography of a beaver pond.}

It is no coincidence that November’s full moon is called the “Beaver Moon.”[4] Beaver are especially active this time of year, repairing dams, reinforcing lodges, and storing food for the frozen months ahead. Throughout the fall, they gather branches and stems from willows and trees, anchoring them underwater in a cache near their lodge. Once the surface freezes, these submerged “pantries” provide a steady food supply all winter long – a harvest of their very own.[5]

Just like beaver, mountain men were building shelters, storing provisions, and preparing for months of isolation and cold. Both were following instincts, or hard-earned experience, that told them it was time to prepare, endure, and survive until spring. Whether nestled in a beaver lodge or holed up in winter quarters, it was the ritual of preparation, harvesting and gathering that sustained both human and wildlife communities through the long, harsh winters.

As their diet shifts from tender summer greens to the bark and woody stems they so carefully stored, one might imagine the beaver feeling a touch of gratitude for their industrious efforts. Their hard work has paid off – they have plenty to eat, a warm lodge, and months ahead to rest in cozy comfort – a kind of Thanksgiving, beaver-style.

Beaver photo by Elizabeth Boehm of elizabethboehm.com Photography

[1] Abraham Lincoln, “Proclamation of Thanksgiving,” October 3, 1863, in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 6:497–498.

[2] Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Harvest and Thanksgiving: Native American Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2015); https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving/history, accessed 10/23/2025.

[3] Zenas Leonard, Adventures of a Mountain Man: The Narrative of Zenas Leonard, Written by Himself, intro. by Milo Milton Quaife (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 19.

[4] https://www.almanac.com/full-moon-november, accessed 10/22/2025.

[5] https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Regional-Offices/Lander-Region/Lander-Region-News/Busy-Beaver, accessed 10/22/2025; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Beaver Restoration Guide, Version 1.0. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2022. https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BRG%20v.1.0%20final%20reduced.pdf.

When the Elk Bugled: A Moonlit Moment in the Fur Trade

By Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

Here a circumstance occurred which furnished the subject for a good joke upon our green Irish camp keeper. … It was the commencement of the rutting season with the elk, when the bucks frequently utter a loud cry resembling a shrill whistle, especially when they see anything of a strange appearance. We had made our beds at night on a little bench between two small, dry gullies. The weather was clear and the moon shone brightly. About ten o’clock at night, when I supposed my comrades fast asleep, an elk blew his shrill whistle within about 100 yards of us. I took my gun, slipped silently into the gully and crept toward the place where I heard the sound, but I soon found he had been frightened by the horses and ran off up the mountain. On turning back I met Allen, who, hearing the elk, had started to get a shot at him in the same manner I had done without speaking a word. We went back to camp, but our camp keeper was nowhere to be found. We searched the bushes high and low ever and anon calling for “Conn,” but no “Conn” answered. At length Allen, cruising through the brush, tumbled over a pile of rubbish, when lo! Conn was beneath, nearly frightened out of his wits. “Arrah! an’ is it you, Allen?” said he trembling as if an ague fit was shaking him. “But I thought the whole world was full of the spalpeens of savages. And where are they gone?” It was near an hour before we could satisfy him of his mistake, and I dare say his slumbers were by no means soft or smooth during the remainder of the night.[1]

In this journal entry, mountain man Osborne Russell shares a rare detail from life in the fur trade era, the whistle, or bugle, of a bull elk during the rut. His account stands out not only for its humor and storytelling but also for capturing a rare and specific moment of trapper life.

The scarcity of similar observations about elk bugling in other journals does not suggest that trappers failed to notice or appreciate these sounds. Fur trappers and mountain men undoubtedly heard the bugles of elk, an unforgettable sound that marks the rutting season in the Rocky Mountains. More likely, the absence reflects differences in what individuals chose to record, or what has survived in print. Most fur trade journals focus on trade logistics, survival, mapping, or relationships with Native peoples, subjects far more relevant to daily life than the bugle of an elk on a moonlit night.

^{Photo by Dave Bell of Wyoming Mountain Photography of an elk bugling.}

Russell, however, offers something unique: a brief account of what life in the fur trade sometimes sounded like, and a humorous glimpse into how trappers experienced those moments. Through his narrative, we can imagine the moonlit camp, the sudden stillness after the elk’s call, and the laughter of companions once fear gave way to relief.

In the Museum’s ongoing work to bring history to life, accounts like Russell’s help us understand not just what mountain men did, but what they and their comrades heard, felt, and feared, and allow us to imagine just how constant those fears must have been in the mountains. Yet Russell’s journal reminds us that even in an era of hardship and danger, there was room for curiosity and humor, moments that bring these historical figures to life for us today.

[1] Osborne Russell, Journal of a Trapper, 1834–1843, (Boise, ID: Syms-York Company, Inc., 1921) 70. “Spalpeens” is an Irish word roughly translated as “rascals.”

Wildfire in the Fur Trade

By: Museum of the Mountain Man Staff

_{Photo by Dave Bell of Wyoming Mountain Photography of the Cliff Creek Fire in 2017.}

There are few references to large, uncontrolled wildfires in the Rocky Mountains in fur trade journals. One notable exception is George Ruxton’s detailed account of a narrow escape from a wildfire near Pike’s Peak in the spring of 1847. After descending from the mountains to camp beside a spring, Ruxton awoke to find the surrounding landscape engulfed in flames, with fire sweeping rapidly through the gorge and consuming dry brush, pines, and cedars. In a desperate effort to escape, he saddled his horse and drove his mules through the burning grass and brush, eventually forcing his way through a wall of fire and into an icy creek to reach safety.¹ (Click here for full account). While such large-scale fires were rarely recorded by fur traders, there are several references to intentional burning – often by Native Americans using fire for communication, improving habitat for hunting, or as a battle strategy.

