Review: Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper:: Edited from the Original Manuscript in the William Robertson Coe Collection of Western Americana in the Yale University Library: With a Biography of Osborne Russell and Maps of His Travels While a Trapper in the...

Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper:: Edited from the Original Manuscript in the William Robertson Coe Collection of Western Americana in the Yale University Library: With a Biography of Osborne Russell and Maps of His Travels While a Trapper in the... by Osborne Russell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Compare to Tough Trip Through Paradise: Montana 1878 where a trader finds area Indians subjugated and almost comically impoverished. Here bookish Russell has to have running battles with Blackfeet and Crow to do some trapping. This book is a largely as-is journal including spelling errors and pet abbreviations but lacking chapter or paragraph breaks. Editor Aubrey L. Haines includes many helpful maps and speaks to the same terrain that he knows. I wish the maps had indications of current state lines and major cities. The extensive notes of the 1830s travels in Snake River territory include many amplifying primary source details and should be read along.

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