Journal of a Trapper [Paperback]

Osborne Russell (Author), Aubrey L. Haines (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0803251661 | ISBN-13: 978-0803251663 | Publication Date: January 2002 | Edition: Bison Book reprint

'Reader, if you are in search of a Classical and Scientific tourist, please to lay this 'volume' down, and pass on, for this simply informs you what a Trapper has seen and experienced. But if you wish to peruse a Hunter's rambles among the wild regions of the Rocky Mountains, please to read this and forgive the authors foibles and imperfections, considering as you pass along that he has been chiefly educated in Nature's School under that rigid tutor experience...' Born in a little Maine village in 1814, Osborne Russell ran away to sea at the age of sixteen, but he soon gave up seafaring to serve with a trading and trapping company in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1834 he signed up for Nathaniel Wyeth's expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the mouth of the Columbia. Subsequently he joined Jim Bridger's brigade of old Rocky Mountain Fur Company men, continuing with them after a merger that left the American Fur Company in control of the trade.When the fur trade declined, he became a free trapper operating out of Fort Hall, staying in the mountains until the great Westward migration began. Osborne Russell's journal covering the years 1834 to 1843 is, in the words of editor Aubrey L.Haines, 'perhaps the best account of the fur trapper in the Rocky Mountains when the trade there was at its peak. It is a factual, unembellished narrative written by one who was not only a trapper but also a keen observer and an able writer'. Edited from the original manuscript and originally printed in a limited edition of 750 copies, this classic piece of Western Americana is now available to the general public.

Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; Bison Book reprint edition (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803251661
• ISBN-13: 978-0803251663
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A National Treasure, December 5, 2000

By 

Brian M. Parks (Madison, Wisconsin United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journal of a Trapper: A Hunter's Rambles Among the Wild Regions of the Rocky Mountains, 1834 - 1843 (Hardcover)

Those are bold words for the title of a review, but they are aptly deserved here with Mr. Russell's gift to our American Heritage. A first-person account of experiences in a era long gone, a time in our history seeking to fathom a new land, a time of growing clash between fundamentally different cultures... and Mr. Russell puts you right there on the frontline. You join him at the beginning of his new livelihood in the unknown, and you stay with him, growing in experience and weathering within the raw western realm. The writing is often crude, but his thoughts are hardly so and the total package bursts forth as a true rarity in literature. I consider this journal to be an equal to the recordings of Lewis and Clark, and practically moreso given the fact that it is really the efforts of a lone individual. He was not paid to keep this record, and although he always hoped to see it published, it did not go to print until long after his death, and then only first released in a limit of 100 copies. Aubrey Haines does great tribute to this admirable man by undertaking the task of retracing Mr. Russell's journies and providing us with the maps needed to help us follow him. Working from the original handwritten manuscript housed in The William Robertson Coe Collection of Western Americana at Yale University, Mr. Haines' efforts represent the single most important element in getting this work to the people, and he has done us a great service here in preventing this journal from drifting into obscurity. If you are curious as to what a life was like in a land before McDonalds, MTV, shopping malls, and SuperBowl Sundays, then I suggest you pick up a copy of this jewel and park yourself along with Mr. Russell next to that campfire with its golden sparks wafting up toward that diamond-studded yonder. You will be all the better for it.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read history of the Rocky Mtn. fur trade/exploration!, July 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Journal of a Trapper: A Hunter's Rambles Among the Wild Regions of the Rocky Mountains, 1834 - 1843 (Hardcover)

I am a wildlife biologist working in part of the area where Osborne Russell traveled. I have visited many of the sites writen about and I'm constantly comparing Russel's world with what is here today. His discritptions and comments of the lands and wildlife provide a unique window to what Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming were like before white settlement.

His journal also documents the hardships faced by the first whites into these country and the Native Americans already there. This work is a truthful account of the life and history of the mountain men in the Rockies.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Journal of a Trapper, September 25, 2001

By 

Marshall D. Hepner (Kingston, Oklahoma United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journal of a Trapper (Paperback)

This is by far one of the best books that a fur trade re-enactor can read. It is also a must read for the modern beaver trapper as well. Osborne describes the everyday events of the fur brigades in their heyday. If you are a buckskinner, living historian, trapper or just an old west history buff then this is a MUST have!