The Great Adventure
By Janice Holt Giles
370 pages, hardcover and softcover
Reviewed by T. C. Albert
Maybe sometimes you fondly remember a book you once read years ago and enjoyed so much that you have wished you owned a copy yourself ever since. Even if years have passed and the book is long out of print, with specialized out of print and used book dealers just a click away on the internet today, odds are that if you can remember the book’s author or title, you will be able to find it at a very reasonable price and finally be able to add it to your personal library.
That’s just what I did recently with a great old book that I want to recommend to you, and even though it’s long out of print, I found that there are hundreds of copies available through various used book dealers like Alibris and Advance Book Exchange, just to mention a couple. The book is titled The Great Adventure by Janice Holt Giles, and even though it was published in 1966, I recently got a first-edition hardcover with a good dust jacket and a protective plastic cover delivered for about twenty bucks. I also found a selection of other editions that were available for about ten. If you think even a deal like that may be a bit too steep to take a chance on, there were softcover editions available too for fifty-three cents.
This fictional story is the one that I cut my teeth on when I first started reading about the mountain men of the Rockies as a kid, and it is good enough that I still enjoy picking it up again nearly 35 years later. Initially, the story simply centers on a small band of Taos free trappers who hire on to guide a secretive greenhorn and his small “surveying” party across the mountains to Oregon, but as you read, it provides one heck of an education about the Western mountains and the men who explored and trapped them.
Trouble erupts early between the hands of the two parties, and the rest of this exciting tale deals with how it all plays out between them and their totally historical setting. It’s written well enough that even someone with just a passing interest in the history of the early West will enjoy it, but if you have a special place in your heart for mountain men, rendezvous and shining times, then this book will be just about impossible for you to put down.
Janice Holt Giles spent fifteen years researching the subject matter for this novel, and everything about is so authentic that even though it’s actually fiction, you are bound to learn a thing or two. Just the dialog alone will teach even the greenest flatlander a whole bunch of traditional mountain man talk and its proper use, not to mention the vivid descriptions of the men, their backgrounds and lifestyles, their food, equipment, weapons and traps and how they all were used. From bodins, fat cow, poor bull and cottonwood bark, to Diggers, Bug’s Boys and even the rival British. There’s hands of monte and “euchre,” fandangos, Taos lightning, trap lines, pork eaters, possible bags, pack saddles, company men, Indians and free trappers. This book about has it all.
Looking back, I realize that this was “the” book that lit a fire that got me permanently interested in the lore and history of the mountain men, an interest that has remained keen ever since. It’s a mighty good book that can do that, and as much as I have continued to learn and study about the subject over the years, The Great Adventure still rings true and continues to stand the test of time. Even though it’s an oldie, as easy and affordable as it is to find a used copy for yourself, I absolutely have to say it is definitely, 100% a must read and really feel that it belongs on your bookshelf too.
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