Mountain Men: True Grit and Tall Tales

In 1804, Lewis and Clark set out to find the fabled Northwest Passage to the Pacific, mounting the first expedition across the uncharted territory of President Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase. Though they never found the nonexistent Northwest Passage-or the lost tribes of Israel, rumored to be living in the Great American Desert-they did discover that the entire region west of the Mississippi was swarming with beaver. And so began the American fur trade, as the first tough trappers headed out to make their fortunes in beaver pelts.

These pages are peopled by the legendary mountain men, those rough-and-ready fortune hunters, trailblazers, and storytellers who proudly claimed to have invented the American tall tale. Here are the true stories of their lives, how they worked to trap beaver, the hardships they faced in the wilderness; and here, too, are many of the gaudiest lies ever told about a West that will never again be so remote or so exotic.