Review: Good Story with Facts
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 5, 2013
If you want a good novelization of the facts behind the fur trade, then this book is right for you.  I came across it when I was researching my book Tribes and Trappers, and I quickly took note of what the author was doing.  You really get a feel for the things that the mountain men used when they were wandering about for months on end trying to find furs all day.Andrew Henry and William H. Ashley were pivitol to the fur trade and the mountain men's supplies.We know from Ashley's 1825 journal that everything from coffee ($1.50/lb), scissors ($2 each), buttons ($1.50/dozen), tobacco ($3/lb), and sugar ($1.50/lb) were all shipped in to the first mountain man rendezvous near the Green River in 1824-5, among other items.  What wasn't mentioned in the manifest was whiskey, although several mountain men that were there, including Jim Beckwourth, swore it was.You can see how these people lived in this great novel, and learn about the history of these men from other great books on fur trappers.