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Paul Sharp's Whoop-Up Country covered the area just East of the Colorado Rockies and up into Saskatchewan and Alberta. It focused on the old trail which eventually was replaced by Highway ninety-one. The trail began in Montana and ended in Alberta. Sharp elaborates on the whiskey trade which ran wild and the eventual scarlet (Canadian Mounties) force that stopped it. "The Thin Red Line" barely survived the march across the harsh plains environment and was hailed heroes, even though natives had been doing it for hundreds of years. These same Indians suffered greatly on both sides of the border from disease and genocidal policies, Sharp used the Black Feet as an example. Fort Benton rose from a fur trading post to a status comparable to Chicago. Sharp also illustrated how the gold rush encouraged farming in the Whoop-Up Country. Another major factor of Whoop-Up Country was the steamboat. It was a vital lifeline for the frontier.

The primary reason for reading this book in class is to see the transition from wild migratory free traders to the sedimentary farming life which dominates the plains today. This whole lifestyle of trading whiskey, guns, furs, freight, and pioneer enterprise is a history to the history of modern day Great Plains history. By that I mean it is a deeper history to what we commonly think of as the plains culture of farming, tractors, and small town sports.

While reading Paul F. Sharp's Whoop-Up Country, I could not help but think of what I had learned in Canadian history class… Canadians pride themselves on being as un-American as possible. Why didn’t Sharp include some short stories when he talked about the Whiskey trade? How can we see the influences of the Whiskey trade on today's Whoop-Up Country?