1800-1810
DAVID THOMPSON, THE NOR’WESTER, DASHES FOR THE COLUMBIA--HE EXPLORES
EAST KOOTENAY, WEST KOOTENAY, WASHINGTON AND OREGON, BUT FINDS
ASTOR’S MEN ON THE FIELD--HOW THE ASTORIANS ARE JOCKEYED OUT OF
ASTORIA--FRASER FINDS HIS WAY TO THE SEA BY ANOTHER GREAT RIVER.
Let us follow Thompson first. He had joined the Nor’Westers just when
the question of the International Boundary was in dispute between
Canada and the United States.
(1) In 1796, lest other Northwest forts were south of the Boundary, he
first explored from Lake Superior to Rainy Lake and the Lake of the
Woods and Winnipeg River and Winnipeg Lake, advancing as fast as the
brigades traveled, running his lines at lightning pace. Then he struck
across to Lake Manitoba and the Assiniboine and Qu’ Appelle. His first
survey practically ran in a circle round the bounds of the modern
Manitoba, except on the south.
(2) After wintering on the Assiniboine, he prepared in the summer of
1797 for exploration south to the Missouri, but his work must pay in
coin of the realm to the Company. This was accomplished by Thompson
obtaining credit from McDonell of the Assiniboine Department for goods
to trade with the Mandanes. With three horses, thirty-eight dogs and
several voyageurs, he set out southwest, in mid-winter, 1797. This was
long before Henry or Chaboillez of the Assiniboine had sent men from
Pembina to the Missouri. The cold was terrific. The winds blew keen as
whip lashes, and the journey of three hundred miles lasted a month. To
Thompson’s amazement, he found Hudson’s Bay traders from the Albany
Department on the Missouri. They must have come south across Minnesota.
(3) By February of ’98, Thompson was back on the Assiniboine, and now
to complete the southern survey of Manitoba, he struck east for Red
River, and in March up Red River to Pembina where the partner, Charles
Chaboillez, happened to be in charge. No doubt it was what Thompson
told Chaboillez of the Missouri that induced the Nor’Westers to go
there. Still ascending the Red, Thompson passed Grand Forks--then
a cluster of log houses inhabited by traders--and struck eastward
through what is now Minnesota to that Red Lake, where Hudson’s Bays
and Nor’Westers were to have such bitter fights. Six miles farther
east he made the mistake of thinking he had found the sources of the
Mississippi in Turtle Lake. Still pressing eastward, he came to Lake
Superior and along the north shore to the Company’s headquarters. From
1799 to 1805 he ranges up the South Saskatchewan to that old Bow Fort
near Banff; then up the North Saskatchewan all the way from Lesser
Slave Lake to Athabasca. This, then, was the man whom the Nor’Westers
now appointed to explore the Rockies.
Only two passes across the mountains north of Bow River were known to
the fur traders--Peace River Pass and Howse River Pass of the Upper
Saskatchewan. It was perfectly natural that Thompson should follow the
latter--the trail of his old co-workers in the Hudson’s Bay service.
Striking up the Saskatchewan from Edmonton in the fall of 1806, by
October Thompson was in that wonderful glacier field which has only
been thoroughly explored in recent days--where Howse River leads over
to a branch of the Blaeberry Creek, with Mt. Hector and Mt. Thompson
and Mt. Balfour and the beautiful Bow Lakes on the southeast; and
Mt. Bryce, and Mt. Athabasca and Mt. Stutfield and the wonderful
Freshfield Glaciers on the northwest. This is one of the largest and
most wonderful glacial fields of the world. It is the region where
the tourists of Laggan, and Field, and Golden, and Donald strike north
up the Pipestone and Bow and Blaeberry Creek--raging torrents all of
them, not in the least like creeks, broad as the Upper Hudson, or the
Thames at Chelsea, wild as the cataracts of the St. Lawrence. From
the Pipestone, or Bow, or Blaeberry, one can pass northeast down to
the tributaries of the Saskatchewan. Cloud-capped mountains, whose
upland meadows present fields of eternal snow, line each side of the
river. Once when I attempted to enter this region by pack horse late in
September, we wakened below Mt. Hector to find eight inches of snow on
our tent roof, the river swollen to a rolling lake, the valley swamped
high as the pack horses’ saddles.
Hither came Thompson by a branch of the Saskatchewan, and Howse’s River
and Howse’s Pass to Blaeberry Creek. Dense spruce and hemlock forests
covered the mountains to the water’s edge. The scream of the eagle
perched on some dead tree, the lonely whistle of the hoary marmot--a
kind of large rock squirrel--the roar of the waters swelling to a great
chorus during mid-day sun, fading to a long-drawn, sibilant hush during
the cool of night, the soughing of the winds through the great forests
like the tide of a sea--only emphasize the solitude, the stillness,
the utter aloneness of feeling that comes over man amid such wilderness
grandeur.
On the Upper Blaeberry, Thompson constructs a rough log raft--safer
than canoe, for it will neither sink nor upset--whipsawing two long
logs over a dozen spruce rollers. A sapling tree for a pole, packs in
a heap in the center on brush boughs to keep them free of damp, and
down the Blaeberry whirls the explorer with his Indian guides. Here,
the water is clearest crystal from the upland snows. There, it becomes
milky with the silt of glaciers grinding over stone beds; and glimpses
through the forests reveal the boundless ice fields. By October, snow
begins to fall on the uplands. The hoary evergreens become heaped with
drifts in huge mushrooms. The upper snow fields curl over the edges of
lofty precipices in great cornices that break and fall with the boom
of thunder, setting the avalanches roaring down the mountain flanks,
sweeping the slopes clean of forests as if leveled by some giant trowel.
Somewhere between Howse’s Pass and the Blaeberry, Thompson had
wintered, following his old custom of making the explorations pay by
having his men trap and hunt and trade with the Sarcees and Kootenay
Indians as he traveled. Advancing in this slow way, it was June of 1807
before he had launched his raft on the Blaeberry. Spring thaw has set
the torrents roaring. The river is a swollen flood that sweeps the
voyageurs through the forests, past the glaciers, on down to a great
river, which Thompson does not recognize but which is the Columbia just
where it takes a great bend northward at the modern railway stations of
Moberly and Golden.
But the question is--which way to go? The river is flowing north,
not south to the sea, as Alexander MacKenzie thought. Thompson does
not guess _this is not the river, which MacKenzie saw_. “_May God in
His mercy give me to see where the waters of this river flow to the
western ocean_,” records Thompson in his journal of June 22nd; but
if he goes north, that will lead to a great detour--that much he can
guess from what the Indians tell him--the Big Bend of the Columbia.
He is facing the Rockies on the east. On the west are the Selkirks.
He does not know that after a great circle about the north end of
the Selkirks, the Columbia will come down south again through West
Kootenay between the Selkirks and the Gold Range. To Thompson, it seems
that he will reach the Pacific soonest, where American traders are
heading, by ascending the river; so he follows through East Kootenay
southward through Windermere Lake and Columbia Lake to the sources of
the Columbia east of Nelson Mountain. There, where the Windermere
of to-day exists, he builds a fort with Montour, the Frenchman, in
charge--the Upper Kootenay House. Then he discovers that beyond the
sources of the Columbia, a short portage of two miles, is another great
river flowing south--the Kootenay. The portage he names after the
Northwest partner--McGillivray, also the river, which we now know as
Kootenay, and which Thompson follows, surveying as he goes, south of
the Boundary into what are now known as Idaho and Montana, past what is
now the town of Jennings and westerly as far as what is now Bonner’s
Ferry--the roaring camp of old construction days when the Great
Northern Railroad passed this way. Here Thompson is utterly confused,
for the Kootenay River turns north to British Columbia again, not west
to the Pacific, and he has no time to follow its winding course. His
year is up. He must hasten eastward with his report. Leaving the fort
well manned, Thompson goes back the way he has come, by Howse Pass down
the Saskatchewan to Fort William.
While Thompson is East, the Hudson’s Bay Company of Edmonton is not
idle. Mr. Howse, who found the pass, follows Thompson’s tracks over
the mountains and sets hunters ranging the forests of the Big Bend and
south to Kootenay Lake.
When he returns to the mountains In 1808, Thompson joins Henry’s
brigade coming west from Pembina. It is September when they reach
Edmonton, and both companies have by this time built fur posts at
Howse’s Pass, known as Rocky Mountain House, of which Henry takes
charge for the Nor’Westers. Sixteen days on horseback bring Thompson to
the mountains. There horses are exchanged for dogs, and the explorer
sleds south through East Kootenay to Kootenay House on Windermere Lake,
where provisions and furs are stored. Thompson winters at Windermere.
