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The Adventures of Captain Bonneville: Digested from His Journals by Washington Irving

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While some historians portray Bonneville as an arrogant, contemptuous, bumbling buffoon of the fur trade era, others also denounce the manner in which Irving attempts to place Bonneville on a pedestal. There are certainly subjects open to controversy, such as Irving's treatment (through Bonneville?) of Joseph Walker's "non-authorized" expedition to California, or the building of Fort Bonneville, known to the trappers as Fort Nonsense because of its location, etc. There are well documented accounts of Indian culture; how the trappers coexisted (and didn't) amongst the Native Americans; the never ending feuds between the American Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Fur Company; the annual mountain rendezvous; the shortages of food; elements of nature; descriptions of geography, geology, etc.; and simply put, survival in the wilderness in the 1830's. This is a classic of the fur trade period, and Irving's writing style is very realistic and expressive of the lifesyles back then.