Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper

Rating:
Summary: Exciting and extraordinary....
Review: A remarkable firsthand account of how it was back in the 1830's to early 1840's to be a fur trapper/trader in the Rocky Mountains. Russell lived it and told it like it was back then. One of few mountain men to keep a journal. I like how he gets quite descriptive in the day to day adventures and activities that he had to do for survival. An excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I was in high school growing up on the Snake river Plain in Idaho when I read this book. I had to take a summer school course on Idaho history and this was our text, we spent the summer reading this book and then traveling to many of the locations in it and experiencing first hand the sights and sounds of the story. It was a great experiance and it has stayed with me ever since. If you live in this area or are just interested in this kind of story I highly reccomend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Touching unpretentious adventure and history masterpiece.
Review: If you want to know what happened after Lewis and Clark you have to read this book. It fills in the big gap between the Corps of Discovery trip and the wagon trains. Well written by a resourceful and charming individualist.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting book.
Review: The trapper's journal by Osbourne Russell during the early to mid 18 hundreds came as a bit of a surprise. First the book is a factual account without any explication of the events more than is necessary. It is not told as an adventure story eg "Last of the Mohicans" but rather as a journal pure and simple of the travels through the Rockies, mainly Yellowstone, of this young trapper over 9 years in the pay and as a member of Jim Bridger's fur company, around 100 men. The trade was at its peak at this time. As is true of most journals it is full of abbreviations of words because of time constraints eg brot. for brought, staid for stayed etc. This gives the impression of crudity in the writing, or of a man not used to writing but rather writing in only a haphazard fashion. Every reader knows how easy it is to loose all the fine points of writing when it is not practised constantly. The journal is full of place names and directions of travel and a few maps indicating the progress of the trappers. There is some description of the scenery and the Indians of the area eg Blackfoot which are a constant threat, Shoshones (Snake), Bonnack and Crow. Occasionaly I was pleasantly surprised by paragraphs of eloquence and beauty mixed in with the simplistic writing which was the norm. Russell was capable of very good writing when he was inspired or wished to do so. This is also demonstrated by his letters to his sisters which are written with great style and few grammatical errors, completely unlike his journals.

There is much which comes to the fore in regard to the period eg the waste and destruction as the parties of trappers even in groups as small as 3 wonder the countryside and simply kill a Bison Cow for a meal and then discard it, or just take the tongue to eat. Incredible disregard for nature is shown at times. The trapper is in continual fear of Blackfoot war parties who harrass them, both white and Indian, constantly. In one instance an enormous group of Blackfeet, thought to number up to 1000 or more by Russell, attempt to eradicate the entire group of Bridger's trappers, about 100. They decide not to due to an unfavourable (omen) display of Northern lights. Even in his day as the story nears the end of the 9 years Russell tells of the scarcity of Buffalo which were not wiped out in total until 1870 or so (80 million -> 1000). Its almost as if it comes upon them suddenly, "5 years ago thousands crossed the valleys of the Yellowstone, now its hard to find any". Russell even becomes a little conservationist in spirit when he states that maybe its time for the white man to leave this country because the wildlife has been so denuded.

An interesting book but with far too few passages describing the trapper's feeling along the way.

Rating:
Summary: Journal of a Trapper
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: A must read history of the Rocky Mtn. fur trade/exploration!
Review: This is one of the my favorite books. The writer was not only a tough grizzled mountain man but a pretty good writer considering he kept a 12 year journal while travelling around the West fighting indians and trapping beaver.

We took the book and went to Yellowstone and retraced the route of 1 year of the dairy. The writing is so discriptive, we could actually follow his route by landmarks. It was the best vacation we ever took.

This book is a must for western history buffs!

Rating:
Summary: A National Treasure
Review: 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.