Lander Area Chamber of Commerce 2014 Travel and Relocation Guide | Page 62

At a time when Wyoming was
an unknown, a vast plains
ending in rugged mountains so
high they were covered with
perpetual snow, and populated
by the grizzly bear, buffalo,
elk, deer, mountain lion and the
prized beaver. An area known
well to the Crow, Shoshone and
Arapahoe, but unknown to the
white man until the Mountain
Men entered this vast area
in search of beaver pelts, the
raw material needed for the
fashionable hats of Europe and
eastern America.
In the streams and rivers
flowing out of the Rocky
Mountains they found beaver
aplenty. But getting the pelts

to market in St. Louis, more
than a thousand miles away,
would take months, so it was
determined that a few of the
trappers would take the bundled
pelts to St. Louis and sell
them. They would then bring
goods back to the mountains
the following summer to
trade with the trappers for
their fall and spring catch.
The trading would take place
at predetermined location,
a “rendezvous” site. The
mountain men gathered there
to trade their season catch for
supplies for the coming year,
and whatever other luxuries
the traders brought to entice
them to spend all their earnings.
And spend it all they usually

did. The first “rendezvous”
was in 1825 and the last
one in 1840. The day of the
“Mountain Man” lasted for but
fifteen years.
It was a
wild and
untamed
country
that they
came
to and
many
of them
“went
under”, killed
by ferocious Grizzly bear,
by accidents, by the severe
weather and in battles with
Indians. By the late 1830’s
the beaver were nearly trapped
out and silk had become the
fashionable material for the
hats of the day. The profits
were gone from the beaver
trade. Those mountain men
who had survived life in the
wilderness moved on to other
pursuits, guiding emigrants
to Oregon and California,
domestic life in the settled
areas, or in the case of Jim
Bridger a trading post along the
Oregon Trail. The day of the
Mountain Man was gone.
In 1830 and 1838 this great
summer fair of the mountains
was conducted near the
confluence of the Wind River
and the Little Wind River. In
1838 the missionaries wrote in
their diaries a description of the
rivers, the cottonwood groves,
the grassy plain and the point
of land on which they camped
between the two rivers. Their
description is still true today,
the area remains little changed
from what Jim Bridger,
Joe Meek, and all the other
Mountain Men saw in 1838.

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Come to our camp, relax,
and drift back in time to the
warm summer days when
the Mountain Men, along
with their Indian families and
friendly tribes,
gathered here
to feast, play,
drink, trade
and renew old
acquaintances.
This was
their summer
vacation. A
time to count the
harvest from the
p r e v i o u s fall and spring
hunt, to relax and catch up on
the latest news, to see who
made rendezvous and who had
gone under.
After the camp has gone quiet,
if you concentrate, you may
still see a fleeting shadow and
hear the whispering sigh a
reveler from days gone by.
THE 1838
RENDEZVOUS
It is a primitive camp nestled
in a grove of cottonwood trees
on the bank of the Wind River.
It is in the same location as
the rendezvous of 1838. The
traders still come and spread
their wares to entice the
buckskinner and pilgrim alike
to part with their earnings.
Only today they prefer
greenbacks instead of beaver
backs.
During the day the
buckskinners challenge each
other to games of skill with
the rifle, pistol, tomahawk,
or knife, the one showing the
greatest skill claiming both
pride and prize. Children
games keep them busy while
others attend to the skills