Grand Teton National Park - Exploration and Discovery
The First Visitors
Today only a few small reminders of those once massive glaciers are found in the Tetons, tucked here and there among the peaks. As the last glaciers receded back into their mountain refuges more than 10,000 years ago, it is possible, even likely, that human beings were on hand to observe their retreat. Within sight of the Tetons on the Snake River plain in Idaho, archeologists have discovered evidence of human habitation dating back about 10,000 years, to the very brink of the Ice Age. In more modern times the region has been home to such Indian tribes as the Shoshones, the Blackfeet, and the Gros Ventres. Like their counterparts on the plains, the Indians in the area were nomads, following the annual game migrations and establishing seasonal encampments. Jackson Hole was a buffer zone between territories claimed by the various tribes.
To the Snoshone these mountains, known as Tee-win-ot or "many pinnacles," were presumed to be the dwelling place of holy spirits. The modern name Tetons was bestowed by a party of fur trappers approaching the mountains from the west in 1819. Their first glimpse of the range revealed three prominent, pointed peaks, which caused some Frenchmen in the party to name them Les Trois Tetons ("The Three Breasts").
But the very first white man to visit the Teton country, it is said, was one John Colter. A bold adventurer, he was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which had crossed the uncharted territory of the northern Rockies to the Pacific and back between 1804 and 1806. On the return journey, apparently still eager for adventure, Colter left the expedition to join two fur trappers bound for the unexplored upper reaches of the Yellowstone River. Subsequent wanderings apparently led him to Jackson Hole in 1807, where he no doubt gazed up in awe at these stupendous mountains, as impressed by their beauty as any visitor ever since.
The Great Beaver Bonanza
Within a few years of Colter's discovery, other trappers followed in his footsteps, ushering in the fabulous era of the mountain men. The influx began slowly, dictated by a whim of fashion. In Europe and in the cities of the eastern United States, felt hats made of beaver fur had become the rage. Fortunes were to be made by those fearless enough to risk the dangers of the Rocky Mountain wilderness in order to trap the region's plentiful population of beavers. Luck played a role too, for many left the mountains the way they entered: broke.
An innocuous advertisement that appeared in a Missouri newspaper in 1822 did much to spark the invasion. A fledgling fur company, the ad announced, "wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri" to the Rocky Mountains, to be employed as hunters. Unmentioned were the incredible dangers and hardship the men would face.
The first to sign on were mostly greenhorns, but many would survive to become legends. There was Jedediah Smith, who would later buy out the trading company and still later pioneer new routes to California. Jim Bridger, an apprentice blacksmith when he joined up, became one of the toughest mountain men of all; wounded by a Blackfoot, he carried the offending arrowhead in his back for several years before a missionary finally removed it. Thomas "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick was another; the crippling wound responsible for his nickname did nothing to impair his aim. And then there was David Jackson, who would leave his name on the valley he loved most, Jackson Hole. By the late 1820's several hundred of these indomitable mountain men were roaming this mountainous wilderness, some working on their own, others in the employ of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, or John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company.
Theirs was a tough and dangerous business. Potential hazards lurked in ambush at every river crossing, every mountain pass, every bend in the trail. An unwary trapper might drown in a swollen river, freeze to death, or even, on occasion, starve. One trapper, Hugh Glass, was dreadfully mauled by a grizzly and left for dead by Jim Bridger and another companion. The victim recovered, and vowed vengeance on his former friends for abandoning him, but he never carried out his threat.
The greatest danger, however, came from Indians, the result of a tragic incident that occurred when Lewis and Clark were homeward-bound in 1806. A member of the expedition killed a Blackfoot Indian who was stealing rifles, and from that time of the Blackfeet and their allies became mortal enemies of all white men. More than a few trappers lost their scalps, sometimes while still alive. The trappers, in turn, reacted just as brutally. Most had a collection of topknots -- Indian scalps -- tied to their waistbands as evidence of their own cruel lust for revenge.
Forced to adapt to this wild and hostile environment, the mountain men developed skills that, at times, seemed to surpass even those of the Indians. They were a thousand miles from civilization and any mistake could be fatal -- a rifle dropped in a river, a bone-breaking fall from a horse, or an overly smoky campfire that might tip off Indian raiders. The most successful mountain men -- the ones who survived -- seem to have developed a sixth sense, a fine attunement of body and mind to every wilderness sign and signal. Camped in Jackson Hole, a trapper learned to watch the game herds for any unusual movement that might warn of approaching Indians. While standing in a stream to set his traps, he took note if so much as a willow twig floated by: it might signal the presence of a hunting party nearby.
Like the Indians, the mountain men were nomads, seeking waterways where beavers were plentiful and moving out when the massive rodents were trapped out. Once a year they held an annual rendezvous, a month-long affair that was payday, trading mart, celebration, and three-ring circus all rolled into one. The wagons and pack trains of the various fur trading companies would arrive at the rendezvous site laden with whiskey, gunpowder, and such necessities as flour and bacon to be traded for the year's catch of furs. Friendly Indian tribes frequently joined the encampment and shared in the revelry. Even among rival fur companies there was camaraderie. The men raced horses. They drank. They played pranks. They vied with one another at telling the tallest tales. And in general they enjoyed high jinks to celebrate the survival of another year in the wilderness.
Tough and rowdy the mountain men undoubtedly were. But the few who could write recorded another side to these irrepressible adventures. Warren Angus Ferris, a trapper for the American Fur Company, observed of his companions, "A strange, wild, terrible, romantic, hard and exciting life they lead, with alternate plenty and starvation, activity and repose, safety and alarm, and all the other adjuncts that belong to so vagrant a condition in a harsh, barren, untamed, and fearful region.... Yet so attached to it do they become that few ever leave it." Yet by the mid-1840's all the mountain men were gone, victims of another change in fashion and of their own success as trappers -- the beavers were nearly gone as well.