Astoria

At Montreal’s hospitable tables, Washington Irving listened as fur traders returned from years beyond the settlements with tales of distant tribes, wild journeys, and escapes by a hair’s breadth. Their stories sounded like Sinbad’s—but one real venture would carry the fur trade across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific.

In 1836, Irving drew on the papers of merchant John Jacob Astor, whose ambitious scheme sent men by sea and overland to establish a foothold in the far West. From the fur-trading world of Canada to routes scarcely known to ordinary travelers, the story follows a determined enterprise through wild country and perilous journeys. Astor’s plan reached across a continent, but every mile brought new hazards and uncertain ground. Could his men make a distant shore the center of a vast trade?

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