New book details 'The Indian Way'

Seventeen years ago, Neil Van Sickle delved into research about the North American fur trade with the idea of writing a number of vignettes on the topic.

What he ended up with was a 500-page book.

Van Sickle, 96, of Kalispell, and co-author Evelyn Rodewald of Whitefish have published “The Indian Way: Indians and the North American Fur Trade,” an exhaustive effort that explains how the fur trade “literally rested in a cradle of Indian culture.”

The book was inspired by Van Sickle’s realization that other works about the fur trade in Canada and the United States largely were written from a European viewpoint.

“My effort was to tell a tale that needed to be told,” Van Sickle said. “For too long we have relied on only one point of view and because of this, a vital part of our nation’s history has been missing.”

A native of Minot, N.D., Van Sickle said he was born to the story, growing up in the southern reaches of the Hudson Bay drainage and learning about American Indians both from his studies and from personal encounters with Indians throughout his life. He spent his youth in close proximity to the rivers and streams used by the Mandan and Hidasta tribes.

Van Sickle and his wife, Faye, traveled extensively to gather material for the book, stopping at university libraries and museums across the United States and Canada in their quest to put together a coast-to-coast breakdown of the fur trade’s cultural impact.

“Faye was very perceptive” of what was needed for the book, he said. She died two years ago and Van Sickle dedicated the book to her, calling her his “constant companion in research.”

Rodewald joined the book project 13 years ago. She grew up along the Missouri River in Eastern Montana and has a master’s degree from Washington State University in American history, with an emphasis on Indians of the Columbia Plain.

She was immediately intrigued with the focus of the book and did her fair share of traveling, too, to research and gather material, going as far as Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to pore over archives.

Among the greatest treasure troves of information was the Doris Duke Indian Oral History Program archives. Starting in 1966, American Tobacco Co. and Duke Power heiress Doris Duke made yearly grants available to a number of universities to collect oral histories of American Indians.

Van Sickle was especially pleased to find the records of an oral discussion with Sacagawea’s grandson. Sacagawea, who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition as an interpreter and guide, is one of the most well-known Indian women who helped white men in their explorations.

“The Indian Way” takes special note of the role Indian women played in the fur trade. They often married fur trappers and were an important diplomatic bridge between the Europeans and Indian tribes. Indian women scraped and dried pelts and offered an array of skills such as sewing moccasins and building buffalo-hide lodges.

Fur trading was one of the most important industries in North America for 300 years. In the 1500s Indians began trading furs for tools and weapons, and beaver fur, used in Europe to make felt hats, became a valuable commodity.

When the volume of the authors’ research needed to be pared to a manageable focus, they opted to center the book around 1833, a year of “substantial maturity” in the fur trade.

The book describes specific tribal influences in each area, from Hudson’s Bay in Canada to the American Northwest, the Great Plans from the Saskatchewan River to St. Louis, the Rockies to Taos, N.M., and Alaska to California.

“The Indian Way” isn’t Van Sickle’s debut as a writer. A 1938 West Point graduate, he spent 30 years in the Air Force in various command and staff positions during World War II and the Cold War, and went on to write “Modern Airmanship,” a book that became an authoritative source of information for private pilots.

Van Sickle retired from the Air Force in 1968. He owned and operated a horse ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota and served two terms as a county commissioner there before relocating to Kalispell in 1984.

Rodewald taught school, lived and worked internationally and edited an international newsletter for veterinarians before retiring to Whitefish with her husband, Gordon.

They expect the target audience for their expansive work to be people who frequent college and national park bookstores, those who are “seeking something different.”

“The Indian Way” is available locally at Bookworks in Whitefish and Kalispell and at The Bookshelf in Kalispell, or online at www.amazon.com.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.