Part 1 (1/2)
The Story of the Trapper
by A C Laut
PREFACE
The picturesque figure of the trapper follows close behind the Indian in the unfolding of the panorama of the West There is the explorer, but the trapper himself preceded the explorers--witness Lewis's and Clark's s with trappers on their journey The trapper's hard-earned knowledge of the vast e beyond the Missouri was utilized by later co occasional records in the documents of fur companies, or reports of military expeditions, or here and there in the name of a pass, a stream, a mountain, or a fort His adventurous warfare upon the wild things of the woods and streams was the expression of a primitive instinct old as the history of mankind The development of the motives which led the first pioneer trappers afield from the days of the first Eastern settleanizations which followed, the co co of Radisson and Groseillers in the North, the rise of the great Hudson's Bay Co other results, to the foundation of the Astor fortunes, would form no inconsiderable part of a history of North America The present volume aims simply to show the type-character of the Western trapper, and to sketch in a series of pictures the checkered life of this adventurer of the wilderness
The trapper of the early West was a coure From the Northeast came a splendid succession of French explorers like La Verendrye, with _coureurs des bois_, and awest and south Froures like Garces and others, held out hands which rarely grasped the waiting commerce From the north and northeast there was the steady advance of the sturdy Scotch and English, typified in the deeds of the Henrys, Thoanized fur trade, explorers, traders, captains of industry, carrying the flags of the Hudson's Bay and North-West Fur companies across Northern America to the Pacific On the far Northwestern coast the Russian appeared as fur trader in the hteenth century, and the close of the century saw thetheir share of the fur traffic of that coast The Aure in the early years of the nineteenth century The ereatest ian soon after the Louisiana Purchase and continued for forty years The complete history of the American fur trade of the far West has been written by Captain H M Chittenden in volu the classics of early Western history Although his history is a publication designed for limited circulation, no student or specialist in this field can fail to appreciate the value of his faithful and comprehensive work
In The Story of the Trapper there is presented for the general reader a vivid picture of an adventurous figure, which is painted with a singleness of purpose and a distinctness ie and detailed histories of the American fur trade and the Hudson's Bay and North-West companies, or the various special relations and journals and narratives The author's wilderness lore and her knowledge of the life, added to her acquaintance with its literature, have borne fruit in a personification of the Western and Northern trappers who live in her pages It is the man e follow not merely in the evolution of the Western fur traffic, but also in the course of his strange life in the wilds, his adventures, and the contest of his craft against the cunning of his quarry It is a es with the etcher's art that selects essentials while boldly disregarding details This figure as it is outlined here will be new and strange to the majority of readers, and the relish of its piquant flavour will e chapter in history is outlined for those ould gain an insight into the factors which had to do with the building of the West Woodcraft, exe of its most skilful devotees, is painted in pictures which breathe the very atmosphere of that life of stream and forest which has not lost its appeal even in these days of urban centralization The flash of the paddle, the crack of the rifle, the stealthy tracking of wild beasts, the fearless contest of hout a narrative which is constant in its fresh and personal interest
The Hudson's Bay Company still flourishes, and there is still an Aolden days are past, and the heroic age of the Aone tiure, dimly realized by his successors It is time to tell his story, to shohat e the adventurous character of a Ro in the picturesqueness and daring of his pried by ure of serious historical import in his relations to exploration and commerce, and even affairs of politics and state
If, therefore, we take the trapper as a typical figure in the early exploitation of an enificance may be held of far more consequence to us than the excesses and lawlessness so frequent in his life He was often an adventurer pure and sis with the red man and hite competitors is darkened by ht an outbreak of license like that of the cowboy fresh froe, but with all this the stern life of the old frontier bred a race of men who did their work That as the developions in this country and to the Northward, which were utilized for long periods There was also the task of exploration, the breaking the way for others, and as pioneer and as builder of conificance which cloaks the frailties characteristic of restraintless life in untrodden wilds
THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER
