Idaho Commission for Libraries

Mountain Man (1965) is the story of Sam Minard, a trapper in the Rocky Mountains, based on an actual mountain man, John Johnson.  When his Indian wife is murdered, Sam Minard vows to avenge her death. The novel served as inspriration for the 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnston.

Vardis Fisher was a prolific and versatile author, born and raised in Idaho. He spent his childhood on a homestead in Swan Valley, was educated at the University of Utah and the University of Chicago, and after some years, returned to Idaho to write and teach.  He died in 1968.  

Many western writers write in the shadow of Idaho's most prolific novelist.

By Barbara Howard Meldrum

Idaho’s claim to literary fame seems to rest on the fact that it was the place where Ezra Pound was born and Ernest Hemingway died; yet Vardis Fisher, born in Idaho in 1895, lived most of his life here, wrote many books that drew in various ways from his Idaho heritage, and died here in 1968. At the time of his death he was known and recognized within the state and honored outside Idaho, but today few persons under the age of forty even know who he was, claims his biographer, Tim Woodward. Some fans of the film Jeremiah Johnson recognize that it was based on a novel by Fisher, but few know if the film follows the novel closely or are aware of anything else about Fisher or his nearly forty published books. Although his reputation has faded, it is important, especially for Idahoans to come to terms with Fisher’s work, in which Idaho figures prominently. This essay seeks simply to provide a brief introduction to the man and his work, emphasizing his Idaho connections and the role of place in his writings.