Spring came and found Mackenzie ready to go forward into the unknown regions of the west, regions as yet untrodden by the feet of white men. Alexander Mackay, one of the most resolute and capable traders in the service of the North-West Company, was to be his companion on the journey; and with them were to go six picked French-Canadian voyageurs and two Indians as guides. They had built a birch-bark canoe of exceptional strength and lightness. It was twenty-five feet long, some four feet in beam, twenty-six inches deep, and had a carrying capacity of three thousand pounds. Explorers and {74} men stepped into their light craft on the evening of May 9, 1793. The fort fired guns and waved farewell; the paddlers struck up a voyageurs' song; and the blades dipped in rhythmic time. Mackenzie waved his hat back to the group in front of the fort gate; and then with set face headed his canoe westward for the Pacific.

Recall what was happening now out on the Pacific! Robert Gray was heading home to Boston with news of the discovery of the great river. Vancouver was back from San Francisco carefully charting the inner channel of the coast. Baranoff, the little czar of the Russian traders, was coasting at the head of fifteen hundred 'bidarkies' between the Aleutians and Sitka; and Spain was still sending out ragged pilots to chart the seas which she had not the marine to hold.

The big canoe went on, up the Peace river. Spring thaw brought the waters down from the mountains in turbulent floods, and the precipices narrowed on each side till the current became a foaming cascade. It was one thing to float down-stream with brigades of singing voyageurs and cargoes of furs in spring; it was a different matter to breast the full force of these torrents with only ten men {75} to paddle. In the big brigades the men paddled in relays. In this canoe each man was expected to pole and paddle continuously and fiercely against a current that was like a mill-race. Mackenzie listened to the grumblers over the night camp-fire, and explained how much safer it was to ascend an unknown stream with bad rapids than to run down it. The danger could always be seen before running into it. He cheered the drooping spirits of his band, and inspired them with some of his own indomitable courage.

By May 16 the river had narrowed to a foaming cataract; and the banks were such sheer rock-wall that it was almost impossible to land. They had arrived at the Rocky Mountain Portage, as it was afterwards called. It was clear that the current could not be stemmed by pole or paddle; the canoe must be towed or carried. When Mackenzie tried to get foothold or handhold on the shore, huge boulders and land-slides of loose earth slithered down, threatening to smash canoe and canoemen. Mackenzie got out a tow-line eighty feet long. This he tied to the port thwart of the canoe. With the tow-line round his shoulders, while the torrent roared {76} past and filled the canyon with the 'voice of many waters,' Mackenzie leaped to the dangerous slope, cut foothold and handhold on the face of the cliff with an axe, and scrambled up to a table of level rock. Then he shouted and signalled for his men to come up. If the voyageurs had not been hemmed in by a boiling maelstrom on both sides, they would have deserted on the spot. Mackenzie saw them begin to strip as if to swim; then, clothes on back and barefoot, they scrambled up the treacherous shore. He reached over, and assisted them to the level ground above. The tow-line was drawn taut round trees and the canoe tracked up the raging current. But the rapids became wilder. A great wave struck the bow of the canoe and the tow-line snapped in mid-air. The terrified men looking over the edge of the precipice saw their craft sidle as if to swamp; but, on the instant, another mighty wave flung her ashore, and they were able to haul her out of danger.

Mackay went ahead to see how far the rapids extended. He found that they were at least nine miles in length. On his return the men were declaring that they would not ascend such waters another rod. Mackenzie, to humour them, left them to a regale of rum {77} and pemmican, and axe in hand went up the precipitous slope, and began to make a rough path through the forest. Up the rude incline the men hauled the empty canoe, cutting their way as they advanced. Then they carried up the provisions in ninety-pound bundles. By nightfall of the first day they had advanced but one mile. Next morning the journey was continued; the progress was exactly three miles the second day, and the men fell in their tracks with exhaustion, and slept that night where they lay. But at length they had passed the rapids; the toilsome portage was over, and the canoe was again launched on the stream. The air was icy from the snows of the mountain-peaks, and in spite of their severe exercise the men had to wear heavy clothing.

On May 31 they arrived at the confluence where the rivers now known as the Finlay and the Parsnip, flowing together, form the Peace. The Indians of this region told Mackenzie of a great river beyond the big mountains, a river that flowed towards the noonday sun; and of 'Carrier Indians'[2] inland, who acted as {78} middlemen and traders between the coast and the mountain tribes. They said that the Carriers told legends of 'white men on the coast, who wore armour from head to heel'—undoubtedly the Spanish dons—and of 'huge canoes with sails like clouds' that plied up and down 'the stinking waters'—meaning the sea.

Mackenzie was uncertain which of the two confluents to follow—whether to ascend the Finlay, flowing from the north-west, or the Parsnip, flowing from the south-east. He consulted his Indian guides, one of whom advised him to take the southern branch. This would lead, the guide said, to a lake from which they could portage to another stream, and so reach the great river leading to the sea. Mackenzie decided to follow this advice, and ordered his men to proceed up the Parsnip. Their hearts sank. They had toiled up one terrible river; directly before them was another, equally precipitous and dangerous. Nevertheless, they began the ascent. For a week the rush of avalanches from the mountain-peaks could be heard like artillery fire. Far up above the cloud-line they could see the snow tumbling over an upper precipice in powdery wind-blown cataracts; a minute later would come the thunderous {79} rumble of the falling masses. With heroic fortitude the voyageurs held their way against the fierce current, sometimes paddling, sometimes towing the canoe along the river-bank. Once, however, when Mackenzie and Mackay had gone ahead on foot to reconnoitre, ordering the canoemen to paddle along behind, the canoe failed to follow. Mackay went back and found the voyageurs disputing ashore. They pretended that a leak had delayed them. From Indians met by the way, Mackenzie learned that he was indeed approaching a portage over the height-of-land to the waters that flowed towards the Pacific. One of these Indians was induced to go with Mackenzie as guide. They tramped ahead through a thicket of brush, and came suddenly out on a blue tarn. This was the source of the Parsnip, the southern branch of the Peace. The whole party arrived on June 12. A portage of 817 paces over a rocky ridge brought them to a second mountain lake drained by a river that flowed towards the west. Mackenzie had crossed the watershed, the Great Divide, and had reached the waters which empty into the Pacific.

The river which the explorers now entered was a small tributary of the Fraser. Some {80} years later it was named by Simon Fraser the Bad River, and it deserved the name. Mackenzie launched his canoe down-stream. The men's spirits rose. This was working with the current, not against it; but the danger of going with an unknown current became at once apparent. The banks began to skim past, the waters to rise in oily corrugations; and before the voyageurs realized it, they were caught by a current they could not stem and were hurried sidling down-stream. The men sprang out to swim, but the current prevented them from reaching land, and they clung in terror to the sides of the canoe till an eddy sent them on a sand-bar in the midst of the rapids. With great difficulty the craft was rescued and brought ashore. The stern had been torn out of the canoe, half the powder and bullets lost, and the entire cargo drenched.

The men were panic-stricken and on the verge of mutiny; but Mackenzie was undaunted and determined to go forward. He spread the provisions out to dry and set his crew to work patching up the stern of the broken canoe with resin and oilcloth and new cedar lining. That night the mountain Indian who had acted as guide across the portage gave Mackenzie the slip and escaped in the {81} woods. For several days after this most of the party trudged on foot carrying the cargo, while four of the most experienced canoemen brought the empty canoe down the rapids. But on June 17 they found further progress by water impossible owing to masses of driftwood in the stream. They were now, however, less than a mile from the south fork of the Fraser; the men carried the canoe on their shoulders across the intervening neck of swamp, and at last the explorers 'enjoyed the inexpressible satisfaction' of finding themselves on the banks of a broad, navigable river, on the west side of the Great Divide.

The point where they embarked, on the morning of June 18, was about thirty-five miles above the Nechaco, or north fork of the Fraser, just at the upper end of the great bend where the south fork, flowing to the north-west, sweeps round in a semicircle, joins its confluent, and pours southward to the sea. This trend of the river to the south was not what Mackenzie expected. He wanted to follow a stream leading west. Without noticing it, he had passed the north fork, the Nechaco, and was sweeping down the main stream of the Fraser, where towering mountains cut off the view ahead, and the powerful {82} rush of the waters foreboded hard going, if not more rapids and cataracts. Mackenzie must have a new guide. The Carrier Indians dwelt along this river, but they appeared to be truculently hostile. On June 21 a party of these Indians stood on one of the banks and shot arrows at the explorers and rolled stones from the precipices. Mackenzie landed on the opposite bank, after sending a hunter by a wide detour through the woods behind the Indians on the other shore, with orders to shoot instantly if the savages threatened either the canoe or himself. In full sight of the Indians Mackenzie threw trinkets in profusion on the ground, laid down his musket and pistol, and held up his arms in token of friendship. The savages understood the meaning of his actions. Two of them jumped into a dug-out and came poling across to him. Suspiciously and very timidly they landed. Mackenzie threw himself on the ground, and on the sands traced his path through the 'shining mountains.' By Indian sign-language he told them he wanted to go to the sea; and, disarmed of all suspicion, the Indians were presently on the ground beside him, drawing the trail to the sea. Terrible rapids (they imitated the noise of the cataracts) barred his way by this river. {83} He must turn back to where another river (the Blackwater) came in on the west, and ascend that stream to a portage which would lead over to the sea.

