Talk:Mountain man

Mountain men world-wide
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 b[e made to] either generalise this entry or somehow make prov

ision for other entries that do not relate to the Rockies.

Th 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
 * 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, mos[[Media:t 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 c]]haracter; 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)

Source information
Amazon doesn't show a listing for this reference provided in the article. Was this self-published? Any ISBN? Thanks. WBardwin 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * McLelland, Dennis. The Avenging Fury of the Plains, John "Liver-Eating" Johnston, Exploding the Myths - Discovering the Man.

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)

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.

Check with various Parks Services. This sounds a lot like the kind of canned info you see on Highway "historic" markers. Just a thought. BTW, in the history section of the article someone had added the sentence, "Did you know Jim Bridger was a very rich man?" Fascinating. But not sourced, and not especially relevant where it was placed, so I deleted it. Theonemacduff (talk) 21:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)

Grizzly Adams
Hi - Just wondering if there should be references to the old TV series "Grizzly Adams". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.54.92.72 (talk) 16:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hunter and trapper Seth Kinman
The Kinman article makes no mention of Kinman as a "trapper", although I assume he killed the bears to sell their skins. Also, he followed a very different career path from most of the trappers generally included as Mountain men. Is he the best example to illustrate the topic? I will not remove the pic for now. WBardwin (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * He's not typical as he lasted into the 1880's so was photographed extensively, unlike the classic mountain men, whose time ended in the 1840s, who couldn't be photographed in their buckskins. I could certainly put up a Mathew Brady photo that has a contemporary caption "California Hunter and Trapper."  "California" may be controversial, but Humboldt county is very mountainous, and he was an explorer (as well as something of a showman).  All in all - he's not the perfect example of a mountain man, but fairly close, and I think the article needs a good photo - this one being better than the one below it.  I'll leave it to others to decide.  Smallbones (talk) 03:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly the lack of photographs from the early mountain men is a problem, which is probably why a "modern" mountain man was initially used as illustration. Jim Bridger's photo is probably the most readily available.  But Kinman's pic may be just a little over the top as most Mountain men combined some contemporary clothing with skins and furs.  To me, he looks like he dressed up for a picture rather than a day's work in the mountains.  As you said, something of a showman.  WBardwin (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, all Kinman's photo's were taken in the Brady studio in Washington D.C.! Bridger's photo is good.  Smallbones (talk) 04:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's leave all three photos in for now -- and see if some other editor has a better one! Thanks.  WBardwin (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

As a Modern Lifestyle
Would there be enough material for a section on modern lifestyles in the "bush"? Alaska and Canada would have modern mountain men as well as some in the lower 48. Sources for info? Comments? WBardwin (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Vandalized
Not the first time? 130.76.32.181 (talk) 03:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Redirect?
Why does "Mountain men" redirect to Mountain Men (2012 TV series) instead of "Mountain man"? TuckerResearch (talk) 22:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Good point. North8000 (talk) 10:44, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I fixed it. North8000 (talk) 10:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Lead
This is (rightly) tagged for having too long of a lead. Also the lead has material which is not in the article. I'll be working to fix. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Finished first burst of work. "History" section now has new material which is not yet fully integrated and sequenced. North8000 (talk) 19:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

mountain men
mountain men are awesome every one knows that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gold is very cool (talk • contribs) 23:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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Mislinked, mistyped or just vandalized?
The second last sentence within the Preface of this article starts with: "With the rise of the silk trade …", while 'silk trade' is linked to the article descibing the traditional eurasian Silk Road.

How did that show up? Furthermore I've never heard of an rising silk trade through western mountainous regions of the U.S., but maybe someone - the author of that entry? - knows better. In that case it should at least linked to further information or if such an article doesn't exist (of which i'm pretty sure ;) ) please add some short explanation.

Hopefully someone who knows better than I will read this and correct this please.

At least the link to the traditional Silk Road I will remove immediately, for there isn't any recognizable connection between both articles.

TExtHumer (talk) 20:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)