Forts and Post Geography

My interest in forts and posts began really with my reading of the journals of the various men who explored western North America. It was early on that I realized that to understand the exploration, one must understand the motivation for the same. It is no secret that the commerce of fur was the catalyst for these explorations for over 200 years.

The research that would begin in 1992 culminated into the paper written for the 9th North American Fur Trade Conference in St. Louis Missouri May 24th 2006 that discussed the combining of the disciplines of, History, Cartography, and Information Technology to create a modern Geographical Information System aimed at comprising all fur trade fort and post sites of North America 1600-1870.

Background information included a brief overview of various past publications from 1930 onwards. The limitations of earlier methods used for listing post locations, and the cartographic means for displaying the information was discussed in comparison with modern computer based tools. Current issues concerning the present project include the historic validation of each fort or post as it pertains to name, ownership, date of origin, and the location of each specific site.

Contact Me to order the presentation text and slides for 'Fort and Post Site Geography of the North American Fur Trade'

Click Here to view the maps developed as a result of this research

Copyright © 2009 Andreas N Korsos