The post of Alexandria on the Cariboo Road marks Mackenzie's farthest south on the Fraser. At this point, after learning all he could of the route from the Indians, he turned the prow of his canoe up the river. The Carrier Indians provided him with a guide. On July 4, nearly two months from the time of leaving the fort on the Peace river, the portage on the Blackwater was reached; the canoe was abandoned, some provisions were cached, and each man set off afoot with a ninety-pound pack on his back. Heavy mist lay on the thick forest. The Indian trail was but a dimly defined track over forest mould. The dripping underbrush that skirted the path soaked the men to the skin. The guide had shown an inclination to desert, and Mackenzie slept beside him, ready to seize and hold him on the slightest movement. Totem cedar-poles in front of the Indian villages told the explorers that they were approaching the home of the coastal tribes. The men's clothing was by this time torn to shreds. They were barefooted, bareheaded, {84} almost naked. For nearly two weeks they journeyed on foot; then, having forded the Dean river, they embarked for the sea on the Bella Coola in cedar dug-outs which they procured from Indians of one of the coastal tribes. Daily now Mackenzie saw signs of white traders. The Indians possessed beads and trinkets. One Indian had a Spanish or Russian lance. Fishing weirs were passed. There was a whiff of salt water in the air; then far out between the hills lay a gap of illimitable blue. At eight o'clock in the morning of Saturday, July 20, 1793, Mackenzie reached the mouth of the river and found himself on the sea. The next day he went down North Bentinck Arm, and, passing the entrance to the south arm, landed at the cape on the opposite shore. He then proceeded down Burke Channel. It was near the mouth of this inlet that he inscribed, in red letters on a large rock, the memorable words: 'Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. Lat. 52 deg. 20' 48" N.'

Barely two months previously Vancouver had explored and named these very waters and headlands. A hostile old Indian explained bellicosely that the white sailors had fired {85} upon him. For this outrage he demanded satisfaction in gifts from Mackenzie. Few gifts had Mackenzie for the aggressive old chief. There were exactly twenty pounds of pemmican—two pounds a man for a three months' trip back. There remained also fifteen pounds of rice—the mainstay of the voyageurs—and six pounds of mouldy flour. The Indians proved so vociferously hostile that two voyageurs had to stand guard while the others slept on the bare rocks. On one occasion savages in dug-outs began hurling spears. But no harm resulted from these unfriendly demonstrations, and the party of explorers presently set out on their homeward journey.

Mackenzie had accomplished his object. In the race to the Pacific overland he was the first of the explorers of North America to cross the continent and reach the ocean. Late in August the voyageurs were back at the little fort on the Peace river. Mackenzie shortly afterwards quitted the fur country and retired to Scotland, where he wrote the story of his explorations. His book appeared in 1801, and in the following year he was knighted by the king for his great achievements.



[1] See another volume of this Series, Adventurers of the Far North, chap. iii.

[2] The Takulli. This tribe cremated the dead, and the widows collected the ashes of their dead husbands and carried them during a period of three years: hence the name 'Carriers.'



{86}

CHAPTER VI

THE DESCENT OF THE FRASER RIVER

American traders were not slow to follow up the discovery of Robert Gray on the Pacific. Spain, the pioneer pathfinder, had ceded Louisiana to France; and France, by way of checkmating British advance in North America, had sold Louisiana to the United States for fifteen million dollars. What did Louisiana include? Certainly, from New Orleans to the Missouri. Did it also include from the Missouri to Gray's river, the Columbia? The United States had sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark overland from the Missouri to the Columbia, ostensibly on a scientific expedition, but in reality to lay claim to the new territory for the United States. This brings the exploration of the Pacific down to 1806.

Take a look at the map! Mackenzie had crossed overland from the Peace river to Bella Coola. Who was to own the great belt of {87} empire—a third larger than Germany—between Mackenzie's trail westward and Lewis and Clark's trail to the mouth of the Columbia? In 1805 Simon Fraser, who as a child had come from the United States to Canada with his widowed mother in the Loyalist migration, and now in his thirtieth year was a partner in the North-West Company of Montreal, had crossed the Rockies by way of the Peace river. He had followed Mackenzie's trail over the terrible nine-mile carrying-place and had built there a fur-post—Rocky Mountain Portage. He had ascended that same Parsnip river, which Mackenzie had found so appalling, to a little emerald lake set like a jewel in the mountains. There he had built another fur-trading post, and named it after his friend, Archibald Norman M'Leod. This was the first fur-post known to have been erected in the interior of New Caledonia, now British Columbia. The new fort had been left in charge of James M'Dougall; and during the winter of 1806 M'Dougall had crossed the heavily drifted carrying-place and descended the Bad River as far as the south fork of the Fraser, which all traders at that time mistook for the upper reaches of Gray's Columbia. Instead of going down the main stream of the {88} Fraser, M'Dougall ascended both the Nechaco and the Stuart; and if he did not actually behold the beautiful alpine tarns since known as Fraser Lake and Stuart Lake, he was at least the first white man to hear of them.

In May of 1806, after sending the year's furs from Rocky Mountain Portage east to Fort Chipewyan, Simon Fraser set out to explore this inland empire concerning which M'Dougall had reported. John Stuart accompanied Fraser as lieutenant. They crossed from the head-waters of the Parsnip to the south fork of the Fraser, and on June 10 camped at the mouth of the Nechaco. Towards the end of July the Carriers camped on Stuart Lake were amazed to see advancing across the waters, with rhythmic gallop of paddles, two enormous birch canoes. When the canoes reached the land Fraser and Stuart stepped ashore, and a volley was fired to celebrate the formal taking possession of a new inland empire. What to do with the white men's offerings of tobacco the Carriers did not know. They thought the white men in smoking were emitting spirits with each breath. When the traders offered soap to the squaws, the women at once began to devour it. The result was a frothing at the {89} mouth as amazing to them as the smoke from the men. History does not record whether the women became as addicted to soap as the men to the fragrant weed.

Active trading with the Indians began at once. The lake was named Stuart in honour of Fraser's companion, and the ground was cleared for a palisaded fort, which, when erected, they named Fort St James. The scene was enchanting. The lake wound for a distance of fifty miles amid the foot-hills of the mighty forested mountains. It was four or five miles wide, and was gemmed with green islets; and all round, appearing through the clouds in jagged outline, were the opal summits of the snowy peaks. No wonder the two Scotsmen named the new inland empire New Caledonia—after their native land.

It will be remembered that M'Dougall had heard of another mountain tarn. This was forty miles south of Stuart Lake, at the headwaters of the Nechaco, the north fork of the Fraser. Stuart went overland south to spy out the southern lake; and his report was of such an entrancing region—heavily forested, with an abundance of game and fish—that Fraser glided down the Stuart river and poled up the Nechaco to the lake which Stuart had {90} already named after his chief. Again a fort was erected and named Fort Fraser, making three forts in the interior of New Caledonia.

Fraser had sent a request to the directors of the North-West Company to be permitted to fit out an expedition down the great river, which he thought was the Columbia; and in the spring of 1807 two canoes under Jules Quesnel were sent out with goods. Quesnel arrived at Fort St James in the autumn, bringing from the east the alarming word that Lewis and Clark had gone overland and taken possession of all the territory between the Missouri and the mouth of the Columbia. No time was to be lost by Fraser in establishing a claim to the region to the west of the Rockies between the Peace and the Columbia. Fraser went down the river and strengthened British possession by building a fourth fort—Fort George at the mouth of the Nechaco. This was to be the starting-point of the expedition to the Pacific. Then, towards the end of May 1808, he set out down the great river with four canoes, nineteen voyageurs, and Stuart and Quesnel as first assistants.



