Forging a Fur Empire: Expeditions in the Snake River Country 1809-1824, by John Phillip Reid

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. In this narrative, based on the accounts left by Ross and others, historian and legal scholar John Philip Reid describes the experiences of the earliest Huston’s Bay Company fur-trapping expeditions-ventures usually overlooked by historians-and explores the interactions between the diverse cultures of the Pacific Northwest.