The history of trapping in North America is some of the most intriguing history I’ve ever come across. Even my wife wants to learn more about it. The men in those days did some incredible things with what they had. Can’t wait to get back out on the line

There's a lot of history of trapping and a lot of it in the early days of the country lead a lot of the exploration and expansion of it into the west. One of the fur barons of the day was on the Titanic

Its great history for sure and goes along with some great life lessons to be learned by trapping. Persistence may be #1.

One bit of history that I have been researching lately is the story of a little hill called Alec's Butte. It is usually within sight in the areas that I trap beaver for ADC. Alexander Carson 1778-1836 was murdered by Indians on the butte his namesake in April or May of 1836. He was a cousin of the famed Kit Carson, and I think that just by that connection the story has been tweaked just like the dime novels about Kit. Alexander Carson was associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition by helping return some of the natives west in 1809 after the main expedition. He was a part of the Hunt and Astor expedition of 1811 as a gunsmith. He settled as freeman trapper in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

There are at least three versions of his murder. One is that he was being tracked by Indians and hid in a hollowed-out tree only to be discovered when he had an untimely sneeze.

Another version was that he had an Indian employee named Boney and Boney's wife and son accompanied them. It was said that Boney's 12–14-year-old son was talked into shooting Alexander in the head while he was sleeping.

The other is that Alexander fell ill that spring and Boney and his son went off alone for trapping duties. This left Carson alone with Boney's wife to take care of him...... and apparently, they had a thing going on if ya know what I mean.
Boney caught wind after a couple of days after running into an Indian on the trail that had just been there and relayed that Carson seemed very healthy. Boney and his son then returned swiftly and brutally tortured him to death.

I enjoy pausing now and then when I'm out tending to my trapline to sit and look at Alec's Butte and think about how things where back then. It's surreal that undoubtably I've crossed his path, doing the same thing he was. Chasin' Beav!!!

Good story TimmeGee. I'll want to look into that later.

In similar fashion I often think of Jedediah's men that were murdered on the north shore of the Smith River near Reedsport while I ascend the river going after beaver and otter. Recently cadaver dogs were able to locate the exact location where the remains of 11 of them were buried by the McLeod led Hudson Bay expedition of fall 1826. McLeod was able to recover most of the beaver, horses, diaries and personal effects of the doomed brigade.

I have done some reading about the mountain men as well. I have read numerous accounts of Jim Bridger and some of the placed that he trapped. One of the books described a creek in great detail where he and his party trapped beaver in Montana. There were not many place names in the book, but enough to know which creek it was. The Bridger mountains were described, but had no name at the time. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to trap the same creek that was talked about in the book. My own young son named Bridger was just old enough to tag along with me. He would stand by me and watch me skin beaver. It was pretty cool to be trapping on the same creek decades later with my son who was named after the famous mountain man.

You seriouslsy need to get "Company of Adventurers" - history of the Hudson Bay Company from beginnings in 1670. Over 500 pages and mostly in what is now Canada but into the northern states too. Very well researched.

There’s piles of good biographies out there. All I know that if you get miles deep into the bush up here and think you may be the first person to step there, odds are that you ain’t…I only realized that after I got into trapping, history.