blackfoot-valley

pany was formed by John Astor in 1808. His Pacific Fur Company established the post of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River and briefly had opera- tions on the lower Clark Fork, but those were cut short by the War of 1812. The Missouri Fur Company, based in St. Louis, engaged John Colter as a guide. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, among others employed Jedediah Smith and James Bridger. Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Com- pany continued as the main Canadian-based rivals until 1822, when after some violence in the Red River Basin, which included Winnipeg (the southern part of the basin had been ceded to the U.S. by treaty in 1818), the two firms merged in 1821 under the HBC name. For some time, all these companies’ territories of operations overlapped, especially west of the Continental Divide, until the 1846 agreement establishing the present international boundary. “Boiling the Traps” @John Phelps Studio By the 1840s, the heyday of the fur trade was closing in most areas, including western Montana. The rapid depletion of beaver caused prices to go through the roof, and European fashion turned to silk hats. The era of the mountain men was coming to an end. Though a number of them had peri- odically trapped in the Blackfoot and Nevada valleys, no fur posts were estab- lished in this area. As in other frontier areas, the rule was, “Take what you can, and when it’s played out move on”, which usually meant farther west. For beaver, it took only a few decades to run out of “west.” 69