FRONTIERS OF FORTUNE: The Fur Trade

Amend the sub-title to read the fur trade in Canada, as five of the eleven chapters concern the explorations of Canadian Pierre Radisson and mention almost incidentally relevant developments elsewhere. Trading posts are established, the English-French rivalry grows, and coureurs de bois (runners of the woods) follow the retreating beaver westward with some undramatic ""firsts"" (the First white man to see Hudson's Bay, the First Englishman to see a Blackfoot Indian). The book suffers from a failure in emphasis: Radisson dominates the first half while ""such famed mountain men as Jim, Bridger, Bill Sublette, and Jedediah Smith"" are written off in a prepositional phrase, and non-Canadian fur companies have a single chapter while the Hudson's Bay Company dominates several. Jones and Morgan's Trappers and Mountain Men has better balance and Ruxton's anecdotal Mountain Men has a more defined style.