Talk:Mountain man

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Bourgeious (isn't it bourgeois?) or does bourgeious refer to something else completely?

--72.56.124.151 13:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Good Day Fellahs,

Mountain men existed on every continent and in practically every tradition.

"The Man from Snowy River" depicts an example from the Australian tradition of the genuine Australian mountain men.

If I had the time to research this all the world's greatest mountain ranges would reveal a host of mountain men, including the Sierra Nevada in Spain, the Himalayas, the Altai and *everywhere* mountainous on the planet.

If this is a global project provision will need to be made to either generalise this entry or somehow make provision for other entries that do not relate to the Rockies.

This is not to lessen the folk that roamed the Rockies, but rather to remind everyone that they had kindred spirits elsewhere on this planet.


Just thought I'd make an entry to this effect.


Pete Brown www.mountainman.com.au 04-APR-2005


Contents

[edit] Non-American mountain men

As Mr. Brown of Oz comments, it's not as if the US was the only country to have mountain men, and there's quite the list of Canadian (British Columbian, most likely) bush gentlemen to be added to this roster, most famously Kootenay Brown but I could come up with a few others if I thought about it. In my own area (the Bridge River-Lillooet) there were a bunch of old coots (for lack of a more polite term) whose regular place in the Gold Bridge Hotel bar were marked by carved wooden signs bearing their names: Limey John, Nosebag Jones, King of Norway, Grizzly Frank, Fish Lake Eddy, Woodchopper Eddy. There is a cultural distinction from American mountain men, perhaps; the fur trade here was always native-operated and HBC-bought-up, so the 19th Century was not as full of the particular kind of shaggy bushman you'd find in Idaho or the like; ours are more 20th Century in character; and they're still out there, depending on which smalltown bar you check out, or whose cabin you stumble across while hiking around in the back bush. Most of the modern guys prize their anonymity, though, of course....

This is another of those articles/topics where the American term/context has been written up without regard to other countries' experiences; another article like this is Indian Wars (see notes at bottom of Talk:Indian Wars; other articles with US-biased content (some fixed since I found them) are Alaska boundary dispute and Oregon boundary dispute. Not that I've got anything against American history; it's just that the American perspective on history isn't the only one, and the American meanings and context of terms are only part of the whole picture, not the whole picture themselves.Skookum1 20:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

A section on Hudson Bay would be wonderful. And what French Canadian would you like listed in Notable figures? Best wishes. WBardwin 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source information

Amazon doesn't show a listing for this reference provided in the article. Was this self-published? Any ISBN?

  • McLelland, Dennis. The Avenging Fury of the Plains, John "Liver-Eating" Johnston, Exploding the Myths - Discovering the Man.

Thanks. WBardwin 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Material needed

I have worked the article over quite a bit. Comments welcome. As to future edits, as pointed out above, this material is very US focused. Obviously, the Hudson Bay Company and their small but valiant Canadian competitors should be mentioned here. Many French-Canadian trappers worked intimately with the Americans, and their companies, and in some cases moved into and worked in Mexico Territory/New Mexico and California. Some became Mexican citizens, some American citizens, some eventually returned to Canadian territory. However, I don't believe the term as generally used really includes explorers and adventurers in other areas of the world, such as Australia.

Relationships with Indian tribes and individuals, friendly and hostile, have not been addressed here either. These were the people our mountain men worked with everyday, and often intermarried. They had a great influence on their lifestyle and outlook. In addition, some mountain men were black, Indian, or of mixed breed. They should be briefly mentioned as well.

Anyone have any other ideas for expanding the article? Best wishes. WBardwin 05:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Welker - Source for submittal

The following was recently submitted, but Google provides no hits at all on this person. A source would be helpful. 65.54.98.29 (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Jordan Welker (1706-1754) was a trapper and fisherman who explored regions of central Pennsylvania. His most famous discovery was the Hebe Bypass located in a region just south of present day Shamokin, Pennsylvania. He also set up Stone Valley Fur Traders located in present day Dalmatia, Pennsylvania. Welker was one of the forerunners in the fording the Susquehanna River and made a record 44 successful mid-summer crossings of the river.

[edit] Merging Free Trappers

The article on Free trappers is one paragraph that basically describes a subtype of Mountain Man. Since I don't see how Free trappers could possibly be expanded without duplicating information from this article, I suggest we simply merge the entire paragraph into this article, as a subsection under "Mode of Living". Anyone object? --Ig8887 (talk) 08:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

.....well, we could probably talk about how their free status led to some trading disadvantages, and how they sometimes grouped together to achieve some competitive status. We could also list prominant free traders. But that could be done in Mountain man as well. So I would vote "merge". WBardwin (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly; listing the disadvantages of being a free trader is essentially the same as listing the advantages of being a company man, which would be good material for this article (and thus redundant between the two). And any free trader notable enough to be mentioned would also qualify as a notable Mountain Man. --Ig8887 (talk) 04:13, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mode of living

Why is there a discussion of the Alamo? It doesn't seem at all relevant. The only connection I can see is that the battle occurred during the time when the rendezvous happened. Also, the paragraph needs some serious clean-up. 69.150.163.1 (talk) 19:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


I luv this artucul !

BigBubbaUSA (talk) 06:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)