ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
There are long stretches in human life when the contest with fate
seems endless and the result uncertain, but it is such periods that
test the mettle of a man. In the life of David Thompson, the eight
years just past had been marked by no striking achievement. Yet with
unflagging patience and zeal he had discharged his routine duties,
constantly adding to his equipment the knowledge and judgment that
come from maturer years and wider experience. When therefore his
hour at last struck, he was not unready. Expert surveyor, skilled
trader, he was now to crown his life-work by a piece of original
discovery and exploration on a scale grand enough to place him in the
foremost rank among the builders of British North America.
It was summer of the year 1806 when Thompson returned from the
Muskrat country to headquarters at Fort William. There he found a
new excitement and a new enthusiasm in the air. During the preceding
year the American officers, Lewis and Clark, had crossed from the
upper Missouri to the valley of the Snake river, and followed that
stream to its junction with the lower Columbia, down which they had
made their way to the Pacific ocean. John Jacob Astor, the great
American merchant, was exerting all his strength to build up a fur
trading empire on the Pacific slope under the flag of the Republic;
and the full extent of his ambitions was now disclosed. For some
years the Hudson's Bay Company had been knocking at the barrier of
the Rockies, and, spurred by competition, they might at any moment
burst through. Fraser for the North-Westers had already advanced
from the Forks of the Peace, and accomplished the difficult and
dangerous feat of descending the Fraser river. But between the
Fraser river on the north and the Snake on the south was a vast
region on which the feet of white men had never trod; and the North
West Company, no longer crippled by their civil war with the XY
traders, were resolved to claim this region for themselves. Thompson
was at once despatched to Rocky Mountain House, with definite
instructions to cross the mountains, this time as senior officer at
the post and in full charge of the operations.
The winter of 1806-7 was spent in preparation; and John McDonald of
Garth, trader of the Company, together with Quesnel and Finan
McDonald, clerks, lent a hand in the work. The route selected was by
way of the North Saskatchewan, which Thompson knew must be
practicable, because it was along this road that the Kootenay Indians
had returned, when he sent them back to their homes some years
before. He therefore despatched one of his men, a half-breed called
Jaco Finlay, up this road into the mountains, with instructions to
spy out the land. Everything was done with the utmost quietness.
The Piegan Indians suspected nothing, although they were at all times
visiting the fort. Even the Hudson's Bay people, encamped on the
river just below the North-Westers, had not an inkling of Thompson's
plans.
In the spring Jaco Finlay returned to the post with his report. He
had penetrated through the gap in the mountains to a large valley
near the head of the river, where he had built a small outpost and
got in touch with the Kootenays. From this valley he had crossed the
watershed to a small stream which flowed south-westward and emptied
into a mighty river. At the mouth of this stream he had built a
canoe, which he had carefully "cached" for Thompson's use.
At this moment an incident occurred in distant Montana, which, tragic
in itself, was not without advantage for Thompson. Captain Lewis,
the American officer, had became embroiled with the Blackfeet. They
attacked his camp and two of their warriors were killed. Suddenly
all the allied tribes were inflamed with the passion for revenge.
War parties gathered throughout the plains, and the Piegans in the
neighborhood of Rocky Mountain House were drawn off to the south.
Perceiving the passes unguarded, Thompson gathered his equipment and
made an immediate start. With his wife and children, Finan McDonald
and a party of half-breeds to help him, he moved up the river by
horse and canoe and entered the mountains.
As he advanced, the country became rougher and wilder. The grassy
hills were left behind, and the mountains raised their heads in mad
confusion height on height, bald and precipitous masses of solid
rock, except for the patches of pinewood that clung here and there to
their slopes. At times, the crags came together compressing the
river to the width of a few yards, through which the current rushed
against them. Again, when the valley widened, the stream would
divide into many channels dotted with rugged islets and marked by
shoals of rock and sand. Finally they reached the valley in which
Jaco Finlay had built his house--a low and level plain to the north
side of the river, about five miles long and not less than a mile in
width. On every hand were to be seen the remains of old tepees
erected by the Kootenays, who frequented the spot to make dried
provisions from the buffalo and mountain goat. For this reason
Thompson gave the valley the name of Kootenay plains.
Above Kootenay plains, the river contracted to a width of barely
fifteen yards, and so continued to the forks, at which point the
canoes had to be laid up. From the forks, there was a splendid view
of the mountains still ahead, their peaks more elevated and craggy
than they had so far seen, for they were in fact the main range of
the Rockies. Taking the left branch of the stream they followed it
to within a mile of its end in Glacier lake. At this point, between
Mount Balfour on the right and Mount Forbes on the left, was a gap
opening to the west. Into this gap they turned. A march of two
miles through heavy pinewood brought them to a rivulet whose waters
flowed to the west. "May God in his mercy," says the pious explorer,
"give me to see where its waters flow into the ocean and return in
safety." Thus he marked out his programme for the next four years.
This rivulet (Blaeberry creek) descended sharply through a narrow,
winding valley between the heights; and it was necessary for the
party to force their way through the thick woods along the steep and
rugged slopes, and to cross and recross the stream through water
knee-deep, in order to reach the mouth. A full day's travel,
however, brought them to the valley of the Columbia. The weather had
done its work on the canoe built by Jaco Finlay; and it was quite
unseaworthy. They had to halt while they scoured the woods for
materials and built new canoes. Finally they embarked and paddled
south up the Columbia until they came to its headwaters. There, a
short distance from Lake Windermere, they hewed logs of heavy fir and
built a cabin which they strongly stockaded on three sides, the
fourth resting on the steep bank of the river. This was Old Kootenay
House, the first trading post erected by white men on the waters of
the Columbia.
In this remote spot, the safety of all depended upon the courage and
resource of the leader. Additional supplies were needed from Rocky
Mountain House, and Finan McDonald was sent back across the mountains
to fetch them. Until the end of autumn, provisions were scarce, for
the red deer and antelope had not yet descended from the higher
levels, and the mountain goat was hard to shoot as he leapt from crag
to crag. The party therefore relied on fish and the flesh of wild
horses whose feeding grounds were not more than two miles from the
house. For the purpose of trade, it was necessary to get in touch
with the natives and to examine the country as well as possible. The
season was late, but Thompson was able to make one short excursion
with a chief of the Flatbow Indians.
When Finan McDonald rejoined his chief, he brought with him alarming
intelligence. In the course of the summer, the brother of Old White
Swan, a Blackfoot chief, had with his band assaulted and pillaged
Fort Augustus, possessing himself of many guns, much ammunition and
tobacco and various other articles. Whether or not he had murdered
the traders at the Fort, McDonald could not say; but it was clear
that the spirit of unrest and resentment against the whites which had
for some time pervaded the whole Blackfeet confederacy was now coming
to a head; and Thompson could hardly hope that he himself would
escape serious trouble.
Trouble came rather sooner than he expected. The fort was not yet
finished when twelve Piegan Indians appeared on foot from across the
mountains. A month later twenty-three more arrived. These set up
their tents along with the others just outside the gates. For over
two months they hung about the stockade, making themselves very
objectionable, and forcing the garrison to remain together within the
walls. But Thompson had a small stock of dried provisions on hand,
and he put his men on short rations, so that there might be no need
to scatter over the country for hunting. For water, he let down two
large kettles nightly from the steep river bank and this was enough
for the daily needs of the post. Towards the end of October, two of
the Indians disappeared from the group, and the garrison feared a
general attack. Nothing, however, materialized, and before winter
set in, the savages drifted quietly away.
