LESSON 14:
THEY WENT FOR FUR

FOCUS ACTIVITY
Lesson Mission

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DIRECTIONS:  Remember, the Lesson Mission is what you, the student, will be able to do after the lesson is over.  Begin today's Lesson Chronicles Entry by heading your paper with your name and the date and the Lesson Title.  Write down today's essential question.  Answering the essential question at the end of the lesson is your Lesson Mission!



Essential Question(s):  
What was the fur trade in the 1800s?  Who was involved in the fur trade?  What happened to the fur trade and the people involved?
Set up your Lesson Chronicles Entry for Lesson 14.

TEACHING ACTIVITY
Skeleton Outline

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DIRECTIONS: Remember, accomplishing your lesson mission is your purpose for reading.  To accomplish your mission, you must be able to answer the essential question(s).  We will continue to work on answering essential questions by identifying information from key text structures to make a skeleton outline of the text. 

Recall the Key Text Structures in Non-Fiction Text:
1.  Headers
2.  Sub-headers
3.  Bolded Words
4.  Italicized Words
5.  Pictures & Captions
6.  Boxed off Information
7.  Charts and Graphs
8.  Maps

Questions to ask yourself when creating a Skeleton Outline:
1.  Column 1:  What are the headers and sub-headers?
2.  Column 2:  What else is important in the reading?
  • What words are bolded or italicized?
  • What are the pictures of and what do the captions say?
  • What information is squared off into boxes?
  • What are the maps, graphs, and charts telling you?
3.  Column 3:  Leave blank until you read.
4.  Bottom Row:  Leave blank until you read. 
Set up your Skeleton Outline in your Lesson 14 Chronicles under the Lesson Mission.

WHOLE GROUP ACTIVITY
Part 1:  Guided Reading & Cornell Notes

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DIRECTIONS:  Now that you have a purpose for reading, and you have identified the key elements of the reading, we will take turns reading the passage below as a class.  

As we read, you need to record your notes in the last column.  

Recall the things you should include in notes on a text:
1.  What is the main ideas of each section?
2.  What words do you need to define?
3.  What people are mentioned and how are they important?
4.  Is there any sequenced information?
5.  Is there a causes and effect relationship?
6.  Is anything compared and contrasted?
7.  Is there a problem that needs a solution or is solved?
8.  What is the conclusion or result?

As you read, if a certain part of the reading makes you think of a text to text, text to self, or text to world connection, write it in the bottom row. 

Recall the text to text, text to self, and text to world strategy:
  1. Text to text references:  When a certain word, phrase, or sentence reminds you of something else that you have read.
  2. Text to self references:  When a certain word, phrase, or sentence reminds you of something about your own life.
  3. Text to world references:  When a certain word, phrase, or sentence reminds you of a world issue or event.
Mountain Men Lead the Way!
The "Wild" Man
PictureThe mountain men were pioneers in charting the unknown territory west of the frontier.

Tales of the Mountain Men put some of the "wild" into the Wild Wild West.  As America began to expand westward, word spread quickly of the abundance of land and wild animals for those willing to suffer through the hardships in gaining them.  The Mountain Man was an explorer and trapper who faced death on a regular basis in the rugged, Rocky Mountains of the West. 
PictureThey found passes across the mountains and were familiar with the perils that could be found along the trails.

For a ten year period between 1820 and 1830, it is estimated that a thousand trappers roamed the Rocky Mountains when the fur trade was at its peak.  The life of a Mountain Man was ruled by the weather and the seasons.  The start of trapping season was usually in the Spring when animals still had their thick coats of winter fur.
Furs and Rendezvous
There were two main animal furs traded by Mountain Men.  Buffalo skins were traded with Indians and the Indians brought the hides to the Upper Missouri Trading Posts at the beginning of the Missouri River.  Beaver pelts were traded at the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in the Rocky Mountain Region of the West.  The furs were sold or traded for supplies or equipment for the next season of trapping.
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Buffalo Hide
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Beaver pelt
PictureThe only contact they had with the outside world was at a number of rendezvous and trading posts.
By Summer, the availability of animals to trap dropped off, when it was time to trade in their furs, the Mountain Men and Fur Trading Companies would meet for a rendezvous.  A rendezvous is a French word that simply means an agreement between two or more persons to meet at a certain time and place.  Some of these well known Mountain Men were Joe Meek, John Grizzly Adams, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Hugh Glass, Jedediah Smith, Manuel Lisa, and John Jacob Astor. 
The fur trading rendezvous started out as a business exchange, but eventually grew into a month long celebration.  Some of the activities were described by Mountain Man Jim Beckworth as, "mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target shooting, yarns, and frolic..."  There were all sorts of people at the rendezvous besides the Mountain Men, including women, children, travelers with families, Indians, and French Canadians.
Some mountain men were accepted by the Indians and lived with them,a few married Indian women.
A Trapper's Life
The life of the mountain man was hard and tough. Living in the wild, he was in constant danger from starvation, dehydration, freezing cold, burning heat, wild animals and Indians.
After the rendezvous, the trappers headed off in large groups to their fall trapping grounds.  They stayed together in large groups until it was time to begin trapping again.  This is when the Mountain Men faced the most dangerous part of their job.  Traveling by himself or with another man, the trappers faced attacks by both animals and Indians.  They could injure themselves and starve to death before they were ever found.  It was a rugged way of life.

