When imagining the American West,

especially in a historical context, images of indigenous peoples, seas of buffalo,

untamed wilderness, cowboys straddling their mighty steeds, and pioneers

navigating the rugged landscapes on wobbly wagons are often what comes to mind.

Or perhaps, hastily constructed wild west and mining towns filled with

gun-slingers and saloons comes up. There's a reason for this. This imagery is everywhere. in movies, television, paintings, and photographs.

But there's a group that is often cast aside or excluded altogether in popular literature, the mountain men.

More specifically, the Trappers of the Rocky Mountain West.

Half a century before cowboys galloped onto the scene and pioneers set their sights westward,

these men, typically young, curious, and rebellious, left their homes and families to be part of the

first commercial enterprise of the American West.

They were among the first non-indigenous people to lay eyes on this place.

They were the first Europeans to learn the ways of the West.

They traveled further,

encountered people, languages, wildlife, and landscapes that most in their wildest of

dreams could never have imagined. Many did not survive what lay ahead of them, but those that

did usually came back and brought with them the stories of the dead, and with tales too tall

to believe.

Much of the legends that came out of the Rockies and Plains of the West were exaggerated,

embellished and inflated,

a result of a long and twisted game of telephone as sagas made their way from mouth to ear around campfires.

But as the old saying goes, where there is smoke, there is fire.

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