Yet their peril was not yet over. One morning, two more Piegans
presented themselves at the fort. Thompson was anxious, but he did
not flinch. He showed them the strength of his stockades and
bastions, the walls bored with loopholes for his muskets. "I know,"
he said, "that you are come as spies and intend to destroy us, but
many of you will die before you succeed. Go back to your countrymen
and tell them this." At the same time, he loaded them with presents
of tobacco for their friends. A fortunate circumstance hastened
their departure. Two of the Kootenay Indians came to the fort while
they were there, and when they saw the Piegans, they glared at them
like tigers. Meanwhile the little garrison watched and waited, six
hardy voyageurs ready to die if necessary in order to make good the
words of their chief. And while they waited, winter came on,
covering the mountains with snow and placing them in safety.
It was some time before Thompson learned the details of his escape.
The two Piegans were, as he guessed, the advanced guard of a large
war party that was being formed at the instigation of the civil chief
to crush the white men and the natives to the west side of the
mountains before they became well armed. The war chief (Thompson's
old friend Kootanae Appee) had opposed this venture. How, he urged,
could they smoke to the Great Spirit for success, if without warning
they invaded the lands of a people with whom for ten summers they had
been at peace? Such, however, was the influence of the wilder
spirits, that the old war chief was compelled to yield to their will.
In fifteen days about three hundred warriors under three chiefs
assembled at the rendezvous named by Kootanae Appee, and under his
leadership marched through the mountains to within twenty miles of
the post. There they awaited the return of their scouts. It was not
long before the latter arrived. The Kootenays, they said, were
gathering under the white man to fight for the protection of their
post. At the same time they presented the chiefs with Thompson's
gifts, six feet of tobacco for Kootenae Appee, eighteen inches for
each of the lesser chiefs, and a fine pipe of red porphyry with an
ornamental stem in which to smoke it.
Thompson's knowledge of the Indians was thorough, and in this case,
his guess as to their intentions had hit the mark. When the war
chiefs heard his message of defiance, they were dumbfounded. "What
can we do with this man," they exclaimed, "our women cannot mend a
pair of shoes but he sees them" (alluding, of course, to Thompson's
astronomical observations). Then the eldest of the three war chiefs,
wistfully eyeing the tobacco, of which they had none, observed: "I
have attacked tents, my knife could cut through them and our enemies
had no defence against us. I am ready to do so again. But to go and
fight against logs of wood that a ball cannot pierce, and with people
we cannot see and with whom we are at peace, is what I am averse to.
I go no further!" So saying, he slowly fitted the pipe to the stem
and handed it to Kootenae Appee. Led by Kootenae Appee, they all
smoked; and, having accepted Thompson's present, were unable to go
further against him. Thus by his own resource and by the support of
an old friend won in the days of his service for the Hudson's Bay
Company, David Thompson prevented the destruction of the first
trading post on the Columbia.
With the coming of spring began the work of exploring the country.
Leaving McDonald in charge of Kootenay House, Thompson embarked with
four voyageurs on the 20th of April, 1807, and paddled through Lake
Windermere to the source of the Columbia. From thence, an easy
portage of two miles across a grassy plain brought him to a fine
stream flowing south, the Kootenay river of today. Launching his
canoe, he proceeded to search for Indians.
The river flowed swiftly along between high and steep banks of rock,
their slopes clothed with magnificent timber of all kinds. From time
to time the stream narrowed so that the travellers were forced to
paddle briskly in order to keep ahead of the current. As they
approached Kootenay Falls, in Lincoln county, Montana, the river
entered a cañon no less than a mile in length, terminating in a gorge
where the trail left the river side and meandered along the dizzy
slope of steep bed rock, three hundred feet above the level of the
stream. An hour and a quarter was necessary for the carry; and they
cut their shoes to pieces. The least slip would have meant sure
destruction; and they struggled along over the jagged rocks without a
grain of earth or sand on them to relieve their crippled feet. On
the 14th of May, having followed the winding course of the stream
southward across the present international boundary and northward
again as far as Kootenay lake, they at length came upon ten tepees of
Indians.
During all this time, they had shot nothing except for a few antelope
and they were nearly famished. Once they came upon the carcase of an
antelope, on which an eagle was feeding. Chasing the bird, they
seized the meat, but it was tainted and made them all sick. The day
following, they encountered the Indians. These, however, had nothing
to offer the white men except a few dried carp and some bitter black
bread, made of the moss collected from the bark of the resinous fir
and the larch.
The snows of the mountains were now melting, and the water of the
river had risen six feet, overflowing the wide meadows. Owing to the
floods, none of the Kootenays were willing to come to the house to
trade. To paddle home against the current was impossible. Thompson
therefore laid up his canoe, bought horses from the Indians and
engaged a guide who undertook to lead him overland by a well-known
native trail northeast along the valley of the Grand Quête river to
Kootenay House.
A day's travel brought them to a large brook, so deep and rapid that
the horses could not cross. Thompson selected a large cedar growing
by the bank. This he felled so that it lay across the stream and
served as a bridge over which they carried their luggage. The horses
were taken separately, and by means of a heavy strap of rawhide,
dragged kicking and struggling to the further bank. The guide then
went hunting, but returned empty handed, and the party went
supperless to bed. Early next morning, he killed a small antelope,
which was eagerly devoured. But the faint-hearted guide had already
had enough. Without warning, he decamped and returned to his people,
leaving the white men stranded among the hills, without provisions
and utterly ignorant of the country.
For two days they waited with faint hopes of his return. Thompson
then sent two of his men back to the tepees to ask for another guide.
In the presence of these men, Ugly Head, one of the chiefs, made a
bitter attack upon his followers. He reproached them for their lack
of spirit, contrasting their conduct with that of the white men who
braved every danger and hardship to bring them arms, ammunition and
other things which they needed. "How many of you," he said, "will
volunteer to accompany the strangers back to their home?" Not a man
answered the call. They knew too well the dangers of mountain travel
at that season of the year. In this crisis Ugly Head himself
announced that he would act as guide; and, with the voyageurs to lead
him, made his way to Thompson's camp.
The noble and manly conduct of the Indian inspired the little party
with great confidence and hope. Under his leadership, they made
their way among the rugged hills, avoiding the inundated meadows.
The raging torrents they passed by throwing bridges of trees across
them. Finally they reached the Kootenay river not far below the
portage; and here, after building a canoe to complete their journey,
they took leave of their guide. In a short time they were safe at
Kootenay House.
Thompson had now to conduct the winter's hunt all the way east to
Rainy River House, and bring back supplies for the following year.
Among these supplies were two kegs of alcohol, which his partners
insisted that he should take with him. Thompson was well aware of
the deplorable results that had followed the introduction of spirits
among the Indians, but he was overruled. When he came to the defiles
of the Saskatchewan, he caused the two kegs to be loaded on the back
of a vicious horse. By noon the kegs were empty and broken to
pieces. He wrote to his partners, telling them what he had done, and
vowing that so long as he was in charge of the fur trade across the
mountains, he would do the same with every keg of alcohol which was
sent to him. He was as good as his word; and thus for a few years at
least succeeded in keeping the curse of spirits from the Indians of
the Pacific slope.
When Thompson reached Kootenay House, the season was too far advanced
to allow of further exploration. He therefore sent Finan McDonald to
open a trading house at Kootenay Falls, while he himself remained for
the winter at the post, taking observations and trading with the
Indians. In the following spring, he had once more to cross the
mountains with the furs, but by midsummer he was back at his house
ready to prosecute his discoveries further to the south.
In the neighborhood of the Falls, Thompson had found that the
Kootenay river bent sharply to the west and north. In this
direction, he had traced its course to Kootenay lake, before the
floods came on, compelling him to cross overland to his home under
the guidance of the chief Ugly Head. To the south of the Kootenay
was a ridge of mountainous country, intersected however, by
well-marked Indian trails running north and south. These trails, he
was told, led to another great river, parallel with the Kootenay and,
like it, flowing mainly to the west. This river (now known as
Clark's Fork) he made up his mind to explore.
His point of departure was from Ugly Head's encampment, near the
present site of Bonner's Ferry, Idaho. There he laid up his canoes,
and borrowed horses from the Kootenays for the journey across
country. A two day's ride brought him to Clark's Fork at the point
where it expands to form Lake Pend d'Oreille. Here he was met by a
large deputation of Salish Indians, who welcomed him with presents
and gave him every assistance in finding a site suitable for the
erection of a post. Their joy was easy to understand, for they were
armed merely with a few rude lances and flint-headed arrows, utterly
useless in warfare against the Indians of the plains. Thompson had
guns, ammunition, and iron arrow-heads for trade, but he warned them
that in order to procure these advantages, they must learn to be
industrious in hunting for beaver and other furs, and cease spending
their days and nights in gambling--the pet vice of the savage. This
they eagerly promised to do.
It was the end of September before he had finished the construction
of his new post (Kullyspell House), and he followed it up, by
constructing a second post, Salish House, sixty miles further east
along the river. From Salish House, he had only to ride out to the
great camp of the Salish Indians near Flathead lake in order to
secure the promise of their trade. He was now thoroughly established
along the whole course of Clark's Fork river.
From information he had gathered, Thompson judged that both the
Kootenay river and Clark's Fork were tributaries of the Columbia, and
that if he followed them westward to their mouths he would strike
that mighty river. From the unwelcome visitations he had experienced
at the hands of the Piegans, he realized that the line of approach
from the defiles of the Saskatchewan to his new trading post was
exposed throughout its length to raids of the plainsmen through the
easy passes of the mountains. He therefore attempted to explore
Clark's Fork to its junction with the Columbia, hoping that from
thence he might discover a route further west and less accessible to
his foes.
For some time he followed the course of the river westward through a
country of extensive meadows and forests, enriched by innumerable
streams of pure water, and already in March responding to the
generous rays of the sun, and the warm breezes from the ocean. But
as he approached the mouth, the appearance of the land was changed.
Rude blocks of basalt made the country difficult for horses; the
stream, tumbling in countless rapids and falls, was unnavigable for
canoes. He was forced to turn back; and as the winter's furs were
waiting for his arrival, he made his way to Kootenay House and
thence, to the dépôt on Rainy river.
In the course of the winter the Salish Indians had traded upwards of
twenty muskets and several hundreds of iron arrow-heads, and by dint
of constant practice had become so proficient in their use that they
felt themselves a match for the Indians of the plains. In the month
of July, when the bison bulls were getting fat, they formed a camp of
not less than 150 men to hunt and make dried provisions as Thompson
had asked them to do. With Finan McDonald, Michel Bourdeaux and
Baptiste Buché to help and encourage them, they crossed the mountains
by an easy defile to the east of Flathead lake, and boldly preceded
to hunt for the buffalo.
It was not long before the Piegans got wind of their presence. One
morning, the scouts came riding into camp at breakneck speed with the
cry, "The enemy is upon us." Down went the tents, and tent poles and
baggage were quickly formed into a rude rampart. This was barely
ready, when the enemy's horsemen came dashing at the rampart with
wild shouts of rage. The Salish stood their ground; and neither a
second nor a third charge was able to shake them. The battle was now
to be of infantry. The Salish lay quietly behind their ramparts
awaiting the assault; while all day long the enemy advanced in
parties of thirty or forty, shouting insulting cries and doing their
best to lure them from their cover. As often as they came within
gunshot, they were met with a fusilade of bullets. At nightfall they
retired discomfited, leaving the Salish in possession of the field.
This was the first occasion on which the Salish had ventured to face
the Piegans in the open field, and although no scalps were taken on
either side, they counted it a victory to have stood their ground.
As for the Piegans, their hearts were full of bitterness; and they
swore an oath to wreak vengeance on the white men who had crossed the
mountains to the west, and furnished arms and ammunition to their
age-long foes.