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Whoop-Up Country: The Canadian-American West, 1865-1885
From dust
For twenty-five years the Whoop-Up Trail, a dusty trail snaking from Fort Benton in Montana to Fort Macleod 240 miles north in Canada, was a main highway on the northern plains. It carried freight to government installations, Northwest Mounted Police posts, U. S. Army camps, cattle ranches and Indian reservations.
The high, treeless plains that it crossed came to be known as Whoop-Up Country---and rarely was a region better named. It was peopled with Blackfoot Indians, Mounties, U. S. cavalrymen, ranchers, cowboys, whisky traders, fur trappers, bullwhackers, muleskinners, wolfers, gamblers and outlaws bound to or from Canada and the reach of the law. Fort Benton was a frenzied center of transportation and commerce. Fort Macleod was a lively Mountie fort.
the story of this colorful, often bloody region centers on immortal names in western Lewis and Clark who explored it; the Hudson's Bay Company, which opened it to the fur trade; Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces and Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux, who took refuge in its Canada stretches; John X. Beidler, who helped police it.
Most of all, however, this is the story of international accord and co-operation among divergent peoples---a story virtually unique in history. On these northern plains two great streams of pioneers shared an economic, cultural and political interdependence imposed by geography.
Then, almost overnight, the railways arrived. Fort Benton, once the "Chicago of the Plains," withered, the people went their separate ways and the ruts of the Whoop-Up Trail were covered over by the sea of grass. But in this brilliant account it remains an enduring symbol of an international border guarded by parks, not military garrisons.
In the years since its first publication, "Whoop-Up Country" has received many honors, among them the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History. It has become a classic, a prototype for regional histories that have broad implications for a true understanding of the pioneer West. First published by the University of Minnesota Press, it is being reissued by the University of Oklahoma Press for a new generation of historians and readers of western Americana.
For twenty-five years the Whoop-Up Trail, a dusty trail snaking from Fort Benton in Montana to Fort Macleod 240 miles north in Canada, was a main highway on the northern plains. It carried freight to government installations, Northwest Mounted Police posts, U. S. Army camps, cattle ranches and Indian reservations.
The high, treeless plains that it crossed came to be known as Whoop-Up Country---and rarely was a region better named. It was peopled with Blackfoot Indians, Mounties, U. S. cavalrymen, ranchers, cowboys, whisky traders, fur trappers, bullwhackers, muleskinners, wolfers, gamblers and outlaws bound to or from Canada and the reach of the law. Fort Benton was a frenzied center of transportation and commerce. Fort Macleod was a lively Mountie fort.
the story of this colorful, often bloody region centers on immortal names in western Lewis and Clark who explored it; the Hudson's Bay Company, which opened it to the fur trade; Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces and Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux, who took refuge in its Canada stretches; John X. Beidler, who helped police it.
Most of all, however, this is the story of international accord and co-operation among divergent peoples---a story virtually unique in history. On these northern plains two great streams of pioneers shared an economic, cultural and political interdependence imposed by geography.
Then, almost overnight, the railways arrived. Fort Benton, once the "Chicago of the Plains," withered, the people went their separate ways and the ruts of the Whoop-Up Trail were covered over by the sea of grass. But in this brilliant account it remains an enduring symbol of an international border guarded by parks, not military garrisons.
In the years since its first publication, "Whoop-Up Country" has received many honors, among them the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History. It has become a classic, a prototype for regional histories that have broad implications for a true understanding of the pioneer West. First published by the University of Minnesota Press, it is being reissued by the University of Oklahoma Press for a new generation of historians and readers of western Americana.
347 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1955
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 9, 2018
As a scholar of the Great Plains of North American, and one who practices trans-border (Canadian-American) history, I revere Whoop-up Country as a master work, a touchstone for Great Plains historians on both sides of the border. He instructs all of us as to how to lay out a comparative study, immerse oneself in the historical landscape, and write in a style both scholarly and accessible.
Add to all this--Sharp was the consummate gentleman-and-scholar, a privilege to know, a delight to converse with.
Add to all this--Sharp was the consummate gentleman-and-scholar, a privilege to know, a delight to converse with.
February 11, 2022
Paul Sharp's Whoop-Up Country was written in 1955, and tracks the development of white settlements along the "Whoop-Up Trail" that stretched from Fort Benton in Montana to Fort McLeod in present-day Alberta.
Sharp begins far in the past, and examines geologic and climatic forces that shaped the region. He then looks at the history of the Blackfoot people who inhabited the region before whites arrived, and then tracks the arrival of forts, free traders, Mounties and merchant princes.
The most interesting part of this book for me is how it engages with the strict environmental determinism of Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains. Webb looked at westward expansion only through the lens of the United States, and saw the way things happened on the American plains as largely inevitable results of geography. Sharp expands his analysis to an area where similar people and pressures existed on both sides of a largely unmarked and unregulated border. By doing so, he is able to show how American and Canadian institutions and choices resulted in wildly different outcomes in terms of Indian relations, economic success, and land usage. Sharp does not seek to deny the importance of environment, but he illustrates that in fundamental ways nationalism can impact and shape environmental adaptations. Among other things he calls out the "economic shortsightedness" of American environmental choices, and the ineffectiveness of U.S. legal traditions in the west.
Sharp begins far in the past, and examines geologic and climatic forces that shaped the region. He then looks at the history of the Blackfoot people who inhabited the region before whites arrived, and then tracks the arrival of forts, free traders, Mounties and merchant princes.
The most interesting part of this book for me is how it engages with the strict environmental determinism of Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains. Webb looked at westward expansion only through the lens of the United States, and saw the way things happened on the American plains as largely inevitable results of geography. Sharp expands his analysis to an area where similar people and pressures existed on both sides of a largely unmarked and unregulated border. By doing so, he is able to show how American and Canadian institutions and choices resulted in wildly different outcomes in terms of Indian relations, economic success, and land usage. Sharp does not seek to deny the importance of environment, but he illustrates that in fundamental ways nationalism can impact and shape environmental adaptations. Among other things he calls out the "economic shortsightedness" of American environmental choices, and the ineffectiveness of U.S. legal traditions in the west.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews