Museum of Natural History to Host Event: Cartographic Encounters and a Rediscovery of the Far West Fur Trade

Experience an evening honoring Indigenous Resilience as Dr. S. Matthew DeSpain presents traditional Far West fur trade history at Frazier Hall on January 28 from 6 to 8 p.m.  A reception with light refreshments will follow the presentation and film in the lobby of Frazier Hall. To ensure that we can provide the best experience for all our guests, we kindly request your RSVP by January 23. Your response is incredibly important as it helps us make accurate arrangements for the food orders.

Throughout the event, Dr. DeSpain will reconceive traditional Far West fur trade history and emphasize how the mountain men and rendezvous are still heavily rooted in American expansionism, discovery, and exceptionalism. Therefore, encounter and centrality of Native peoples become the better means in rediscovering and rebalancing the history of the Far West fur trade.

While Jedediah Smith is a key figure in this popular story of exceptionalism and the “opening of the West,” Smith’s “discoveries” resulted from numerous encounters with Indigenous peoples who informed and guided Smith with Indigenous cartographic knowledge through various Indigenous geopolitical worlds.

Dr. DeSpain is a professor of history and director of Native American Studies at Rose State College in Oklahoma. Originally from Orem, Utah he attended Brigham Young University then completed his graduate work at the University of Oklahoma.  He served the Chickasaw Nation in their Culture and History Division and taught at OU in both history and NAS before landing at Rose State. Teaching and research interests span the Native American history, history of the West, the imagined West, stereotypes and Indian mascots, federal Indian policy, masculinity in the West, and the Far West fur trade. When not pursuing history and Indigenous studies you can find him fly fishing, playing bagpipes, or seeking out the next best extreme rollercoaster.

This event is made possible by the Mary and Melvin Jackson endowment.

The IMNH has served Idaho since 1934. To learn more please visit isu.edu/imnh or call (208) 282-3168.