WordNet
n. a man who lives on the frontier [syn: frontiersman, backwoodsman]
Wikipedia
A mountain man is a male trapper and explorer who lives in the wilderness. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s (with a peak population in the early 1840s). They were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails (widened into wagon roads) 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.
They arose in a natural geographic and economic expansion driven by the lucrative earnings available in the North American fur trade, in the wake of the various 1806–07 published accounts of the Lewis and Clark expeditions' (1803–1806) findings about the Rockies and the (ownership-disputed) Oregon Country where they flourished economically for over three decades. By the time two new international treaties in early 1846 and early 1848 officially settled new western coastal territories on the United States and spurred a large upsurge in migration, the days of mountain men making a good living by fur trapping had largely ended. This was partially because the fur industry was failing due to reduced demand and over trapping. With the rise of the silk trade and quick collapse of the North American beaver-based fur trade in the later 1830s–1840s, many of the mountain men settled into jobs as Army Scouts or wagon train guides, or settled throughout the lands which they had helped open up. Others, like William Sublette, opened up fort-trading posts along the Oregon Trail to service the remnant fur trade and the settlers heading west.
"Mountain Man" is a song by American rock band Crash Kings, from their eponymous debut album. Written by band members Tony Beliveau, Mike Beliveau and Jason Morris, and produced by Dave Sardy, it was inspired by an experience Tony Beliveau had on top of a mountain in Yosemite National Park. The song was released as the album's first single in April 2009, with a music video following in June. The single entered the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in November, and reached number one in April 2010.
Mountain Man is an American singing trio of young women described as indie folk rock with a traditional Appalachian-type folk sound. They are notable for earning critical acclaim from numerous music critics. They often sing a cappella, with a "sparse, haunting, hymnal beauty" sometimes accompanied by soft acoustic guitar, but with their voices "virtually unadorned", according to Guardian critic Paul Lester. The group has been touring with the vocalist Feist, and New York Times music reviewer Ben Ratliff described their performance as creating shifting harmonies which worked perfectly to complement Feist's vocal delivery.
Mountain Man (1965) is a novel written by Vardis Fisher. Set in the mid-1800s United States, it tells the story of Sam Minard, a hunter/trapper living and wandering throughout Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, the book is separated into three parts: Lotus, Kate and Sam. The book was adapted for Sydney Pollack's film, Jeremiah Johnson (1972).
In "Lotus" Sam stumbles upon the grisly scene of an Indian massacre. A lone woman is left alive, mourning the deaths of her two sons and daughter, and the scalping and kidnapping of her husband. Sam helps the distraught woman bury her dead, and even builds her a cabin, putting the word out to other "mountain men" to watch out for her and supply her with necessities of life. Sam takes a wife from the Flathead Indian tribe, eschewing her difficult Indian name in favor of the name Lotus. Lotus becomes pregnant, and Sam leaves her at his cabin for the winter months, unwilling to subject his pregnant wife to the rigors of sleeping outdoors while he plies his trade of trapping for furs. Upon returning to the cabin in Spring, Sam finds his little family had been slaughtered just 10 days before his return. The sign left by the murderers indicates that members of the Crow tribe are responsible, and Sam sets out on a path of vengeance, vowing to kill every member of the tribe that killed his family.
The story focuses on the lives of mountain men, those who have forsaken big city living in favor of the harsher, more violent, yet to them more rewarding lives spent communing freely with nature.
A mountain man was a North American trapper and explorer in the American frontier
- Overmountain Men
- Voyageurs
- Coureurs des bois
Mountain man or mountain men may also refer to:
- Mountain Men (TV series)
- The Mountain Men, 1980 film
- Mountain Man (song), a 2009 song
- Mountain Man (music group), a singing trio
- Mountain Man (novel), the Vardis Fisher novel
- Dashrath Manjhi, who carved a path through a mountain using only a hammer and a chisel
- Mountainman, a single stage ultramarathon
Usage examples of "mountain man".
Cap had begun as a mountain man, and he'd fought Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches, and he still had his hair.
It was a trick I'd learned from an old Mexican sheepherder and mountain man.
Roundy, an old mountain man, had taught him Indian lore and the ways of the mountains.
The prominent Catholic missionary Father Pierre-Jean deSmet and the mountain man Thomas Fitzpatrick also joined the train of 15 wagons and four carts.
The solitary trapper and mountain man, the bachelor soldier, the grizzled prospector now made way for the farmer and the family, and with the family came stable, permanent communities.
By Easter, when he'd next shave, he would look like a mountain man .
He joined a Santa Fe trading caravan when he was 16 and, from 1827 to 1842, lived in the Rocky Mountains as a fur trapper and mountain man.