Crazy Crow Trading Post offers this list of American Frontier Internet Communities & Online Resources and other related links to help you in your search for information about the early American frontier and fur trade era. Inclusion in this list does not represent an endorsement by Crazy Crow, although we do try to be selective – and reserve the right to do so.

Mountain Man – Indian – Canadian Fur Trade
O. N. Eddins is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. He was born and now resides in Afton, Wyoming, which is near Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons—a landmark for Indians and Mountain Men. The majority of Mountains of Stone was written deep in the Greys River mountains near the Strawberry Indian trail from Jackson Hole and the Tetons to the Snake River plains. By horse and pack string, Dr. Eddins has ridden many of the trails described in Mountains of Stone. His campfires have been built in the same places as those of Mountain Men and explorers one hundred and ninety years ago. Great resource site.

Minnesota Historical Society
Discover the inside story of the fur trade in the early 1800s. In these essays and articles, learn about the rivalry between trading companies. Meet the people involved in the fur trade, including gentlemen and voyageurs. Explore the history of the wintering post on the Snake River and the journal left behind.

Digital History
Wonderfully organized historic website. Select the period to review, then select from tabbed categories about the period across the top of the navigation. The materials on this Web site include a U.S. history textbook; over 400 annotated documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, supplemented by primary sources on slavery, Mexican American, Asian American, and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; succinct essays on the history of film, ethnicity, private life, and technology; multmedia exhibitions; and reference resources that include a database of annotated links, classroom handouts, chronologies, glossaries, an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images.
HISTORY ERAS INCLUDED: The First Americans, Colonial Era, American Revolution, Early National Period, Pre-Civil War Era, Slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, Gilded Age, America Becomes a World Power, Progressive Era, World War I, 1920s, Great Depression, World War II, Post-War Era, 1960s, Vietnam War, 1970-2000, The 21st Century.

Canadian Encyclopedia – The Fur Trade
For nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries, the fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada.

Big Horn Canyon – Mountain Men And The Fur Trade
Site includes photos and multimedia, links and articles. Getting to this area (Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area) brought the first mountain men and fur traders to the land in and around Bighorn Canyon, using what became known as the Bad Pass Trail. In 1807, St. Louis businessman Manuel Lisa organized a fur gathering journey. His outfit built Fort Raymond – the first permanent structure in what is today Montana – where the Bighorn River comes into the Yellowstone. It would take another 16 years before trappers again came through the Bighorn Canyon area. This would be done by the so called Mountain Men who were working for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company headed by business partners William Ashley and Andrew Henry. These mountain men inaugurated a ten year period from 1823 – 1833, where the Bad Pass Trail was heavily traveled.

Mountain Men and The Fur Trade
This website is an on-line Research Center devoted to the history, traditions, tools, and mode of living, of the trappers, explorers, and traders known as the Mountain Men.

Time Travelers – Teaching American History in the Northwest
The Time Travelers website was originally designed as part of an online professional development course for teachers, funded by a Teaching American History grant from the US Department of Education. Website content was developed collaboratively by the Regional Learning Project at the University of Montana and the UM history department.

The wealth of material found within this website reflects the goal of the course to provide content-oriented professional development with a regional, interdisciplinary approach to learning about American history. This place-based approach allows teachers and students to “start locally, but think big”, strengthening history research and thinking skills as they are first applied to the study of local documents, artifacts, and other source materials, and then interpreted in the context of large-scale national developments.

The current website is a legacy from the Teaching American History grant, redesigned here for public use. Covering the years between 1790 and 1990, the website is organized into three chronological sections, each based on a 15-week semester developed for the online course. Throughout the course, broad themes of transportation, communication and energy development in the Northwest are placed in the context of American history.