Fifteen miles below the fort the river walls narrowed and the canoes swept into the roaring cataract of Fort George canyon. {91} The next day they shot through the Cottonwood canyon, and paused at the point thenceforth to be known as Quesnel. On the third day they passed Mackenzie's farthest south—the site of the present Alexandria. Below this the river was unexplored and unknown. Suddenly the enormous flood-waters swollen by melting mountain snows contracted to a width of only forty yards, and with a fearful roar swept into a rock-walled gorge. In sublime unconsciousness of heroism Fraser records:

As it was impossible to carry the canoes across the land owing to the height of the steep hills, we resolved to venture down. I ordered the five best men of the crews into a canoe lightly loaded; and in a moment it was under way. After passing the first cascade she lost her head and was drawn into an eddy, where she was whirled about, in suspense whether to sink or swim. However, she took a turn from this vortex, flying from one danger to another; but, in spite of every effort, the whirlpool forced her against a low rock. Upon this the men scrambled out, saving their lives; but the greatest difficulty was {92} still ahead. To continue by water would be certain destruction. During this distressing scene we were on shore looking on; but the situation rendered our approach perilous. The bank was high and steep. We had to plunge our daggers into the ground to avoid sliding into the river. We cut steps, fastened a line to the front of the canoe, and hauled it up. Our lives hung upon a thread, as one false step might have hurled us into eternity. However, we cleared the bank before dark. The men had to ascend the immense hills with heavy loads on their backs.

Indians warned the white men to desist from their undertaking. Better, they advised, go overland eastward to a great peaceful river and descend that to the sea. Fraser, of course, did not know that the peaceful river they spoke of was really the Columbia. He thought the river he was following was the Columbia. With the help of Indians the canoes were pulled up-hill, and horses were hired from them to carry the provisions overland. Below this portage, as they continued the descent, an enormous crag spread {93} across the river, appearing at first to bar the passage ahead. This was Bar Rock. Beyond it several minor rapids were passed without difficulty; and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and—'a desperate undertaking'—ran them down the rapids with light ballast. They then came back overland for the packs.

This task [says Fraser] was as dangerous as going by water. The men passed and repassed a declivity, on loose stones and gravel, which constantly gave way under foot. One man, who lost the path, got in a most intricate and perilous position. With a large package on his back, he got so wedged amid the rocks that he could move neither forward nor backward, nor yet unload himself. I crawled, not without great risk, to his assistance, and saved his life by cutting his pack so [that] it dropped back in the river. On this carrying-place, which was two miles long, our shoes became shattered.

For several days after this the advance was by a succession of rapids and portages. On June 9 the stream again narrowed to forty {94} yards and swept violently between two overhanging precipices.

The water, which rolls down this passage in tumultuous waves and with great velocity, had a frightful appearance. However, it being absolutely impossible to carry canoes by land, all hands without hesitation embarked on the mercy of the awful tide. Once on the water, the die was cast; and the difficulty consisted in keeping the canoes clear of the precipice on one side and clear of the gulfs formed by the waves on the other. Thus skimming along as fast as lightning, the crews, cool and determined, followed each other in awful silence; and when we arrived at the end, we stood gazing at each other in silent congratulation on our narrow escape from total destruction. After breathing a little, we continued our course to the point where the Indians camped.

The natives here warned Fraser that it would be madness to go forward. At the same time they furnished him with a guide. The same evening the party reached the place described by Fraser as 'a continual series of cascades cut by rocks and bounded by precipices that {95} seemed to have no end.' Never had he seen 'anything so dreary and dangerous.' Towering above were 'mountains upon mountains whose summits are covered with eternal snow.' An examination of the river for some distance below convinced Fraser that it was impossible of navigation, and he decided to make the remainder of the journey on foot. After building a scaffold, on which the canoes and some provisions were placed and covered with underbrush and moss, the party, on June 11, began their tramp down the river-bank. Each man carried on his back a ninety-pound pack, supported by a strap across the forehead. Again and again on the journey Indians confronted Fraser with hostile show of weapons, but the intrepid trader disarmed hostility by gifts. The Indians declared that the sea lay only ten 'sleeps' distant. One of the chiefs said that he had himself seen white men, who were great 'tyees,' because 'they were well dressed and very proud and went about this way'—clapping his hands to his hips and strutting about with an air of vast importance. The Indians told Fraser of another great river that came in from the east and joined this one some distance below. He had passed the site of the present Lillooet and was {96} approaching the confluence of the Thompson with the Fraser. Farther down European articles were seen among the Indians. It was the fishing season, and the tribes had assembled in great hordes. Here the river was navigable, and three wooden dug-outs were obtained from the natives for the descent to the sea. The voyageurs again embarked, and swept down the narrow bends of the turbulent floods at what are now Lytton, Yale, and Hope. There were passes where the river was such a raging torrent that the dug-outs had to be carried overland. There were places where Fraser's voyageurs had to climb precipices by means of frail ladders, made of poles and withes, that swayed to their tread and threatened to precipitate them into the torrent beneath.

When the river turned sharply west, Fraser could not help noticing that the Indians became more violently hostile. Far south could be seen the opal dome of Mount Baker, named by Vancouver after one of his lieutenants. As they advanced, the banks lowered to reedy swamps and mosquitoes appeared in clouds. What troubled Fraser most was the fact that the river lay many miles north of the known latitude of the Columbia. It daily grew on {97} him that this could not possibly be the Columbia. The tide rose and fell in the river. The Indian guide begged the white men not to go on; he was afraid, he said, of the Indians of the sea-coast. The river channel divided. Natives along the shore began singing war-songs and beating the war-drum; then they circled out threateningly round the white men's boats. Signs were seen of the sea ahead; but the Indians were 'howling like wolves and brandishing war-clubs,' and Fraser concluded that it would be unwise to delay longer amid such dangers. To his intense disappointment he had established the latitude as 49 deg., whereas the Columbia was in latitude 46 deg. 20'. 'This river is therefore not the Columbia,' he declared. 'If I had been convinced of this when I left my canoes, I would certainly have returned.'

The return journey was fraught with danger. Always one man stood guard while the others slept; and again and again the little party was surrounded by ferociously hostile bands. Between apprehension of the dangers of the wild trail of the Fraser canyons and fear of hostile natives, the men became so panic-stricken that they threw down their paddles and declared their intention of trying to escape {98} overland through the mountains. Fraser reasoned and remonstrated, and finally threatened. After so much heroism he would not permit cowardly desertion. Then he forced each voyageur to swear on the Cross: 'I do solemnly swear that I will sooner perish than forsake in distress any of our crew during the present voyage.' With renewed self-respect they then paddled off, singing voyageurs' songs to keep up their courage. Imagine, for a moment, the scene! The turbid, mad waters of the Fraser hemmed in between rock walls, carving a living way through the adamant; banks from which red savages threw down rocks wherever the wild current drove the dug-out inshore; and, tossed by the waves—a chip-like craft containing nineteen ragged men singing like schoolboys! Once away from the coastal tribes, however, the white men were aided by the inland Carriers. They found the canoes and supplies in perfect condition and unmolested, though hundreds of Carrier Indians must have passed where lay the belongings of the white strangers. On August 5, to the inexpressible relief of Fort George, the little band once more were at their headquarters in New Caledonia.



{99}

CHAPTER VII

THOMPSON AND THE ASTORIANS

While Fraser was working down the wild canyons of the great river which now bears his name, other fur traders were looking towards the Pacific ocean. In 1810 John Jacob Astor, a New York merchant, who bought furs from the Nor'westers in Montreal for shipment to Germany, formed the Pacific Fur Company, and took into its service a number of the partners and servants of the North-West Company. Some of these men were dispatched round the Horn in the Tonquin to the mouth of the Columbia; while another party went overland from Mackinaw and St Louis, following the trail of Lewis and Clark. One of the Nor'westers who entered Astor's service was Alexander Mackay, Mackenzie's companion on the journey to the coast; another was a brother of the Stuart who had accompanied Fraser through New Caledonia; and a third was a {100} brother of the M'Dougall who commanded Fort M'Leod, the first fort built by the Nor'westers in New Caledonia.

In the light of subsequent developments, it is a matter for speculation whether these Nor'westers joined Astor purposely to overthrow his scheme in the interests of their old company; or were later bribed to desert him; or, as is most likely, simply grew dissatisfied with the inexperienced, blundering mismanagement of Astor's company, and reverted gladly to their old service. However that may have been, it is certain that the North-West Company did not fail to take notice of the plans that Astor had set afoot for the Pacific fur trade; for in a secret session of the partners, at Fort William on Lake Superior, 'it was decided in council that the Company should send to Columbia River, where the Americans had established Astoria, and that a party should proceed overland to the coast.'

It puzzled the Nor'westers to learn that the river Fraser had explored in 1808 was not the Columbia. Where, then, were the upper reaches of the great River of the West which Gray and Vancouver had reported? The company issued urgent instructions to its traders in the Far West to keep pushing up {101} the North and South Saskatchewan, up the Red Deer, up the Bow, up the Athabaska, up the Smoky, up the Pembina, and to press over the mountains wherever any river led oceanwards through the passes. This duty of finding new passable ways to the sea was especially incumbent on the company's surveyor and astronomer, David Thompson. He was formerly of the Hudson's Bay Company, but had come over to the Nor'westers, and in their service had surveyed from the Assiniboine to the Missouri and from Lake Superior to the Saskatchewan.