Fire As Communication

Rather than the intricate smoke signals made famous in Hollywood westerns, Native Americans often set entire valley bottoms on fire to create dense, visible smoke plumes. On August 31, 1804, near the Lemhi River in what is now eastern Idaho, members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition witnessed the following:

This day warm and Sultrey, Prairies or open Valies on fire in Several places. The country is Set on fire for the purpose of collecting the different bands (of Pend d’Oreille Indians), and a Band of the Flatheads to go to the Missouri (River drainage) where They intend passing the winter near the Buffalow.²

Trapper Warren Ferris observed a similar event in 1833:

The Indians with us, announced our arrival in this country by firing the prairies. The flames ran over the neighboring hills with great violence…and filling the air with clouds of smoke.³

A year earlier, in 1832, Ferris had described a fire signal exchange near today’s Bannock Pass:

[W]e saw a dense cloud of smoke rising from the plains forty or fifty miles to the southeastward, which we supposed to have been raised by the Flatheads, who accompanied Fontanelle to Cache Valley, and who were now in quest of the village to which they belong. The Indians with us answered the signal by firing a quantity of fallen pines on the summit of a high mountain.⁴

Ferris also recorded an accidental fire that quickly escalated into a threatening situation near present-day Deer Lodge, Montana:

A careless [Flathead] boy scattered a few sparks in the prairie, which, the dry grass almost instantly igniting, was soon wrapped in a mantle of flame. A light breeze from the south carried it with great rapidity down the valley, sweeping everything before it, and filling the air with black clouds of smoke … [The fire] however occasioned us no inconsiderable degree of uneasiness as we were now on the borders of the Blackfoot country … who it was reasonably inferred might be collected by the smoke, which is their accustomed rallying signal, in sufficient force to attack us … Clouds of smoke were observed on the following day curling up from the summit of a mountain jutting into the east side of the valley, probably raised by the Blackfeet to gather their scattered bands, though the truth was never more clearly ascertained.⁵

_{Prairie Meadows Burning, by George Gatlin. Image Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.374.}

Fire in Battle

Fire was also used in warfare. In September 1835, Osborne Russell described an attack by “about 80 Blackfeet” who attempted to flush his party out by setting fire to the surrounding grass:

We lay almost silently about 3 hours, when finding they could not arouse us to action by their long shots they commenced setting fire to the dry grass and rubbish with which we were surrounded. The wind blowing brisk from the south, in a few moments the fire was converted into one circle of flame and smoke which united over our heads. This was the most horrible position I was ever placed in. Death seemed almost inevitable, but we did not despair, and all hands began immediately to remove the rubbish around the encampment and setting fire to it to act against flames that were hovering over our heads. This plan proved successful beyond our expectations. Scarce half an hour had elapsed when the fire had passed around us and driven our enemies from their position. At length we saw an Indian whom we supposed to be the chief standing on a high point of rock and give the signal for retiring.⁶

Fire in Hunting

Fire was even used to trap game. In the 1840s, Father Pierre De Smet described a deer hunt near present-day Lake Coeur d’Alene in which fires were lit on both sides of a line to drive animals into the lake, where hunters in canoes awaited:

On both ends of their line they light fires, some distance apart … The frightened deer rush to right and left to escape. As soon as they smell the smoke of fires, they turn and run back. Having the fires on both sides of them and the hunters in the rear, they dash toward the lake, and soon they are so closely pressed that they jump into the water, as the only refuge left for them. Then everything is easy for the hunters: they let the animals get away from the shore, then pursue them in their light bark canoes and kill them without trouble or danger.⁷

_{Prairie on Fire by Alfred Jacob Miller. Image Courtesy of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, 37.1940.198.}
_{For more info see https://alfredjacobmiller.com/artworks/prairie-on-fire/}

Fire in Art

The drama of a wildfire was not wasted by early artists. George Catlin, an eyewitness to prairie fires, captured the chaos in his painting Prairie Meadows Burning, showing billowing smoke and figures fleeing before the flames. Alfred Jacob Miller’s Prairie on Fire depicts trappers hurriedly creating a firebreak to protect their camp from an approaching blaze.

These accounts demonstrate that fire was indeed a part of life during the Rocky Mountain fur trade, not only as a natural threat but also a cultural and strategic tool.

George F. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains (London: John Murray, 1849), 262-263. ↩︎
Gary E. Moulton, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001), 179. ↩︎
Warren A. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, Paul C. Phillips, ed. (Denver, CO: The Old West Publishing, Co., 1940), 215. ↩︎
Ibid., 103. ↩︎
Ibid., 106-07. ↩︎
Osborne Russell, Journal of a Trapper: Or Nine Years in the Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 (Boise, ID: Syms-York Company, Inc., 1921) 36-37. ↩︎
Hiram Chittenden and Alfred Richardson, eds., Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., 1801-1873. (1905; New York, NY: Francis P. Harper, 1969), 1021-22.) ↩︎