It's 1848 and you're heading 2,200 miles up the Missouri River, spending two months literally pulling the keel boat upstream. When you arrive at the American Fur Company trading post of Fort Benton, you're in for a surprise. It's a barter post rather than a military fort, where Blackfeet and white traders exchange goods, not hostilities. In fact, many of these traders are related through marriage. There's usually an exchange of gifts before trading begins in earnest. For the rest of the twenty years preceding the discovery of gold in the early 1860s, relationships between whites and Indians at Fort Benton will continue to be characterized by mutual respect.
(Broadcast: "Home Ground Radio," 11/30/14. Listen weekly on the radio, Sundays at 11:10 a.m., or via podcast.)