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Withdrawal of the mighty Hudson Bay Company from present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan created a lawless environment with new economic opportunities. A cross-border trading bond arose with growing steamboat mercantile center Fort Benton in Montana Territory. In 1870, Montana traders Johnny Healy and Al Hamilton moved across the Medicine Line and built Fort Whoop-Up. It established the two-hundred-mile Whoop-Up Trail from Fort Benton, through Blackfoot lands, to the Belly River near today's Lethbridge. Over the next decade, the buffalo robe trade flourished with the Blackfoot, as did violence. The turmoil forced the creation of Canada's North West Mounted Police, tasked with closing down the whiskey trade and evicting the Montana traders. Award-winning historian Ken Robison brings to life this dramatic story.--
About the author
Native Montanan Ken Robison is historian at the Overholser Historical Research Center and for the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation Commission and is active in historic preservation throughout central Montana. He is a retired navy captain after a career in naval intelligence. The Montana Historical Society honored Ken as Montana Heritage Keeper in 2010.
