Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains

A vivid portrait unfolds through the eyes of a longtime companion who spent countless evenings listening to Hugh Monroe’s own recollections. Monroe, known as Rising Wolf, was a white man raised among the Blackfoot who served the Hudson’s Bay Company, then the American Fur Company, before becoming a free‑trapper. His story is told with the quiet reverence of a friend who witnessed his remarkable blend of European upbringing and Plains culture, from his early days in a Quebec settlement to his final years beneath the towering cliffs of Two Medicine Valley.

The narrative begins with Monroe’s childhood, a boy who swapped schoolbooks for a smooth‑bore rifle and learned the art of hunting, trapping, and surviving in the great forest. Encounters with voyageurs, fur traders, and the rugged wilderness shape his youthful ambition, while his keen eye for the land’s bounty and his knack for navigating both French‑Canadian and Indigenous worlds set the stage for a life of adventure on the frontier.