Spring Conference: John Neihardt and the American Fur Trade 1822-1831

306 W. Elm St.,Bancroft NE 68004

23 April, 2022

Description

41st Annual Spring Conference: John Neihardt and the American Fur Trade 1822-1831 “To enterprising young men. The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the lead mines in the county of Washington, who will ascend with, and command, the party; or of the subscriber near St. Louis.” This year marks the 200th anniversary of the start of the Ashley-Henry expedition, a venture that started with this advertisement in St. Louis newspapers in the late winter/early spring of 1822. Hugh Glass would join this expedition and survive being mauled by a bear the next year, a story popularized in the 2015 award-winning movie “The Revenant” – but first told in Neihardt’s book “Cycle of the West.” The exhilarating stories of the early frontier that were captured in “Cycle of the West” (for which he was named Nebraska’s Poet Laureate) will be the focus of the Neihardt Foundation’s 41st Annual Spring Conference. Experts will lead us in discussions about the major players of the fur trade, such as Jedediah Smith and Hugh Glass, along with others we don’t hear about as often: women and Native Americans. We will also have fur trade re-enactors and artifacts from the fur trade!