Towards the spring of 1799 Thompson had been on the North Saskatchewan and had moved round the region of Lesser Slave Lake. That year, at Grand Portage, at the annual meeting of the traders of the North-West Company, he was ordered to begin a thorough exploration of the mountains; and the spring of 1800 saw him at Rocky Mountain House[1] on the upper reaches of the North Saskatchewan above the junction of the Clearwater. Hitherto the Nor'westers had crossed the {102} mountains by way of the Peace river. But Thompson was to explore a dozen new trails across the Great Divide. While four of his men crossed over to the Red Deer river and rafted or canoed down the South Saskatchewan, Thompson himself, with five French Canadians and two Indian guides, crossed the mountains to the Kootenay country. The Kootenay Indians were encamped on the Kootenay plains preparatory to their winter's hunt, and Thompson persuaded some of them to accompany him back over the mountains to Rocky Mountain House on the North Saskatchewan. This was the beginning of the trade between the Kootenays and white men. Probably from these Indians Thompson learned of the entrance to the Rockies by the beautiful clear mountain-stream now named the Bow; and Duncan M'Gillivray, a leading partner, accompanied him south from Rocky Mountain House to the spot on the Bow where to-day the city of Calgary stands. It was on this trip that Nor'westers first met the Piegan Indians. From these horsemen of the plains the explorers learned that it was only a ten-day journey overland to the Missouri. Snow was falling when the traders entered the Rockies at what is now the Gap, on the {103} Canadian Pacific Railway. Inside the gateway to the rugged defile of forest and mountain the traders revelled in the sublime scenery of the Banff valley. At Banff, eastward of Cascade mountain, on the sheltered plain where Kootenays and Stonies used to camp, one can still find the circular mounds that mark a trading-station of this era. Whether the white men discovered the beautiful blue tarn now known as Devil's Lake, or saw the Bow river falls, where tourists to-day fish away long summer afternoons, or dipped in the famous hot springs on the slope of Sulphur mountain, we do not know. They could hardly have met and conversed with the Kootenays and Stonies without hearing about these attractions, which yearly drew Indian families to camp in the encircling mountains, while the men ranged afield to hunt.

Thompson and M'Gillivray were back at Rocky Mountain House on the Saskatchewan for Christmas. Some time during 1800 their French-Canadian voyageurs are known to have crossed Howse Pass, the source of the North Saskatchewan, which was discovered by Duncan M'Gillivray and named after Joseph Howse of the North-West Company.

For several years after this Thompson was {104} engaged in making surveys for the North-West Company in the valley of the Peace river and between the Saskatchewan and the Churchill. In 1806 we find him in the country south of the Peace, which was then in charge of that Jules Quesnel who was to accompany Fraser in 1808. Fraser, as we have seen, was already busy exploring the region between M'Leod Lake and Stuart Lake, and had laid his plans to descend the great river which he thought was Gray's Columbia. Now, while Thompson spent the winter of 1806-7 between the Peace and the North Saskatchewan, trading and exploring, he doubtless learned of Fraser's explorations west of the Rockies and of the vast extent of New Caledonia; and June 1807 saw him over the mountains on the Kootenay plains, where to his infinite delight he came upon a turbulent river, whose swollen current flowed towards the Pacific. 'May God give me to see where its waters flow into the ocean,' he ejaculated. This was, however, but a tributary of the long-sought Columbia. It was the river now called the Blaeberry. Thompson followed down the banks of this stream by a well-known Indian trail, and on June 30 he came to the Columbia itself. Although the river here flowed to the north, {105} he must have known, from the deposits of blue silt and the turgidity of the current, that he had found at least an upper reach of the River of the West; but he could hardly guess that its winding course would lead him a dance of eleven hundred miles before he should reach the sea.

The party camped and built the boats they needed, and a fortnight later they were poling up-stream to the lake we to-day know as Windermere, where Thompson built a fort which he called 'Kootenai.' Here he spent the winter trading, and when the warm Chinook winds cleared away the snows, in April 1808, about the time Fraser was preparing to descend the Fraser river, he paddled up-stream to where the Columbia river has its source in Upper Columbia Lake. A portage of about a mile and a half brought him to another large river, which flowed southward. This stream—the Kootenay—led him south into the country of the Flatheads, then made a great bend and swept to the north. This was disappointing. Thompson returned to his fort on Windermere Lake, packed the furs his men had gathered, and retraced his trail of the previous year to Rocky Mountain House. He had undoubtedly found the River {106} of the West, but he had learned nothing of its course to the sea.

During nearly all of 1809 Thompson was exploring the Kootenay river and its branches through Idaho and Montana. Still no path had he found to the sea. In 1810 he seems to have gone east for instructions from his company. What the instructions were we may conjecture from subsequent developments. Astor of New York, as we have seen, was busy launching his fur traders for operations on the Pacific. Piegan warriors blocked the passage into the Rockies by the North Saskatchewan; so Thompson in the autumn of this year ascended the Athabaska. Winter came early. The passes were filled with snow and beset by warriors. He failed to get provisions down from Rocky Mountain House; and his men, cut off by hostile savages from all help from outside posts, had literally to cut and shovel their way through Athabaska Pass while subsisting on short rations. The men built huts in the pass; some hunted, while others made snow-shoes and sleighs. They were down to rations of dog-meat and moccasins, and hardly knew whether to expect death at the hands of raiding Piegans or from starvation. On New Year's Day of 1811, {107} when the thermometer dropped to 24 deg. below zero, with a biting wind, Thompson was packing four broken-down horses and two dogs over the pass to the west side of the Great Divide. The mountains rose precipitously on each side; but when the trail began dropping down westward, the weather moderated, though the snow grew deeper; and in the third week of January Thompson came on the baffling current of the Columbia. He camped there for the remainder of the winter, near the entrance of the Canoe River. Why he went up the Columbia in the spring, tracing it back to its source, and thence south again into Idaho, instead of rounding the bend and going down the river, we do not know. He was evidently puzzled by the contrary directions in which the great river seemed to flow. At all events, by a route which is not clearly known, Thompson struck the Spokane river in June 1811, near the site of the present city of Spokane; and following down the Spokane, he again found the elusive Columbia and embarked on its waters. At the mouth of the Snake River, on July 9, he erected a pole, on which he hoisted a flag and attached a sheet of paper claiming possession of the country for Great Britain and the North-West {108} Company. A month later, when Astor's traders came up-stream from the mouth of the Columbia, they were amazed to find a British flag 'waving triumphantly' at this spot. Unfortunately, Thompson's claim ignored the fact that both Lewis and Clark and the Astorians had already passed this way on their overland route to the Pacific.

From this point Thompson evidently raced for the Pacific. Within a week he had passed the Dalles, passed the mouth of the Willamette, passed what was to become the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's post of Fort Vancouver; and at midday of Monday, July 15, he swept round a bend of the mighty stream and came within sight of the sea. Crouched between the dank, heavy forests and the heaving river floods, stood a little palisaded and fresh-hewn log fur-post—Astoria. Thompson was two months too late to claim the region of the lower Columbia for the Nor'westers. One can imagine the wild halloo with which the tired voyageurs greeted Astoria when their comrades of old from Athabaska came tumbling hilariously from the fort gates—M'Dougall of Rocky Mountain House, Stuart of Chipewyan, and John Clarke, whom Thompson had known at Isle a la {109} Crosse. But where was Alexander Mackay, who had gone overland with Mackenzie in 1793? The men fell into one another's arms with gruff, profane embraces. Thompson was haled in to a sumptuous midday dinner of river salmon, duck and partridge, and wines brought round the world. The absence of Mackay was the only thing that took from the pleasure of the occasion.