PART I
CHAPTER I
GAMESTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
Fearing nothing, stopping at nothing, knowing no law, ruling his stronghold of the wilds like a despot, checkars parallel, wassailing with a shaht have put Ro, always fighting with a courage that knew no truce but victory, the American trapper must ever stand as a type of the worst and the best in the militant heroes of mankind
Each with an army at his back, Wolfe and Napoleon won victories that upset the geography of earth The fur traders never at any time exceeded a few thousands in nuly or in pairs; yet they won a continent that has bred a new race
Like John Colter,[1] whoo, the trapper strapped a pack to his back, slung a rifle over his shoulder, and, without any fanfare of trureat forests Or else, like Willias of civilization in a canoe, hunted at night, hid hi down-stream with muffled paddles, slept in mid-current screened by the branches of driftwood, and if a sudden halloo of marauders came from the distance, cut the strap that held his craft to the shore and got away under cover of the floating tree Hunters crossing the Cimarron desert set out with pack-horses, and, like Captain Becknell's party, were often co of thirst
Frequently their fate was that of Rocky Mountain Smith, killed by the Indians as he stooped to scoop out a drinking-hole in the sand Men who brought down their pelts to the mountain _rendezvous_ of Pierre's Hole, or went over the divide like Fraser and Thompson of the North-West Fur Co canon walls where the current was too turbulent for a canoe and the precipice too sheer for a horse, with the aid of their hunting-knives stuck in to the haft[2] Where the difficulties were too great for a few ether under a master-mind like John Jacob Astor of the Pacific Company, or Sir Alexander MacKenzie of the Nor' Westers
Banded together, they thought nodown the ice-jaht sun of the arctic circle, than people to-day think of running from New York to Newport When the conflict of 1812 cut off communication betestern fur posts and New York by the overland route, Farnham, the Green Mountain boy, didn't think hi the whole width of Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic, to reach Mr Astor
The Ao ahead without any heroics, whether the going cost his own or some other man's life That is the way the wilderness on; and the winning is one of the es in history
About the middle of the seventeenth century Pierre Radisson and Chouart Groseillers, two French adventurers from Three Rivers, Quebec, followed the chain of ays froion of Hudson Bay[3] Returning with tales of fabulous wealth to be had in the fur trade of the north, they were taken in hand by members of the British Commission then in Boston, whose influence secured the Hudson's Bay Company charter in 1670; and that ancient and honourable body--as the co of pelts But the bartering went on in a prosy, half-alive way, the traders sitting snugly in their forts on Rupert and Severn Rivers, or at York Factory (Port Nelson) and Churchill (Prince of Wales) The French governor down in Quebec issued only a limited nulish coht inland tribes, but waited with serene apathy for the Indians to co Le Moyne d'Iberville[4] lish co, scale the stockades, capture its forts, batter doall or two, and sail off like a pirate with shi+p-loads of booty for Quebec What did the ancient company care? European treaties restored its forts, and the honourable adventurers presented a bill of daoverne Great an simultaneously in all parts of the east
This resulted froland's victory over France at Quebec, and the American colonies' Declaration of Independence The downfall of French ascendency in America meant an end to that license systeovernor That threw an areurs, coureurs des bois, eurs de lard_,[5] famous hunters, traders, and trappers--on their own resources
The MacDonalds and MacKenzies and MacGillivrays and Frobishers and MacTavishes--Scotch merchants of Quebec and Montreal--were quick to seize the opportunity Uniting under the names of North-West Fur Coed the entire retinue of cast-off Frenchmen, woodcraftsmen who knew every path and streaher pay and better fare than the old French traders, the Scotch ainst all coa of the nineteenth century, the Nor'
Westers beca success as their unscrupulous ubiquity
But at that stage came the other factor--Aland, what deadlier blow to British power could France deal than to turn over Louisiana with its million square miles and ninety thousand inhabitants to the American Republic? The Lewis and Clark exploration up the Missouri, over the mountains, and down the Columbia to the Pacific was a natural sequel to the Louisiana Purchase, and proved that the United States had gained a world of wealth for its fifteen ue ruland colonies of the riches to be had in the west The Russian Govern company to trade for furs with the natives of the Pacific coast Captain Vancouver's report of the north-west coast was corroborated by Captain Grey, who had stumbled into the mouth of the Columbia; and before 1800 nearly thirty Boston vessels yearly sailed to the Northern Pacific for the fur trade