Zenas Leonard (1809–1857)

Adventures of a Mountain Man: The Narrative of Zenas Leonard by Zenas Leonard
Enjoying this read about how the party takes off in different directions and when they meet up they discuss the things that happened to them.
Most fear Blackfoot Indians and the bears as they try to get to the west coast, through the Rocky Mountains.
Reason I wanted to read this one is because we are heading there and can't wait to see from the top of the range what they must've seen for themselves.
Traditions of all the different Indian groups are fascinating. Love hearing how they would dig a huge hole in a certain location and put the pelts in them and know exactly how to tell another where they were.
Love the bartering.
For safe keeping they'd find them when it was convenient and would give them a higher cost to trade them in.… (mais)

This is the adventure of Zenas Leonard, a young man who leaves Pennsylvania to seek his fortune as a fur trapper in the early West. As is typical in these frontier quests, when things go wrong they go badly wrong. His family had given him up for dead for five years, before he finally managed to turn up one day. Despite being well supplied and starting off with a large company, the predations of Indians, weather, animals and human folly take their toll on the group. Leonard appears to be a decent and capable young man, but his attitude to the environment, shared by his traveling companions, will shock and surprise modern readers. Everything was plentiful and ripe for their taking with no thought of consequences or waste, as when they slew over a hundred mountain goats for sport. The idea that it could all end one day would have shocked them. It's a very revealing look at frontier life.… (mais)