NARRATIVE: The rendezvous wilderness trading camps were active about 1825-1840 in the mountainous regions of the West. Attracting explorers, fur trading companies, Native Americans, frontiersmen, mountain men, military and commercially like-minded individuals.

The trade fair brought many diverse cultures together to sell and barter in an economic enterprise with new-world colonizers, ambitious nationalists, Natives and old-world imperialists.

The significant, festive and bourgeoning "party in the plains" germinated in the beaver fur pelt harvesting, western exploration and American expansion period.

Every summer, trading companies sent wagons hauling trade goods across the plains from northeastern colonies, provinces in Canada, ambitious individuals and entrepreneurs. They brought metal wares of buckets, tools, axes, knives, cooking utensils, coffee, sugar, decorating beads, colorful trade cloth, mirrors and the coveted "thundersticks" – guns and black powder weapons that forever changed America and American hisory.

For America's frontiersmen, firearms were synonymous with survival, allowing them to hunt on unfamiliar landscapes and defend against attacks from both man and beast.

The flintlock rife development through 19th century utilization became the iconic design known as the "plains rifle." The mountain man's inseparable companion, quite literally "the firearm that won the West."

In "Trading Thundersticks," the buckskinner drives a hard bargain with the young Lakota. By firelight, the trade is on, the Native wanting two thundersticks, the frontiersman suggests one!