$24.95
The Fur Hunters of the Far West
Volume 20 in the American exploration and travel series.
This book holds between its covers the essential story of an era adventurous as any that our continent has known, The years 1810 to 1825 bracket the Far Western fur trade from its active beginning to its initial decline. During those fifteen years a handful of men pushed their way by boat, by horseback and on foot up the Columbia and Snake rivers, through the Cascade Mountains and the Rockies, and even into the catastrophic geography through which the Salmon River pours. They set their traps in all the tributary streams and even tried their luck in some of the tiniest creeks. They battled the ever-trying elements, contended either peacefully or savagely with the inhabitants, and toiled back and forth across across the most difficult terrain that the American continent can offer.
Description
The Fur Hunters of the Far West
This edition of Alexander Ross’s journals offers a completely authentic account of the earliest attempts by men of European background to come to grips with the climate, geography, and inhabitants of the Northwest at a time when resourcefulness and daring were prime virtues. Ross’s narrative also contains an on-the-scene interpretation of the conflict between American and British interests, their rivalry for the vast wealth in Northwest furs, the conflict between free trade and corporate enterprise in the wilderness, and the conflict with the North West Company.
Ross himself- a Scotsman by birth, at one time a trader for John Jacob Astor and the Americans- emerges as one of the heroic figures of both American and British frontier history. He recounts with frankness, keen perspective, and a fine sense of humor the human adventures of which he was a part.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-3392-8
304 Pages
Softback
6″ x 9″
University of Oklahoma Press, 1956