A party of the Astorians, as we have seen, had sailed round the Horn on the Tonquin; another party had gone overland from Mackinaw and St Louis. On the Tonquin were twenty sailors, four partners, twelve clerks, and thirteen voyageurs. She sailed from New York in September 1810. Jonathan Thorn, the captain, was a retired naval officer, who resented the easy familiarity of the fur traders with their servants, and ridiculed the seasickness of the fresh-water voyageurs. The Tonquin had barely rounded the Horn before the partners and the commander were at sixes and sevens. A landing was made at the mouth of the Columbia in March 1811, and eight lives were lost in an attempt to head small boats up against the tide-rip of river and sea. After endless jangling about where to {110} land, where to build, how to build, the rude fort which Thompson saw had been knocked together. The Tonquin sailed up the coast of Vancouver Island to trade. On the vessel went Alexander Mackay to help in the trade with the coastal Indians, whom he was supposed to know. In spite of Mackay's warning that the Nootka tribes were notoriously treacherous and resentful towards white traders, Captain Thorn with lordly indifference permitted them to swarm aboard his vessel. Once when Mackay had gone ashore at Clayoquot, where Gray had wintered twenty years before, Thorn, forgetting that his ship was not a training-school, struck an old chief across the face and threw him over the rail. When Mackay heard what had happened, instead of applauding the captain's valour, he showed the utmost alarm, and begged Thorn to put out for the open sea. The captain smiled in scorn. Twenty Indians were welcomed on the deck the very next day. More came. At the same time the vessel was completely surrounded by a fleet of canoes. As if to throw the white men off all suspicion, the squaws came paddling out, laughing and chatting. Mackay in horror noticed that in the barter all the Indians were taking knives {111} for their furs, and that groups were casually stationing themselves at points of vantage on the deck—at the hatches, at the cabin door, along the taffrail. Mackay hurried to the captain. Thorn affected to ignore any danger, but he nevertheless ordered the anchors up. Seeing so many Indians still on board, the sailors hesitated. Thorn lost his head and uttered a shout. This served as a signal for the savages, who shrieked with derisive glee and fell upon the crew with knives, hatchets, and clubs. Down the companionway tumbled the ship's clerk, Lewis, stabbed in the back. Over the taffrail headlong fell Mackay, clubbed by the Indians aboard, caught on the knives of the squaws below. The captain was so unprepared for the attack that he had no weapon but his pocket-knife. He was stunned by a club, pitched overboard, and literally cut to pieces by the squaws. In a moment the Tonquin was a shambles. All on deck were slaughtered but four, who gained the main cabin, and with muskets aimed through windows scattered the yelling horde. The Indians sprang from the ship and drew off, while the four white survivors escaped in a boat, and the Tonquin's sails flapped idly in the wind. Next morning the Indians paddled {112} out to plunder what seemed to be a deserted ship. A wounded white man appeared above the hatches and waved them to come on board and trade. They came in hosts, in hordes, in flocks, like carrion-birds or ants overrunning a half-dead thing. Suddenly earth and air at Clayoquot harbour were rent with a terrific explosion, and the sea was drenched with the blood of the slaughtered savages. The only remaining white man, the wounded Lewis, had blown up the powder magazine. He perished himself in order to punish the marauders.

Had this story been known at Astoria when Thompson arrived, he would have found the Astorians in a thoroughly dejected condition. As it was, murmurs of discontent were heard. Here they had been marooned on the Columbia for three months without a ship, waiting for the contingent of the Astorians who were toiling across the continent.[2] Not thus did Nor'westers conduct expeditions. What Thompson thought of the situation we do not know. All we do know is that he remained only a week. On July 22, fully provisioned by M'Dougall, he went back up the Columbia post-haste.

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One year later we find Thompson at Fort William reporting the results of his expedition to the assembled directors of the North-West Company. He had surveyed every part of the Columbia from its source to its mouth. And he was the first white man on its upper waters.

The War of 1812 had begun, and a British warship was on its way to capture Astoria. At the same time the Nor'westers dispatched an overland expedition to the Columbia. Among their emissaries went the men of New Caledonia, Alexander Henry (the younger) of Rocky Mountain House, Donald M'Tavish, and a dozen others who were former comrades of the leading Astorians. They succeeded in their mission, and in the month of October 1813 Astor's fort was sold to the North-West Company and renamed Fort George.

The methods of fur traders have been the same the world over: to frighten a rival off the ground if possible; if not, then to buy him off. It is not all surmise to suppose that when Thompson was sent to the Pacific there was in view some other purpose than merely to survey an unknown river. But exploration and the fur trade went hand in hand; and whatever the motives may have been, the {114} result was that, after more than four years of arduous toil, Thompson had given to commerce a great waterway. His exploration of the Columbia closes the period of discovery on the Pacific coast.



[1] To explain what may appear like a confusion of names, it may be stated that in the history of the fur trade from 1800 to 1850 there were at various stages as many as sixteen differently situated fur-posts under the name of Rocky Mountain House.

[2] The overland party suffered the greatest hardship and some loss of life, and did not arrive at Astoria till January 1812.



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CHAPTER VIII

THE PASSING OF THE FUR LORDS

When Astoria passed to the Nor'westers, with it came, as we shall see, an opportunity of acquiring for Great Britain the whole of the vast region west of the Rockies, including California and Alaska. Gray's feat in finding the mouth of the Columbia, and the explorations of Lewis and Clark overland to the same river, gave the United States possession of a part of this territory by right of discovery; but this possession was practically superseded by the transfer of Astor's fort to the British-Canadian Company. Yet, to-day, we find Britain not in possession of California, not in possession of the region round the mouth of the Columbia, not in possession of Alaska. The reason for this will appear presently.

The Treaty of Ghent which closed the War of 1812 made no mention of the boundaries of Oregon, but it provided that any territory captured by either nation in the course of the {116} war should be restored to the original owner. The question then arose: did this clause in the treaty apply to Astoria? Was the taking over of the fur-post by the British company in reality an act of war? The United States said Yes; Great Britain said No; and both nations claimed sovereignty over Oregon. In 1818 a provisional agreement was reached, under which either nation might trade and establish settlements in the disputed territory. But it was now utterly impossible for Astor to prosecute the fur trade on the Pacific. The 'Bostonnais' had lost prestige with the Indians when the Tonquin sank off Clayoquot, and the more experienced British and Canadian traders were in control of the field. At this time the Hudson's Bay Company and the Nor'westers were waging the trade war that terminated in their union in 1820-1821; and when the united companies came to assign officers to the different districts, John M'Loughlin, who had been a partner in the North-West Company, was sent overland to rule Oregon.



What did Oregon comprise? At that time no man knew; but within ten years after his arrival in 1824 M'Loughlin had sent out hunting brigades, consisting of two or {117} three hundred horsemen, in all directions: east, under Alexander Ross, as far as Montana and Idaho; south, under Peter Skene Ogden, as far as Utah and Nevada and California; along the coast south as far as Monterey, under Tom Mackay, whose father had been murdered on the Tonquin and whose widowed mother had married M'Loughlin; north, through New Caledonia, under James Douglas—'Black Douglas' they called the dignified, swarthy young Scotsman who later held supreme rule on the North Pacific as Sir James Douglas, the first governor of British Columbia. If one were to take a map of M'Loughlin's transmontane empire and lay it across the face of a map of Europe, it would cover the continent from St Petersburg to Madrid.

The ruler of this vast domain was one of the noblest men in the annals of the fur trade. John M'Loughlin was a Canadian, born at Riviere du Loup, and he had studied medicine in Edinburgh. The Indians called him 'White Eagle,' from his long, snow-white hair and aquiline features. When M'Loughlin reached Oregon—by canoe two thousand miles to the Rockies, by pack-horse and canoe another seven hundred miles {118} south to the Columbia—two of the first things he saw were that Astoria, or Fort George, was too near the rum of trading schooners for the well-being of the Indians, and that it would be quite possible to raise food for his men on the spot, instead of transporting it over two watersheds and across the width of a continent. He at once moved the headquarters of the company from Astoria to a point on the north bank of the Columbia near the Willamette, where he erected Fort Vancouver. Then he sent his men overland to the Spaniards of Lower California to purchase seed-wheat and stock to begin farming in Oregon in order to provision the company's posts and brigades. It was about the time that his wheat-fields and orchards began to yield that some passing ocean traveller asked him: 'Do you think this country will ever be settled?' 'Sir,' answered M'Loughlin, emphasizing his words by thumping his gold-headed cane on the floor, 'wherever wheat grows, men will go, and colonies will grow.' Afterwards, when he had to choose between loyalty to his company and saving the lives of thousands of American settlers who had come over the mountains destitute, these words of his were quoted against him. He {119} had, according to the directors of the company, favoured settlement rather than the fur trade.



