Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men 
Product Description: For over thirty years, from the time of Lewis and Clark into the 1840s, the mountain men explored the Great American West. As trappers in a hostile, trackless land, their exploits opened the gates of the mountains for the wagon trains of pioneers who followed them. In Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Win Blevins presents a poetic tribute to these dauntless first Westerners and their incredible adventures. Here, among many, are the stories of: * John Colter, who, in 1808, naked and without weapons or food, escaped captivity by the Blackfeet and ran and walked 250 miles to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, * Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly in 1823, left for dead by his trapper companions, and crawled 300 miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri, * Kit Carson, who ran away from home at age 17, became a legendary mountain man in his 20s and served as scout and guide for John C. Fremont s westward explorations of the 1840s, * Jedediah Smith, a tall, gaunt, Bible-reading New Yorker whose trapping expeditions ranged from the Rockies to California and who was killed by Comanches on the Cimarron in 1831.
Customer Ratings: - Mountain Mania. It s often said that a good writer makes his characters seem real, but this is more of a book about real characters. It s as if the author was an adoring tag-along, describing the misogynistic adventures of these mountain men with not much consideration for the humanity of the victims. These adventurers also set the stage for wholesale slaughter of Native peoples as a way to get the land they lived on. I don t think it serves the author or his readers to ignore humanity when you re saluting heroes.
- Definitely a worthwhile read, entertaining, authentic. I highly recommend this book very authentic, but entertaining, enthralling and compelling. My advice is to get the paperback, and mark it up as you go thru, as you will want to return to it often for reference or refreshing.
- History with a heart beat.. This book is much more than just a history of the fur trade and mountain men. In fact, if you read the Preface, Win states that he wishes to portray the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the mountain men from a subjective point of view. He accomplishes the task. It s a wonderful read about the mountain men (not ALL of the mountain men but a select, representative few) and their lives. You may ask, how accurate is his subjective view. The answer lies in the fact that Win is well researched in the lives of the mountain man, well learned in the mountain ways, and skilled enough to give these historical figures a heartbeat. As mentioned before, the number of mountain men chronicled in this book is limited. So, if you are looking for a good primer on individual mountain men, then maybe The Mountain Men by Laycock would be a better place to start. Otherwise, this is an excellent book and not as dry as some of the books on individual mountain men.
- The Mountain Men. Never have so few lived such adventurous lives! During the era of the Mountain Men, lasting from 1806 to 1843, a few hundred Americans trapped or traded for beaver in the Rocky Mountains. Blevins tells the romantic story of some of these men, especially those who made their living around the northern Rockies in Wyoming, Utah, and Montana.
The famous stories about the Mountain Men are told here: John Colter s run, Hugh Glass s encounter with a grizzly, Jedediah Smith s long overland journeys to California, the peregrinations of Jim Bridger. The lives, customs, and tortured language of the Mountain Men, including the debauchery of rendevous and the joys of Indian women and gorging on buffalo meat are well described. The author celebrates the Mountain Men and if you re not familar with the era and its heroes this is a good place to start -- although with the understanding that you re not getting the whole story. The fur trappers of the Southwest, including Ewing Young and Kit Carson, are scarcely mentioned. Nor do the British competitors of the Americans receive their due. But the untamed West in all its pristine glory is well-described in Give your Heart to the Hawks.
From the vast literaturee about the Mountain Men. Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto is probably the (difficult and irritating) classic of the genre.
Smallchief - The Alumni of Rocky Mountain College. Winfred Blevins `Give Your Heart to the Hawks is exactly what its sub title claims - a tribute to the Mountain Men. It is neither a historical novel nor a pure history. Rather, it is accurate history, albeit with Blevins interpretation of the thoughts and emotions that the mountain men were experiencing during some of their most dangerous and daring exploits added. This technique removes the book from the roles of strict history, but works well in creating the tribute that the author intended, for his goal was not simply to chronicle the bones of their history, but to bring to life their wild and free existence and allow the reader to enter into the spirit of the mountain man s life.
Blevins does not attempt a comprehensive account of the mountain men. Some are covered extensively, like John Colter, the prototype mountain man, Jim Bridger, and Jed Smith, the most atypical and perhaps greatest of the mountain men. Others, like Old Bill Williams, Joe Walker, and Kit Carson are barely covered or mentioned only in passing. Blevins does not cover the mountain men of the southwest at all. Instead, he illuminates his chosen subjects in depth, choosing to fully explore the life that the mountain men lived rather than broadly covering the entire scope of their collective history.
To recreate the wild drama of the mountain man s life, Blevins tells some of the most thrilling tales of the era, like John Colter s desperate naked run from Indian braves pursuing him for sport, Hugh Glass amazing solo trek through 300 miles of wilderness without weapons or any tools for survival after being left for dead when mauled by a grizzly, or Jed Smith s daring crossings of the desert and mountains to find a land route to California. He writes of these men, Any man who survived for several years as a trapper, taking responsibility for his own survival alone in the wilds, had been schooled thoroughly by the Rocky Mountains. ...He had graduated from Rocky Mountain College, a pragmatic university that gave no degrees, but flunked men into their graves. Between the various stories of specific mountain men, he includes interludes that detail important aspects of their life and trade - trapping, yarning, rendezvous, buffalo - cuisine premiere, mountain craft, mountain mating, and trappers and Indians are a few of the interesting subjects of mountain life dealt with in these interludes. He also includes a few colorful accounts written by the rare, literate mountain man detailing their unique life. He succeeds admirably in breathing life into this too often neglected period of amazing individuals who blazed the way for the westward expansion of the American nation.
While Blevins writing is not always stellar, he manages to create an effective and stirring tribute to the wild individuals who chose to live free in the Rocky Mountains. No one who is interested in the period should miss it. Both students of the period of the mountain men and fur trade and those looking for a good introduction to the subject will find `Give Your Heart to the Hawks a fascinating and rewarding reading experience.
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Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men (ID: 0840213026)
