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Paul Sharp's book, Whoop Up Country, would be the polar opposite from Webb's book, The Great Plains. Sharp focuses his attention on the Northern Plains, mainly on the Whoop Up Trail, which is from Northern Montana to Alberta. This book focused on the life in or around Fort Benton, Montana. Fort Benton was created to serve the area of Montana in the popular and successful fur trade. Fort Benton was established in the 1840's by the American Fur Company for that purpose. Sharp focuses on how the different countries policed the area. The American government used federal troops and the Canadian government created the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or "mounties". Both countries needed to protect the interests of the Whoop Up trail. Sharp shows the different views that each country had at the time. The Americans thought of this area as a lawless land, but the Canadians view was that order was maintained. Sharp also talked about how the Indians needed the trading posts for their survival. They used the goods that were traded for their every day life. They received guns, and whiskey. I think that this shows how unaccustomed they were to this life. They also dealt with more severely than settelers. I think the best example of this would be the Cypress Hills Massacre. This shows that both sides, maybe not in the same way, would not accept incident of this nature. This culture was replaced by the railroad and cars.

I found that this book was very interesting,especially being from Northwestern North Dakota , I can relate to the material. We have the same fur trading posts, and military forts similar to the one in Fort Benton. They are seem to a common theme in the area.