Mountain Men and Their Legacy

M o u n ta i n M e n

and

Their Legacy

group show & sale

When In-Laws Come to Trade

Roy Andersen

30" x 40" Oil

The narrative of When In-Laws Come to Trade is a subtle one, yet it is so rich in codes and clues that it constitutes a kind of lexicon of the entire Fur Trade and Mountain Man era. From the way the Native Americans dress, their teepees and weapons, this is a Crow camp, somewhere in Southern Montana near the Big Horn Mountains. The Crow were among the first Indians to engage with white men in the Fur Trade. The rider in white is an Indian trader from Santa Fe, as evidenced by his Santa Fe saddle with its wide stirrups to accommodate moccasins. The white blanket coat gives him away as well, being the typical winter garb in Santa Fe. He greets them with his thumb and two fingers, the sign for “friends.” Behind him rides his wife, a Crow. One of the Crow offers him a pipe; another seems to want to ward or warn him off with a spear. Intermarriage between the Mountain Men and Native Americans was not uncommon. The Indians knew the country—it was their home, after all—and they knew trails and paths and places where the beaver and the buffalo were abundant.

The uneasiness in When In-Laws Come to Trade captures this relationship in all its delicacy.

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M o u n ta i n M e n

and T h e i r L e g a c y

group show

& sale

s Thursday, August 9, 2012 • 6 - 8 pm

The Legacy Gallery 75 North Cache Jackson, Wyoming 83001 this sale is conducted on a draw basis

For information concerning price or availability, please call 307-733-2353 or visit our website at www.legacygallery.com

M

ountain Man. In the chronology of the continent, the Mountain Men occupy a sliver, about two decades’ worth of history, between Lewis and Clark’s journey to the Pacific Ocean in 1803-06 and the collapse of the Fur Trade around 1840. They build the bridge to the era of the cowboy and the settler.

Beaver hats were the rage in Europe and on the East Coast. John Jacob Astor, already a wealthy man from the fur trade in the Great Lakes, saw and seized an opportunity in what was then the Oregon Territory. Men from all classes, fascinated by the prospect of wealth and the thought of what might lie over the next hill, joined Astor’s companies or lit out on their own, as free traders.

These were the Mountain Men who would form such complex relationships with Nature and with Native Americans. They would see and describe some of the world’s most beautiful places, and they would suffer Nature’s fiercest wrath, especially in winter. They would learn Indian languages and customs and take Indian wives, and they would fight Indians and show the wagons where to go, paving the way for Manifest Destiny and the Indian Wars and the demise of the native way of life.

Once a year, the Mountain Men of the companies, the free traders, and friendly Native Americans from many tribes would gather at what has come to be called the rendezvous to barter their pelts.

These legendary gatherings were whiskey-fueled parties, complete with games, races, dances, and tale spinning.

The recent bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery and the Discovery of South Pass by the Astorian Expedition—which would allow the first wagons to cross the Rockies—two hundred years ago this November makes this an appropriate time to once again reconsider the Fur Trade era and the Mountain Man. Narratives by James Balestrieri and Artists

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Trapping God’s Country

David Wright

24" x 36" Oil

The draw of the Rocky Mountains is inspiring and at times almost overwhelming. Every time I go deep into those “Shining Mountains,” we recreate rides to a rendezvous. I come back regenerated and ready to do more paintings to show the awesome beauty of the region. There are written accounts of mountain men climbing high up the slopes of the mountains just to take in the beauty of the view. For someone who’s there every day, meeting the challenges of traversing them, that says a lot about the lure of the mountains.

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The First Wagons to Cross South Pass ~ Captain Bonneville’s Expedition ~ July 1832

14" x 40" Oil

Charles Fritz In many ways, intrigue still surrounds the expedition of Captain Bonneville. Longing for adventure in the fur trade, he attained an unusual “Leave-of-absence” from the Army beginning in 1831 and lasting until 1835. His expedition was funded by private investors yet he spent a great deal of his time in reconnaissance, gathering information for the Army. With 150 men, their packhorses and mules, and a train of twenty wagons drawn by oxen, he led the first wagons over the Continental Divide at South Pass. He paved the way for legions of immigrants who would follow his example during the coming decades on the Oregon and California Trails. Also present on the expedition, as co-partners with Bonneville, were two famous men in the annals of the fur trade, Joseph Walker and Michael Cerre’. Bonneville and his expedition were romanticized and made famous by Washington Irving’s book, “The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.”

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Rendezvous

William Ahrendt

36" x 36" Oil

The legendary rendezvous, where the mountain men bartered their hard-won pelts, was a time to restock, reconnect, buy an Indian wife, drink, sing, dance and howl. Their campfires burned till dawn as they swapped tall tales of survival and close calls. In contrast to the lonely life the mountain man led, in Rendezvous, a group of trappers are packed together in a tent, late at night, making music and raising glasses by the light of oil lamps and candles. Other tents, at upper right, repeat the lamp lit glow, alluding to the same longing for good company and spirit of camaraderie. The mountain men are arranged in a closed circle around the light, excluding the viewer. The way they are drawn and lit recalls the great illustrations of the early 20th century: N C Wyeth’s work for Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail, for example. We see the mountain men, listen in on their yarns and shanties, but we cannot participate. How could anything we have to say match their experience? No, their world and way of life was their own, even then. Today? Almost unimaginable—except in art.

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The Sharpshooter

Kyle Polzin

23" x 36" Oil

Concentrating on the trappings of the Mountain Men, the tools of their trade and the product of it, The Sharpshooter tells a tale of the Fur Trade. On a trade blanket that covers a battered, half seen wooden chest, empty possible bags blackened with age and use, a yellowed powder horn, its strap repaired with a bit of twine, snowshoes with hand-tanned and twisted thongs, a skin—of a fox, perhaps?—and a meticulously cared for black powder rifle tell a tale without naming a single character in Fur Trade history. The gun, made by Keener, a Maryland gunsmith, is the focus of the painting. The rubbed walnut of the stock, the blued engraving on the lock plate, the patinaed brass patch box cover and ornate trigger guard and the lancewood rammer do more than attest to the gunsmith’s art. The rifle was the Mountain Man’s most important possession. His rifle fed and protected him. But if the rifle is the most prominent element in the composition, the chest on which this still life is arranged, barely visible at lower left and right, is of interest as well. Elevating everything else in the painting, it is a subject for speculation. What is in there? A Mountain Man’s wealth? His maps and journals? Or nothing more than the musk of the past, the faintest tang of wood smoke and whiskey, sweat and saltpeter, pelts and peril.

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The Parley

David Mann

36" x 48" Oil

If what is about to take place in The Parley goes well, this is the calm before the calm. The Mountain Men overcome barriers in language and customs and go on their way. If it goes badly, this is the calm before the storm. Maybe the last storm. The three trappers, mounted in the middle of a shallow stream, have nowhere to go. They are in an open plain on a bluebird clear day. Already flanked, if not entirely surrounded by the Indians strategically situated between them and the tree line, this parley is a life or death matter. The moment of the painting finds the chief with his rifle raised.

It is a deliberately equivocal gesture signaling, “This could go either way.” The trappers, for their part, have done nothing yet. The lead trapper has his hand on his rifle, but it is pointed toward the sky, easy, a conciliatory gesture. The trapper at left has both hands on his reins while the rider just coming up keeps his rifle across his saddle. The Mountain Men are about to begin negotiations in a strange country, in another language, from an untenably weak position. Subtly and metaphorically divided in the picture plane—trappers in the unstable element of water, Native Americans on solid ground—the shallow creek they stand in might just find them in over their heads.

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Moose Meat

Michael Coleman

30" x 40" Oil

“Simplify, simplify,” Thoreau would write in Walden in 1854, as the era of the mountain man waned.

Living close to Nature—it has a romantic appeal. A good sound. Shed the trappings of civilization.

