Shannon Stirnweis (B. 1931) "Mountain Man Rendezvous" Signed lower right. Original Oil on Illustration Board painting. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting appeared in the Fleetwood Trails West Collection of Fine Art Prints as "Mountain Man Rendezvous" published in 1983. Of all the pioneers who helped open the West for peaceful settlement, the famed "mountain men" bear a special place of honor in history. Like the hunters, traders, scouts and Indian fighters, they blazed their mark on the vast frontier ... but these hardy adventurers did even more. For it was the mountaineers who struggled to find usable paths through the vast, rugged expanses of the Rockies and the Sierras, and adjoining lands ... who discovered and explored the rich, green valleys and watering places of the forbidding western wilderness ... who, by doing so, made the West accessible to the thousands of settlers who followed. The hardy mountain men crisscrossed the West, scouring the entire countryside for bears, otters, and -- above all-- the beaver, which was larger and fatter, and had thicker fur than any other fur-bearing animal they had seen previously. With the founding of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company by William Ashley and Andrew Henry in 1822 came a revolutionary approach to the problem of collecting the furs trapped by these mountain men. Ashley, instead of scattering fur trading posts over the entire West, established an annual "Rendezvous" where hundreds of trappers could flock together to drink whiskey, run races, socialize and, of course, exchange their valuable beaver pelts for money and goods. Image Size: 18 x 20.75 in. Overall Size: 19.5 x 22.5 in. Unframed. (B06958)