Meanwhile, M'Loughlin ruled in a sort of rude baronial splendour on the banks of the Columbia. The 'Big House,' as the Indians always called the governor's mansion, stood in the centre of a spacious courtyard surrounded by palisades twenty feet high, with huge brass padlocks on the entrance-gates. Directly in front of the house two cannon were stationed, and piled up behind them ready for instant use were two pyramids of balls. Only officers of some rank dined in the Hall; and if visitors were present from coastal ships that ascended the river, Highland kilties stood behind the governor's chair playing the bagpipes. Towards autumn the southern and eastern brigades set out on their annual hunt in California, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho. Towards spring, when the upper rivers had cleared of ice, the northern brigades set out for the interior of New Caledonia. Nothing more picturesque was ever seen in the fur trade than these Oregon brigades. French-Canadian hunters with their Indian wives would be gathered to the number of two hundred. Indian ponies fattened during the {120} summer on the deep pasturage of the Willamette or the plains of Walla Walla would be brought in to the fort and furbished forth in gayest of trappings. Provisions would then be packed on their backs. An eager crowd of wives and sweethearts and children would dash out for a last good-bye. The governor would personally shake hands with every departing hunter. Then to bugle-call the riders mounted their restive ponies, and the captain—Tom Mackay or Ogden or Ross—would lead the winding cavalcade into the defiles of mountain and forest, whence perhaps they would not emerge for a year and a half. Though the brigades numbered as many as two hundred men, they had to depend for food on the rifles of the hunters, except for flour and tobacco and bacon supplied at the fort. Once the brigade passed out of sight of the fort, the hunters usually dashed ahead to anticipate the stampeding of game by the long, noisy, slow-moving line. Next to the hunters would come the old bell-mare, her bell tinkling through the lonely silences. Far in the rear came the squaws and trappers. Going south, the aim was to reach the traverse of the deserts during winter, so that snow would be available for water. Going east, the {121} aim was to cross the mountain passes before snow-fall. Going north, the canoes must ascend the upper rivers before ice formed. But times without number trappers and hunters were caught in the desert without snow for water; or were blocked in the mountain passes by blizzards; or were wrecked by the ice cutting their canoes on the upper rivers. Innumerable place-names commemorate the presence of humble trapper and hunter coursing the wilderness in the Oregon brigades. For example: Sublette's River, Payette's River, John Day's River, the Des Chutes, and many others. Indeed, many of the place-names commemorate the deaths of lonely hunters in the desert. Crow and Blackfoot and Sioux Indians often raided the brigades when on the home trip loaded with peltry. One can readily believe that rival traders from the Missouri instigated some of these raids. There were years when, of two hundred hunters setting out, only forty or fifty returned; there were years when the Hudson's Bay brigades found snow-bound, storm-bound, starving American hunters, and as a price for food exacted every peltry in the packs; and there were years when rival American traders bribed every man in Ogden's brigade to desert.

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The New Caledonia brigades set out by canoe—huge, long, cedar-lined craft manned by fifty or even ninety men. These brigades were decked out gayest of all. Flags flew at the prow of each craft. Voyageurs adorned themselves with coloured sashes and headbands, with tinkling bells attached to the buckskin fringe of trouser-leg. Where the rivers narrowed to dark and shadowy canyons, the bagpipes would skirl out some Highland air, or the French voyageurs would strike up some song of the habitant, paddling and chanting in perfect rhythm, and sometimes beating time with their paddles on the gunwales. Leaders of the canoe brigades understood well the art of never permitting fear to enter the souls of their voyageurs. Where the route might be exposed to Indian raid, a regale of rum would be dealt out; and the captain would keep the men paddling so hard there was no time for thought of danger.

In course of time the northern brigades no longer attempted to ascend the entire way to the interior of New Caledonia by boat. Boats and canoes would be left on the Columbia at Fort Colville or at Fort Okanagan (both south of the present international boundary), and the rest of the trail would be pursued by {123} pack-horse. Kamloops became the great half-way house of these north-bound brigades; and horses were left there to pasture on the high, dry plains, while fresh horses were taken to ascend the mountain trails. Fort St James on Stuart Lake became the chief post of New Caledonia. Here ruled young James Douglas, who had married the daughter of the chief factor William Connolly. Ordinarily, the fort on the blue alpine lake lay asleep like an August day; but on the occasion of a visit by the governor or the approach of a brigade, the drowsy post became a thing of life. Boom of cannon, firing of rifles, and skirling of bagpipes welcomed the long cavalcade. The captain of the brigade as he entered the fort usually wore a high and pompous beaver hat, a velvet cloak lined with red silk, and knee-breeches with elaborate Spanish embossed-leather leggings. All this show was, of course, for the purpose of impressing the Indians. Whether impressed or not, the Indians always counted the days to the wild riot of feasting and boat-races and dog-races and horse-races that marked the arrival or departure of a brigade.

New Caledonia, as we know, is now a part of Canada; but why does not the Union Jack float over the great region beyond the Rockies {124} to the south—south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the 49th parallel? Over all this territory British fur lords once held sway. California was in the limp fingers of Mexico, but the British traders were operating there, and had ample opportunity to secure it by purchase long before it passed to the United States in 1848. Sir George Simpson, the resident governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, advised the company to purchase it, but the directors in London could not see furs in the suggestion. Simpson would have gone further, and reached out the company's long arm to the islands of the Pacific and negotiated with the natives for permission to build a fort in Hawaii. James Douglas was for buying all Alaska from the Russians; but to the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company Alaska seemed as remote and as worthless as Siberia, so they contented themselves with leasing a narrow strip along the shore. Thus California, Alaska, and Hawaii might easily have become British territory; but the opportunity was lost, and they went to the United States. So, too, did the fine territory of Oregon, out of which three states were afterwards added to the American Union. But the history of Oregon is confused in a maze of {125} politics, into which we cannot enter here. As we have seen, Bruno Heceta, acting for Spain, was the first mariner to sight the Columbia, and the American, Robert Gray, was the first to enter its mouth, thus proving Heceta's conjecture of a great river. Then for Great Britain came Vancouver and Broughton; then the Americans, Lewis and Clark and the Astorians; and finally Thompson, the British Nor'wester and the first man to explore the great river from its source to the sea. Then during the War of 1812 the American post on the Columbia passed to the North-West Company of Montreal; and if it had not been for the 'joint occupancy' agreement between Great Britain and the United States in 1818, Oregon would undoubtedly have remained British. But with the 'joint occupancy' arrangement leaving sovereignty in dispute, M'Loughlin of Oregon knew well that in the end sovereignty would be established, as always, by settlement.

First came Jedediah Smith, the American fur trader, overland. He was robbed to the shirt on his back by Indians at the Umpqua river. There and then came the great choice to M'Loughlin—should he save the life of rivals, or leave them to be murdered by {126} Indians? He sent Tom Mackay to the Umpqua, punished the robber Indians, secured the pilfered furs, and paid the American for them. Then came American missionaries overland—the Lees and Whitman. Then came Wyeth, the trader and colonizer from Boston. The company fought Wyeth's trade and bought him out; but when the turbulent Indians crowded round the 'White Eagle,' chief of Fort Vancouver, asking, 'Shall we kill—shall we kill the "Bostonnais"?' M'Loughlin struck the chief plotter down, drove the others from the fort, and had it noised about among the tribes that if any one struck the white 'Bostonnais,' M'Loughlin would strike him. At the same time, M'Loughlin earnestly desired that the territory should remain British. In 1838, at a council of the directors in London, he personally urged the sending of a garrison of British soldiers, and that the government should take control of Oregon in order to establish British rights. His suggestions received little consideration. Had not the company single-handed held all Rupert's Land for almost two hundred years? Had they not triumphed over all rivals? They would do so here.

But by 1843 immigrants were pouring over {127} the mountains by the thousands. Washington Irving's Astoria and Captain Bonneville, and the political cry of 'Fifty-four forty or fight'—which meant American possession of all south of Alaska—had roused the attention of the people of the United States to the merits of Oregon, and caused them to make extravagant claims. Long before the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which established the 49th parallel as the boundary, M'Loughlin had foreseen what was coming. The movement from the east had become a tide. The immigrants who came over the Oregon Trail in 1843 were starving, almost naked, and without a roof. Again the Indians crowded about M'Loughlin. 'Shall we kill? Shall we kill?' they asked. M'Loughlin took the rough American overlanders into his fort, fed them, advanced them provisions on credit, and sent them to settle on the Willamette. Some of them showed their ingratitude later by denouncing M'Loughlin as 'an aristocrat and a tyrant.' The settlers established a provisional government in 1844, and joined in the rallying-cry of 'Fifty-four forty or fight.' This, as M'Loughlin well knew, was the beginning of the end. His friends among the colonists begged him to subscribe to the provisional {128} government in order that they might protect his fort from some of their number who threatened to 'burn it about his ears.' He had appealed to the British government for protection, but no answer had come; and at length, after a hard struggle and many misgivings, he cast in his lot with the Americans. Two years later, in 1846, he retired from the service of the company and went to live among the settlers. He died at Oregon City on the Willamette in 1857.

As early as June 1842 M'Loughlin had sent Douglas prospecting in Vancouver Island, which was north of the immediate zone of dispute, for a site on which to erect a new post. The Indian village of Camosun, the Cordoba of the old Spanish charts, stood on the site of the present city of Victoria. Here was fresh water; here was a good harbour; here was shelter from outside gales. Across the sea lay islands ever green in a climate always mild and salubrious. Fifteen men left old Fort Vancouver with Douglas in March 1843 in the company's ship the Beaver, and anchored at Vancouver Island, just outside Camosun Bay. With Douglas went the Jesuit missionary, Father Bolduc, who on March 19 {129} celebrated the first Mass ever said on Vancouver Island, and afterwards baptized Indians till he was fairly exhausted. In three days Douglas had a well dug and timbers squared. For every forty pickets erected by the Indians he gave them a blanket. By September stockades and houses had been completed, and as many as fifty men had come to live at the new fort, to which the name Victoria was finally given. Victoria became the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific. It was unique as a fortified post, in that it was built without the driving of a single nail, wooden pegs being used instead.