Have no inventory to maintain. Cut ties. Cultivate solitude. That’s the moment of Moose Meat. You want to be there in the warmth of that good fire, with your best pal—who never talks too much—by your side. Yes, there are things to be thankful for… But winter was hard on a Mountain Man. Living close to Nature meant living in Nature, taking whatever Nature dished out, whether it was a perfect June day or the fury of a January storm. That beautiful dusk in Moose Meat? It means that night’s coming on fast and the temperature, not too balmy to begin with, is about to drop like icicles off a mustache. The camp is a hasty one, set up right where the big bull dropped. How many hours did the Mountain Man pursue that bull? How deep were the drifts? He and the dog might be up all night standing guard over the meat. The moment of the painting is just that, a moment for the man and dog to catch their breath… Living close to Nature like the Mountain Men. Yes, it has a romantic appeal. A good sound. But night’s coming on.

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Headwaters of Spanish River

Tim Tanner

24" x 60" Oil

On the Headwaters of Spanish River depicts two trappers in the 1830’s beside the headwaters of the Green River, near present-day Pinedale, Wyoming. Mountain Men of the era referred to the Green River as the “Spanish River.” Since the advent of the Internet, research into Fur Trade era has blossomed. Journals and trade ledgers in inaccessible special collections across the country have become readily available to researchers and artists. The works of Alfred Jacob Miller—the only artist to have visited and recorded an actual rendezvous—have been studied side-by-side with primary sources. On the Headwaters of Spanish River is a meticulously authentic painting: each element has been thoroughly documented and crosschecked with trade ledgers, journals, and Alfred Jacob Miller’s work. This research is documented in “Painting the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade: An Artist Creates On the Headwaters of Spanish River,” in the 2010 edition of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal.

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Fur Trapper’s Trail

R.S. Riddick

48" x 36" Oil

It’s not much of a trail, but it beats being on that cold peak that looms out of the clouds that descend like wolves, baring the teeth of the cold, hail, sleet, snow. Where this Mountain Man rides, the weather isn’t that bad yet. There’s some open water in the river and a bit of color in the trees and in the brush along the opposite bank. All that shows him this is a trail are a few tracks in the snow, made by other Mountain Men, or Indians—friendly, with luck, whoever they are. He should be happy. His packhorses are heavy with skins. But he has to be wary as well. Those skins are good as gold, whoever has them. It may well be that he’s on his way to the rendezvous, looking forward to good bartering and good fun. Or perhaps he’s looking for his companions as they band back together in winter quarters, riding out the howl.

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Green River Traders

John Fawcett

22" x 40" Oil

By 1825, the Mountain Men, frontier people, and Plains Indians had begun to gather every year near the Green River, then called the “ Seeds-kee-dee.“ There, the mountain men traded beaver pelts—or plews, as they called them—and buffalo skins for supplies that came by wagon from St. Louis. It was common for the Indians of the region to join in on the trading and festivities, which included games and horse races. These gatherings have come to be known as rendezvous. In Green River Traders, Shoshone braves—”Snakes” to the Mountain Men—approach two mountain men and show interest in trading for the skins, hides, and blankets. Warm earth and skin tones unify the scene and complement the genial nature of the bargaining. The white pony with brown spots at left and the white-bearded Mountain Man in the faded pink shirt squatting at right bracket the browns of the central action. Lending a touch of immediacy, this figure faces us, as if the viewer is an artist sketching the scene live, then and there, en plein air.

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Blackfoot Territory- A Bad Place to Pull Up Lame

C. Michael Dudash

32" x 50" Oil

Of the native peoples hostile to the Mountain Men and suspicious of the Fur Trade, those who harbored the greatest antipathy were the Blackfeet. Even as the Mountain Men pushed into their territory, making peace with their inveterate enemies: the Nez Perce, Flathead, Cree and Crow Indians, the Blackfeet—comprised of Gros Ventre, Piegan and Bloods, among others—continued to resist the influx of the fur companies and free traders. In 1832, after a rendezvous at Pierre’s Hole—now in Idaho—a pitched battle between Mountain Men and a large band of Gros Ventres broke out when two trappers murdered the Gros Ventre chief who had ridden forward to greet them. One hundred American, Nez Perce and Flathead Indian trappers, under William Sublette, fought some two hundred and fifty Gros Ventre warriors and their families. Blackfeet women hastily constructed a fortress of trees that had fallen in a swamp and the warriors were able to repel a fierce attack by the Mountain Men. That night, the trappers sent for reinforcements while the Gros Ventre, in a crafty ruse, shouted that many Blackfeet were on their way. The Mountain Men, thinking these new Blackfeet were attacking the settlement at Pierre’s Hole, rushed to their aid. The Gros Ventre then made their escape, ending what has come to be known as The Battle of Pierre’s Hole. Blackfoot Territory — A Bad Place to Pull Up Lame has a tense “What Next?” quality, like a single frame of film with no before and no after. How did we get to this place in the narrative? Do the Mountain men run? Do they fight? We have to paint ourselves into the scene, make a choice, play it out.