Life in the winter campground could be easy or hard depending on the weather.  The men entertained themselves with reading, card games, singing, and storytelling to relieve the boredom of winter days.  Some Mountain Men even learned to read in the cold winter months.  After a winter without bathing, one would imagine these Mountain Men smelled bad enough to scare away almost any animal.

Lesson Toolbox

Words to Know

Mountain Men:  fur traders and trappers who lived in and explored much of the Rocky Mountain regions

rendezvous:  is a French meaning an agreement between two or more persons to meet at a certain time and place; where trappers and fur companies would meet to do business
 
starvation:  suffering or death caused by having nothing to eat or not enough to eat

dehydration:  an extreme loss of water and fluids in the body

guide:  a person who leads or directs other people on a journey

scout:   a person sent to a place to gain information 

symbol:  something used to stand for something else or summarize a big idea

  Mountain Men     to Know            

John Grizzly Adams

Jim Bridger

Kit Carson

Hugh Glass

Jedediah Smith

John Jacob Astor

Joe Meek

Manuel Lisa

Places to Know

Rocky Mountain Region:  The area of the Mountain West Region of the U.S.  where most mountain men hunted beaver for beaver fur 
The Upper Missouri River:  The starting point of the Missouri River in Montana, where Native Americans brought buffalo hides to trade with Mountain Men
The Mississippi River:  the point at which most be consider the divide between the Eastern and Western United States

Unit Resources

Unit 2 Games & Simulations
Unit 2 Videos
Unit 2 Glossary
Unit 2 Study Guides
One Job Ends and Another Begins
PictureBeaver Fur Hat
The fur companies controlled the lives of these trappers, and when the demand for fur declined, the price of furs went with it.  By 1850, the beaver hat had gone out of fashion in Europe, and that put an end to the fur trade for most Mountain Men.  Most of them entered into new businesses such as lumbering, mining, and railroading.  
Many mountain men became guides for those making the journey across the Plains to California and by the mid 1840s most of the routes to the west were well travelled and the guides' main role was to help travellers to survive the harsh conditions and handle encounters with the Indians.
Mountain men also became invaluable guides and scouts for wagon trains, survey teams, and the army. Their skills in living off the land and their knowledge of Native Americans helped bring many pioneers safely across the country.  

Not only were the mountain men a symbol of America’s wild frontier, their role in westward expansion was also very important. They did not simply wander around the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Coast  waiting for people to tell adventure stories and tall tales about their lives. They were explorers and guides who helped settle the land west of the Mississippi.

Part 2:  Completing Cornell Notes & Reading Questions

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DIRECTIONS:  After reading, you will click on the button below and put in the password given to you in class to view what you should have in your notes.  We will then discuss why these things are important and talk about the reading as a whole class.

SMALL GROUP ACTIVITY
Part 1:  Researching the 411

DIRECTIONS:  In this activity, each group will get the 411 information on an assigned Mountain Man and report it to the class.  Remember 411 - is the following things:
  1. Who was this Mountain Man?
  2. What did this Mountain Man do?
  3. When did this Mountain Man live?
  4. Where did this Mountain Man live?
  5. Why is it important to know about this Mountain Man? 
  6. How did this Mountain Man impact American History?
Set up your 411 Chart in your Lesson 14 Chronicles under your Cornell Notes.

Mountain Men Research Icons

Click on the picture of the Mountain Man under your group number to complete your research.  
Group 1
Group 5
Group 2
Group 6
Group 3
Group 7
Group 4
Group 8

Part 2:  Pass and Splash!

DIRECTIONS:  In this activity, each group will pass their 411 information about their assigned Mountain Man to the group who's number comes after theirs.  Group 8 will give theirs to Group 1.   For each Mountain Man, each group will have one minute to write down the name of the Mountain Man and one key word from each of the 411 categories that describe that Mountain Man on a sticky note.  You will create a flip book of all 8 Mountain Men, 9  including the example I am about to give you for Daniel Boone.
Look and listen as I go over the example below.

INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY
Lesson Chronicles - Answering the Essential Question

A Lesson Chronicles Activity is an individual activity where you prove that you accomplished the lesson mission.  Lesson Chronicles require you to keep a notebook or journal with a table of contents.  Each entry should be dated.  First, you write the lesson mission.  Then you prove you "can do" whatever the mission says by answering the essential question of the lesson in PQA format.  Remember PQA format means "Put the Question in the Answer". 
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DIRECTIONS:  Work by yourself to prove you have completed today's mission successfully by answering the essential question for today.

HOMEWORK
Family Time

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Remember, you have homework every night in Social Studies.  Your homework is to show your Lesson Chronicles to your family and tell them what you learned today.  Not only will this give you quality time with your family but it will help you review for your unit test.  Go over your lesson chronicles entry from today everyday to help you study for the Topic Quiz and Unit Test.

END OF LESSON 14 MODULE

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Congratulations!  You have completed Lesson 14 Module!

Want to Know more about Mountain Men?  Click on the link below to go to Spartacus Education and learn about many more Mountain Men.