Fur Trade Symposium

[Rod]

First, a summary of travel:

Heading down Charbonneau creek to where it meets the Yellowstone, we turned up the Yellowstone, following that river until it turns into the mountains. Crossing over a pass, we came upon the headwaters of the Missouri. Crossing Gallatin’s fork, we fell upon Madison’s fork. We turned up Madison’s fork, following it up over a large burned over area, and followed it until it turned into the mountains. Crossing a low pass, we came to Henry’s lake on Henry’s fork of the Snake or Lewis River. We descended Henry’s fork until we came to Pierre’s river. Turning up that stream, we entered Pierre’s Hole from the north, with the Pilot Knobs to guide us. We visited the site of the famous battle with the Gros Ventres, and traced their path through the pass to the south. Returning to Pierre’s Hole, we crossed a rugged pass to the east, and descended into Jackson’s Big Hole, falling upon the Snake River. We proceeded downstream, until we met Hoback’s River, which we followed up through a narrow canon into Jackson’s Little Hole. Crossing a low divide, we entered the valley of the Green River. Another low divide brought us to New Fork of the Green, where we found many others encamped. We stayed several days, taking our leave we skirted the west side of the Wind River mountains, and turned east through South Pass, falling upon the Sweetwater. There is much beaver sign here, but we could not stop. We turned to the north, travelling up the east slopes of the mountains, until we came onto the Popo Agie, and followed it down to the Wind River. We followed the Wind River downstream, crossed over Bad Pass to the Bighorn River. We then left the Bighorn, coasting to the northwest towards Heart Mountain, and crossed the Stinkingwater. Passing between Heart Mountain and the main chain of mountains, we came upon Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone, which we followed down to the Yellowstone, from thence we went downstream back from where we set out.

I hope that wasn’t too much like Robert ‘Doc’ Newell’s cryptic travelogues.

Rod

[Rod]

Last week, my father and I went to Pinedale, Wyoming, for the 2012 Fur Trade Symposium. As you can tell from the previous post, we went to Bozeman, skirted the west side of Yellowstone Park, checked out the back roads and battlefield site in the Teton Valley, and then into Pinedale. Spent two days going down, so we had some time to look around.

The symposium was great, a number of very interesting papers were presented, and there was a bus tour of the Astorian and rendezvous sites. Got to hobnob with the likes of Jim Hanson, Jim Hardee, Gail Potter, and other luminaries of the field. Jim and Gail said the next volume of the Encyclopedia of the Fur Trade: Textiles should be out around the first of the year (fingers crossed). I loaded up on books, and Preston Miller had found a cache of original clay pipes, both reed stem and regular, that he was selling off for the same price as repros, so I couldn’t resist a couple of them. The Museum of the Mountain Man was well worth the trip, with a grouping of their recently purchased fur trade letters on display. Spent the evenings drinking shrub with the boys (a number of AMM guys from Montana and Colorado were camped out at the museum). It all went too fast. On the return trip, we passed through Cody, and just had to stop at the Buffalo Bill Center---almost had to go through it on a run, we couldn’t stay long, and there’s so much to see.
The folks at the museum said the proceedings will be published, so look for that. I’ll hoist my tin cup to the folks at Pinedale; they put on an excellent symposium. It looks like it’s Bent’s Fort for the next one, I hope to make it there.

Rod