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Checking the Back Trail

Joseph Trakimas

24" x 30" Oil

The Mountain Man trudges on through the snow, his rifle on his thigh, ready to be snapped up to his shoulder. He doesn’t look back. Not quite. Not yet. But his horse does. Something is in the wind. A smell. A sound. Just a feeling. An ominous feeling of being followed, trailed, pursued. Perhaps even hunted. All kinds of hunger gnaw in the Mountain Man’s winter. Between the upward slope and the downward slant of the sky, the feeling of the painting suggests constriction, that the trapper’s options narrow even as the knife of blue sky comes to a point. There’s no margin for error, no room to maneuver. The Mountain Man knows it, but it’s his horse that gives it away.

David Wright Heading for the Popo Agie 12” x 9” Oil

Trappers loved to pursue the beaver throughout the Wind River range and the Popo Agie was a favorite creek on which to trap. There were three rendezvous held on the Popo Agie – 1829, 1830, and 1838. “See you on the Popo Agie” became a byword with the trappers during the days of the fur trade.

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museum oF The mouNTaiN maN piNedale, wyomiNg

the legaCy ContInues: Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition to the Pacific Ocean in 1804-06 inspired young men from all walks of life to light out and make for the American Frontier—the West. The optimism of the young republic encouraged exploration and expansion. Fur magnate John Jacob Astor—America’s wealthiest man—seizing an opportunity to broaden his interests, created the Pacific Fur Company, whose goal was to establish a west coast trading center. Led by Wilson Price Hunt and Robert Stuart, the Astorians made the coast-tocoast round trip in 1811-1812, inaugurating what we have come to call the era of the Mountain Man. In honor of this event, the National Fur Trade Symposium will host “The 200th Anniversary of Robert Stuart and the Astorians, 1811-1812,” a four day examination of the significance and impact of this historic event, at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, Wyoming.

Under the umbrella of The Sublette County Historical Society in the Wind River Country where many of the famous rendezvous took place, the 15,000 square foot Museum of the Mountain Man is devoted to the Fur Trade that flourished from 1820-1840. This award winning museum houses comprehensive exhibits of traps, firearms, knives and equipment alongside primary source materials that give context to this rich period and its colorful characters whose adventurous way of life led directly to the exploration, mapping and settlement of the American West.

museum oF the mountaIn man

pInedale, wyomIng www.mmmuseum.Com

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box

4977 • 75 north cache • jackson, wyoming 83001 • 307-733-2353 www . legacygallery . com

Fur Brigade Nooning at Big Sandy Creek

Charles Fritz

10" x 28" Oil

Davey Jackson, for whom Jackson’s Hole is named, was a part-owner in the famous fur company, the “Rocky Mountain Fur Company,” or, RMF. In partnership with legends Jedediah Smith and William Sublette, the three men purchased the fur trading company from William Ashley in 1826, making RMF a direct descendant from one of the first companies to venture into the West in search of beaver. There is no biography of Jackson but the journals of others show him to be dependable, a leader, and a skilled trapper. Unlike his partner, Jedediah Smith whose fame as an explorer disguises the losses he incurred, Jackson systematically produced good profits for the company. During his years in the mountains, Jackson criss-crossed the fur country and would have often been found near South Pass, along Big Sandy Creek, south of the Wind River Range. During the following decades, history continued to be made at this location on Dry Sandy Creek as an important stop along the Oregon Trail and a Pony Express station was built here.