By 1849 the discovery of gold in California was bringing a rush of overlanders. There had been rumours of the discovery of precious metals on the Fraser and in East Kootenay. The company became alarmed; and Sir John Pelly, the governor in England, and Sir George Simpson, the governor in America, went to the British government with the disquieting question: What is to hinder American colonists rolling north of the boundary and establishing right of possession there as they did on the Columbia? By no stretch of its charter could the Hudson's Bay Company {130} claim feudal rights west of the Rockies. What, my Lord Grey asks, would the company advise the British government to do to avert this danger from a tide of democracy rolling north? Why, of course, answers Sir John Pelly, proclaim Vancouver Island a British colony and give the company a grant of the territory and the company will colonize it with British subjects. The proposal was laid before parliament. It would be of no profit to follow the debate that ensued in the House of Commons, which was chiefly 'words without knowledge darkening counsel.' The request was officially granted in January 1849; and Richard Blanshard, a barrister of London, was dispatched as governor of the new colony. But as he had neither salary nor subjects, he went back to England in disgust in 1851, and James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company reigned in his stead.

But fate again played the unexpected part, and rang down the curtain on the fur lords of the Pacific coast. A few years previously Douglas had seen M'Loughlin compelled to choose between loyalty to his company and loyalty to humanity. A choice between his country and his company was now unexpectedly thrust on the reticent, careful, {131} masterful Douglas. In 1856 gold was discovered in the form of large nuggets on the Fraser and the Thompson, and adventurers poured into the country—20,000 in a single year. Douglas foresaw that this meant British empire on the Pacific and that the supremacy of the fur traders was about to pass away. The British government bought back Vancouver Island, and proclaimed the new colony of British Columbia on the mainland. Douglas retired from the company's service and was appointed governor of both colonies. In 1866 they were united under one government.

The stampede of treasure-seekers up the Fraser is another story. When the new colony on the mainland came into being, and the Hudson's Bay Company fell from the rank of a feudal overlord to that of a private trader, the pioneer days of the Pacific became a thing of the past.



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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The bibliography of the Pacific is enormous. There is, indeed, a record of discovery and exploration on the Pacific coast almost as large as that of New France or New England. Only a few of the principal books can be mentioned here; but in most of these will be found good bibliographies which will point the reader to original sources, if he wishes to pursue the subject.

ON DRAKE. Drake and the Tudor Navy, in two volumes, by Julian Corbett (1898); Sir Francis Drake, by the same author (1800), in the 'English Men of Action' series; The World Encompassed, by Francis Fletcher (1628). See also the article on Drake in the Dictionary of National Biography.

ON VITUS BERING AND THE RUSSIANS. Peter the Great, by Williams (1859); Peter the Great, by Motley (1877); Coxe's Discoveries of the Russians (1781); Lauridsen's Vitus Bering (1885); Laut's Vikings of the Pacific (1905).

ON COOK AND VANCOUVER. Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784); Ledyard's Journal of Cook's Last Voyage (1783); Sir Walter Besant's Captain Cook (1890), in the 'English Men of Action' series; Kitson's Captain James Cook, the Circumnavigator (1907); Vancouver's Voyage of {133} Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean (1798). See also the articles on Cook and Vancouver in the Dictionary of National Biography.

ON THE EXPLORATIONS OF MACKENZIE, FRASER, AND THOMPSON. Mackenzie's Voyages (1801); Burpee's Search for the Western Sea (1908); Fur Traders of the Far West, by Alexander Ross (1855); Laut's Conquest of the Great Northwest (1908); Canada and its Provinces, vol. iv (1914).

ON THE FUR TRADERS BEYOND THE ROCKIES. Morice's History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia (1904); Sir James Douglas, by Coats and Gosnell (1908), in the 'Makers of Canada' series; Canada and its Provinces, vol. xxi (1914); Bancroft's History of the Northwest Coast (1884), and his History of Oregon (1888); Lyman's History of Oregon (1903). For an exhaustive statement of the Oregon Boundary Question, see the article, 'Boundary Disputes and Treaties,' by James White, in Canada and its Provinces, vol. viii.



{135}

INDEX

Alaska, discovered, 20-2; Russian regime inaugurated in, 44.

Aleutian Islands, discovery of, 22-9, 37; the hunt for furs on, 33-44.

Aleuts, their hard lot at the hands of Russian fur traders, 34-9; take their revenge, 39-43.

Anian, strait of, 8, 9-10.

Astor, John Jacob, forms the Pacific Fur Company, 99, 100, 106.

Astoria, the fur-post on the Columbia, 108, 110; sold to the North-West Company, 113, 115, 118.

Astorians. See Pacific Fur Company.

Baranoff, a Russian trader on the Pacific Coast, 74.

Barkley, Captain, locates Strait of Juan de Fuca, 57, 59.

Bering, Vitus, his first expedition to the North Pacific, 13-15; his second expedition, 15-33, 45; his death, 28, 46, 52.

Blanshard, Richard, governor of Vancouver Island, 130.

Bolduc, Father, with Douglas on Vancouver Island, 128-9.

Boston, its interest in the Pacific Coast, 55, 59; and settlement in Oregon, 126.

Bostonnais, the ubiquitous, 54-55, 116.

Britain. See Great Britain.

British Columbia, first forts built in, 87, 89, 90; the fear of American aggression, 129, 131; proclaimed a British colony, 131. See New Caledonia.

Broughton, Lieut. Robert, with Vancouver's expedition to the Pacific Coast, 70.

Carrier Indians, the, 77-8, 82, 83, 88, 92, 94-6, 98.

Chinese, their interest in sea-otter furs, 31-2.

Chirikoff, Lieut., explores the North Pacific, 18, 30.

Clark, William, his mission to the Pacific Coast, 86, 87, 90, 108, 125.

Clayoquot Sound, 60; the tragedy at, 110-12.

Clerke, Captain Charles, in command of Cook's expedition, 52.

Columbia river, 53, 56, 92, 97; discovered by Gray, 67, 86; missed, then claimed, by Vancouver, 66, 69-70; Astor's mission to, 99; descended by Thompson, 104-9.

Cook, Captain James, his quest of a north-east passage from the Pacific, 45-9; his tragic death, 49-52.

Cossacks, their harsh treatment of the Aleuts, 34-9; pay the penalty, 39-43.

Delisle de la Croyere, with Bering's second expedition, 17, 18.

Douglas, James, his Oregon brigade, 117, 123, 124; governor of Vancouver Island, 128-30; of British Columbia, 131.

Douglas, Captain William, a Pacific Coast trader, 57-8, 59, 61.

Drake, Sir Francis, with Hawkins at Vera Cruz, 1-2; his raid on Panama, 3; his raiding expedition to the Pacific, 3-8; his attempt to find a north-east passage, 8-10.

Drusenin, Alexis, clubbed to death by Aleuts, 39-40.

East India Company, its foreign commerce, 11-12.

Elisa, Spanish explorer on the Pacific Coast, 60-1, 62, 64.

Elizabeth, Queen, honours Drake, 4, 9.

England, 9. See Great Britain.

Fort Chipewyan, 72, 73, 88.

Fort Defence, 60; the Indian raid on, 61.

Fort George, 90, 98, 113.

Fort M'Leod, the first fur-post in British Columbia, 87, 100.

Fort St James, chief post of New Caledonia, 89, 90, 123.

Fort Vancouver, 108, 118.

Fraser, Simon, 80; his explorations in New Caledonia, 87, 88-90, 104; his descent of the Fraser, 90-8.

Fraser river, 63-4, 67; Mackenzie on, 81-2; descended by Fraser, 90-7; discovery of gold on, 129, 131.

Fuca, Juan de, his north-east passage from the Pacific, 12. See Juan de Fuca.

Galiano, Don Dionisio, explores the Pacific Coast, 64, 67-8.

Gamaland, the mythical continent, 12, 14-15, 17, 18.

Ghent, treaty of, and the Pacific Coast, 115-16.

'Golden Hind,' the first English ship to sail the Pacific, 4-9.

Gray, Captain Robert, his expedition to the Pacific Coast, 55, 56, 57-60, 61-2; discovers the Columbia, 67, 69-70, 74, 125.

