Fort Union on the Missouri
Engraved by Beyer and Weber Printed by Bougeard
Tableau 28. Fort Union on the Missouri
$2,500.00

Bodmer first visited Fort Union in the summer of 1833 enroute to Fort McKenzie, and again in October of that year on his return downriver from Fort McKenzie to Fort Clark. Located just above the mouth of the Yellowstone River on the present North Dakota-Montana border, Fort Union represented the farthest point of steamer traffic on the upper Missouri at this time. Goods bound for points beyond were transported by keelboat, or overland by pack train.

Like most of the American Fur Company posts on the Missouri, Fort Union had been built on a low prairie above the floodplain of the river, in an open area that allowed for the encampment of numerous Assiniboin and other tribes during the height of the trading season. A pencil sketch by Bodmer in the Joslyn collection, dated July 2, 1833, served as the basis for the later print incorporating a view of the fort as seen from the higher bluffs to the north, looking southward toward the river, which in those days flowed to within about sixty feet of the compound.

At Fort Union, Bodmer painted several Indian portraits and scenes of camp life which were reproduced in the atlas as Vignettes XV, XVI, and XXII, and in Tableaux 9, 12, and 30 through 33. A view of the landscape in this vicinity was featured as Tableau 29.

Text by David Hunt, Director, Stark Museum, Orange, Texas, USA

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