Forging a Fur Empire: Expeditions in the Snake River Country, 1809–1824

Alexander Ross, the pioneer recorder of the early fur trade in the far northern West, led a beaver trapping expedition in 1824 into the vast, unfamiliar territory east of trading posts in the Pacific Northwest. He and his men ventured deep into Snake River country in present-day Idaho and Montana. In this narrative, based on the accounts left by Ross and others, historian and legal scholar John Phillip Reid describes the experiences of the earliest Hudson's Bay Company fur-trapping expeditions- ventures usually overlooked by historians-and explores the interaction between the diverse cultures of the Pacific Northwest.