Great Britain, her interest in the Pacific Coast, 53-4, 113, 115, 123-4; the Nootka Affair, 65-6; her exploring expeditions under Cook and Vancouver, 46, 66-7; her 'joint occupancy' agreement with the United States, 115-16, 125, 127-8; proclaims colony of British Columbia, 129-31.

Hanna, Captain, trades on the Pacific Coast, 58, 59.

Haro, Gonzales de, at Nootka, 60.

Hawkins, Sir John, his reception at Vera Cruz, 1-2.

Hearne, Samuel, explorer, 45.

Heceta, Bruno, his River of the West, 52, 56, 58, 62, 67, 125.

Hudson's Bay Company, the, 45, 53; interested in the Pacific fur trade, 71; its jurisdiction over Oregon, 116-123; its short-sighted policy, 124, 126-8; founds a colony on Vancouver Island, 128-31.

Indians of the Pacific Coast, and Cook, 47-8; and Gray, 56, 61-2; and Mackenzie, 83, 84-5; and Fraser, 88, 96-8; and the Astorians, 110-12; and M'Loughlin, 117, 119, 125-6, 127; and the Oregon brigades, 121, 123; and Douglas, 128-9. See Aleuts and Carrier Indians.

Juan de Fuca, strait of, 12; the search for, 17, 45, 47, 53, 56; located by Barkley, 57.

Kamchatka, 13; and the fur trade on the Aleutians, 31-9, 49. See Petropavlovsk.

Kendrick, Captain John, his trading expedition to the Pacific Coast, 55, 56, 57-60.

Kootenay Indians, the, 102, 103.

La Perouse, a French explorer on the Pacific Coast, 58.

Lewis, Meriwether, his overland expedition to the Pacific, 86, 87, 90, 108, 125.

Lewis, an Astorian, his plucky end, 111-12.

M'Dougall, Duncan, at Astoria, 108, 112.

M'Dougall, James, his explorations, 87-8.

M'Gillivray, Duncan, accompanies Thompson in exploring expedition, 102-3.

Mackay, Alexander, with Mackenzie's Pacific expedition, 73, 76, 79; joins the Astorians, 99, 109; massacred at Clayoquot, 110-11.

Mackay, Thomas, his Oregon brigade, 117, 119-21, 126.

Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 53, 71-2; his Pacific expedition, 72-3; his journey up the Peace and Fraser, 73-82; reaches the Pacific, 83-5, 86.

M'Loughlin, Dr John, ruler in Oregon, 116-19, 128; his great choice and desire, 125-128; his death, 128.

Maquinna, a Pacific Coast chief, 68, 69.

Martinez, Don Joseph, his high-handed action at Nootka, 59.

Meares, Captain John, a trader on the Pacific Coast, 57-8, 59.

Mexico, pilots of, their explorations on the Pacific Coast, 62-5.

Narvaez, his discoveries on the Pacific Coast, 62-4.

New Caledonia, 87, 89, 122-3. See British Columbia.

Nootka, Cook at, 47; English and American traders at, 57-58; the Nootka Affair, 59-60, 61, 66, 68-9, 73.

'North-West America,' the first ship built on the Pacific Coast, 57.

North-West Company, the, 53, 116; and the race for the Pacific, 71, 99-101, 113.

Ogden, Peter Skene, his Oregon brigade, 117, 119-21.

Oregon, extent of under Hudson's Bay Company jurisdiction, 116-17; colonization in, 118; hunting brigades of, 119-23; acquired by United States, 124, 125; American immigration into, 125-7.

Oregon Treaty, the, 127.

Pacific Coast, exploration of, 8, 12, 46-8, 52, 62-5, 66-8, 70, 125; beginning of struggle for control of, 53-4.

Pacific Fur Company, the, 71; founded, 99, 100, 109; at Astoria, 108, 109-10, 112; the Clayoquot tragedy, 109-112.

Pacific Ocean, 'a closed sea,' 1, 55-6, 65; Drake's raids on Spanish treasure-ships on, 5-8; regarding a north-east passage from, 9-10, 48-9. See Pacific Coast.

Pelly, Sir John, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, 129-130.

Peter the Great, his ambition to make Russia a world-power, 11-14.

Petropavlovsk, Bering's expedition leaves, 16-17; returns to, 30-3.

Piegan Indians, the, 102, 106.

Pushkareff, his diabolical treatment of Aleuts, 38-9.

Quadra, Don Juan Francisco, 58; represents Spain in the Nootka Conference, 68-9, 70.

Quesnel, Jules, with Fraser's expedition, 90, 104.

Rocky Mountain House, 101 and note.

Rocky Mountain Portage, 75-77, 87, 88.

Ross, Alexander, his Oregon brigade, 117, 119-21.

Russia, and the fur trade on the Aleutians, 39, 43; her interest in the Pacific Coast, 44, 53-4, 70. See Cossacks.

Sandwich Islands, Cook's tragic death on, 49-52.

Simpson, Sir George, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, 124, 129-30.

Smith, Jedediah, befriended by M'Loughlin in Oregon, 125-126.

Spain, her supremacy in the South Seas and in the Pacific, 1, 12, 53-4, 55-6, 65, 74; her treachery at Vera Cruz, 2, 55; the Nootka Affair, 59-60, 66, 67-9; her explorations on the Pacific Coast, 61, 62-65, 70, 74.

Steller, George W., with Bering's second expedition, 18, 21, 27, 28.

Stuart, John, with Fraser in New Caledonia, 88-90.

Thompson, David, his search for a river to the Pacific, 101-106; his descent of the Columbia, 104-9, 112-13, 114, 125.

Thorn, Captain Jonathan, massacred at Clayoquot, 109-111.

United States, enter the struggle for the control of the Pacific, 53-5, 67, 70, 86, 124; the Louisiana purchase, 86; send an expedition to the Pacific Coast, 86; the 'joint occupancy' agreement with Britain, 115-16, 125; and Oregon, 125-8.

Valdes, Don Cayetano, explores the Pacific Coast, 64, 67-8.

Vancouver, Captain George, 46; his exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast, 66-8, 69-70, 74, 84, 96; represents Britain in the Nootka Conference, 68-9.

Vancouver Island, 48-9, 67-8; colony founded on, 128-9, 130, 131.

War of 1812, and Astoria, 113.

Waxel, Lieut., with Bering's expedition, 19, 24, 25.



Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press



THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED

Edited by GEORGE M. WRONG and H. H. LANGTON



THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

PART I

THE FIRST EUROPEAN VISITORS

1. THE DAWN OF CANADIAN HISTORY By Stephen Leacock.

2. THE MARINER OF ST MALO By Stephen Leacock.

PART II

THE RISE OF NEW FRANCE

3. THE FOUNDER OF NEW FRANCE By Charles W. Colby.

4. THE JESUIT MISSIONS By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.

5. THE SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA By William Bennett Munro.

6. THE GREAT INTENDANT By Thomas Chapais.

7. THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR By Charles W. Colby.

PART III

THE ENGLISH INVASION

8. THE GREAT FORTRESS By William Wood.

9. THE ACADIAN EXILES By Arthur G. Doughty.

10. THE PASSING OF NEW FRANCE By William Wood.

11. THE WINNING OF CANADA By William Wood.

PART IV

THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH CANADA

12. THE FATHER OF BRITISH CANADA By William Wood.

13. THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS By W. Stewart Wallace.

14. THE WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES By William Wood.

PART V

THE RED MAN IN CANADA

15. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.

16. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE SIX NATIONS By Louis Aubrey Wood.

17. TECUMSEH: THE LAST GREAT LEADER OF HIS PEOPLE By Ethel T. Raymond.

PART VI

PIONEERS OF THE NORTH AND WEST

18. THE 'ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND' ON HUDSON BAY By Agnes C. Laut.

19. PATHFINDERS OF THE GREAT PLAINS By Lawrence J. Burpee.

20. ADVENTURERS OF THE FAR NORTH By Stephen Leacock.

21. THE RED RIVER COLONY By Louis Aubrey Wood.

22. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST By Agnes C. Laut.

23. THE CARIBOO TRAIL By Agnes C. Laut.

PART VII

THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM

24. THE FAMILY COMPACT By W. Stewart Wallace.

25. THE 'PATRIOTES' OF '37 By Alfred D. DeCelles.

26. THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA By William Lawson Grant.

27. THE WINNING OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT By Archibald MacMechan.

PART VIII

THE GROWTH OF NATIONALITY

28. THE FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION By A. H. U. Colquhoun.

29. THE DAY OF SIR JOHN MACDONALD By Sir Joseph Pope.

30. THE DAY OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER By Oscar D. Skelton.

PART IX

NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

31. ALL AFLOAT By William Wood.

32. THE RAILWAY BUILDERS By Oscar D. Skelton.



TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY

THE END