John Colter: His Years in the Rockies

We are traveling to this area and so it was interesting to see how it became what it is.

Some literary license throughout the book (such as making conclusions/statements which would be impossible to know without firsthand knowledge) allows the author to write from more of a story perspective. But very readable and engaging. Books appears to draw upon historical information which may also be circumspect. Hard to see how it could be written better given the historical nature.

Once I started this book I could not put it down. Colter's life is the high of great excitement and drama and the author does not let the reader down. Read numerous books and articles on Colter but this is full of new and interesting information and perspectives on the man. I very highly recommend this book. Plan on looking into other books by the same author - you will not be disappointed with it in any way. His treatment of Colter's life with other trappers, with the Crow Indians, his venturing into Yellowstone, and of course his legendary/famous "Colter's Run." All of them are presented by the author so very well.

This provided me with a pretty good picture of John Colter. However, it seemed a bit slow and uneven in some parts. The author incorporated some first hand accounts, but I didn't feel as if it was too organized and I felt it was a bit scattered from time to time.There are better, more thorough accounts of the frontiersmen out there. I felt I got a better picture of John Colter from Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

It's common knowledge that there isn't much information on the life of John Colter. However, B Harris does a good job sorting the fact from fiction about one of the original Mountain Men. If one is into this genre, it's a good read.

As advertised

The author has used his resources of anecdotes, legends and printed record to write an entertaining book.It must have been a challenge to have had as a subject a real, fearless, famous "mountain man" who's greatest feats were to have been "there" and to have survived. Many were like him,or maybe there were not many at all, but he became a legend.With no day to day accounts. (As in the case of Osborne Russell, for instance).Great mountain man reading. Awesome character.

I'll keep it short. This is a research paper and not a novel or story. I appreciate the work done by Burton Harris to gather the data, but I was hoping for a good educational and memorable story of Colter's life & adventures.

At the start of the 19th century, a vast area of the United States west of the Mississippi River, apart from a few small settlements on the Pacific coast, was strictly the domain of the native American tribes and very few white men ever ventured there. This changed in 1803 when the first official expedition to the west ordered by President Thomas Jefferson called the Corps of Discovery and led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the river and explored the area west of the Missouri River and eventually reached the Pacific coast. In the Lewis and Clark party there was a man they came to value very highly and he became one of a unique group of pioneers called mountain men who lived off the land like native Americans and often traded with them and who trapped beaver living in the rivers of the Rockies. His name was John Colter.Colter was born in Virginia sometime between 1770 and 1775 and he left the Lewis and Clark party in August 1806 with their agreement during its return journey and he joined up with two other trappers, Joseph Dixon and Forest Hancock. They set out to trap beaver in the area around what is now the Yellowstone River. In the winter of 1807/1808 he set out alone to trap beaver in the rivers of what is now Wyoming and later he trapped in the Missouri River and the Platte River. Colter was a remarkable man, a real pioneer who travelled for several years trapping beaver, often alone and in great danger of attack by native Americans. He was the first white man to see many places that later became very well known. When he reported the geysers and boiling mud pools in what is now Yellowstone National Park nobody believed him.Burton Harris in his fascinating and gripping account outlining Colter's experiences in the far west paints a picture of a group of men who existed in the west for only about twenty years and they disappeared after the beaver hat fashion gave way to another fashion. Many former mountain men became guides leading wagon trains westwards to Oregon and California through areas they knew from their trapping years. Colter's west has largely disappeared or has been greatly transformed and some of the areas where he travelled were settled by farmers and ranchers and later hundreds of towns and cities covered the landscape. If you find the history of the west as interesting as I do, you will love this book. It takes you back to a time when there were vast uninhabited regions of the west where there were no towns and cities and only nomadic native Americans whose lives were sustained by following huge herds of buffalos as they moved backwards and forwards across the great plains. Colter and his fellow mountain men were part of the story and this book captures their lives and their brief times so well.

First half a bit slow, second half very good.