Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, trader, hunter and explorer. He is best known for his story of survival and forgiveness after being left for dead by companions when he was mauled by a grizzly bear.
A picture depicting Glass being attacked by a bear, from an early newspaper illustration of unknown origin
Some mountain men maintained a close relationship with the Native American tribes
The 200 miles (320 km) route of the 1823 odyssey by Glass
A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. They were instrumental in opening up the various emigrant trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies, originally to serve the mule train-based inland fur trade.
Fur trading at Fort Nez Percé in 1841
The Trapper's Bride shows a trapper, Francois, paying $600 in trade goods for an Indian woman to be his wife, ca. 1837, by Alfred Jacob Miller.
Seth Kinman, a notable 19th century mountain man who claimed to have hunted down around 800 grizzly bears