THE LEGEND OF HUGH GLASS

The fur trade in the upper Missouri region of the land we now call South Dakota began in earnest soon after the Lewis and Clark expedition charted the area in 1804 and 1805.

The spectacular discoveries of Lewis and Clark and the overwhelming demand for fur by wealthy American and European socialites brought into existence the rugged outdoorsman known as the Mountain Man. Spanish and French trappers and hunters had explored and exploited the area for many years prior but the Louisiana Purchase made the fur trade a most American adventure.

There are many Paul Bunyan-esque tales from the Mountain Man era but none tops the saga of Hugh Glass.

Briefly, Hugh Glass was a man who had gone to sea as a young man, had been taken captive and forced to serve the pirate Jean Lafitte, escaping only to be captured and nearly burned alive by the Pawnee. Only quick thinking saved his life and he spent the next few years living with the Pawnee tribe.

However, the true legend of Hugh Glass came after he had joined a fur trading expedition up the Missouri originating from St Louis in 1823.

The amazing account of Hugh Glass and his wrestle with a grizzly bear, crawl of one hundred miles after being left for dead, and showdown with the men who left him will be examined in the fiction of Frederick Manfred's 1954 novel Lord Grizzly, Everett Dick's social history Vanguards of the Frontier, and John Myers biography Pirate, Pawnee, and Mountain Man: the Saga of Hugh Glass.