In April of 1809 he sets out for the modern Idaho and Montana and
establishes trading posts on the Flathead Lake southeast, and the Pend
d’Oreille Lakes southwest, leaving Firman McDonald, the Highlander, as
commander of the Flathead Department, with McMillan and Methode and
Forcier and a dozen others as traders. He is back in Edmonton by June,
1810--“thank God”--he ejaculates in his diary, and at once proceeds
East, where he learns astounding news at Fort William. John Jacob
Astor, the New York merchant, who bought Nor’Westers’ furs at Montreal,
has organized a Pacific Fur Company, and into its ranks he has lured by
promise of partnership, friends of Thompson, such good old Nor’Westers
as John Clarke--“fighting Clarke,” he was called--and Duncan McDougall
of the Athabasca, and that Alex. McKay, who had gone to the Pacific
with Sir Alexander MacKenzie, and Donald MacKenzie, a relative of Sir
Alexander’s, and the two Stuarts--David and Robert--kin of the Stuart
who was with Simon Fraser on his trip to the sea. These Nor’Westers,
who have joined Astor, know the mountain country well, and they have
engaged old Nor’West voyageurs as servants. Half the partners are to
go round the Horn to the Pacific, half overland from the Missouri to
the Columbia. If the Nor’Westers are to capture the transmontane field
first, there is not a moment to lose.
Thompson is forthwith dispatched back to the mountains in 1810, given
a crew of eighteen or twenty and urged forward to the Pacific; but
the Piegans are playing the mischief with the fur trade this year.
Though Henry drowns them in whiskey drugged with laudanum at Rocky
Mountain House, they infest Howse’s Pass and lie in wait at the Big
Bend to catch the canoes bringing up the furs from Idaho and to plunder
Thompson’s goods bound south to Kootenay House. Thompson’s voyageurs
scatter like lambs before wolves. He retreats under protection of
Henry’s men back through Howse’s Pass to Rocky Mountain House, but he
is a hard man to beat. Reach the Pacific before Astor’s men he must,
Piegans or no Piegans; so he forms his plans. Look at the map! This
Kootenay River flowing through Idaho does not lead to the Pacific. It
turns north into Kootenay Lake of West Kootenay. The Columbia takes a
great circle north. Thompson aims for the Big Bend. He hurries overland
by pack horse to the Athabasca River, enters the mountains at the head
of the river on December 20, 1810, at once cuts his way through the
forest tangle up between Mt. Brown and Mt. Hooker, literally “swims the
dogs through snowdrifts, the brute Du Nord beating a dog to death,” and
finds a new trail to the Columbia--Athabasca Pass! Down on the west
side of the Divide flows a river southwest, to the Big Bend of the
Columbia. Thompson winters here to build canoes for the spring of 1811,
naming the river that gladdens his heart--Canoe River.
Down in Idaho, his men on Flathead Lake and the Pend d’Oreille are
panicky with forebodings. Thompson has not come with provisions. Their
fur brigade has been driven back. The Piegans are on the ramp, and
there are all sorts of wild rumors about white men--Astor’s voyageurs,
of course--coming through the mountains by way of the Snake Indian’s
territory to “the rivers of the setting sun.”
Up on Canoe River, Thompson and his voyageurs worked
feverishly--building canoes, and getting the fur packs ready against
spring. Toward spring, ten men are sent back with the furs; seven are
to go on with Thompson down Columbia River for the Pacific. Their names
are Bordeaux, Pariel, Coté, Bourland, Gregoire, Charles and Ignace. His
men are on the verge of mutiny from starvation, but provisions come
through from Henry at Howse’s Pass, and when these provisions run out,
Thompson’s party kill all their horses and dogs for food. Very early
in the year, the river is free of ice, for Thompson is in a warmer
region than on the plains, and the canoe is launched down the Columbia
through the Big Bend--a swollen, rolling, milky tide, past what is now
Revelstoke, past Nakusp, through the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes and
what is now known as the Rossland mining region. It is a region of
shadowy moss-grown forests, of hazy summer air resinous with the odor
of pines, of mountains rising sheer on each side in walls with belts of
mist marking the cloud line, the white peaks opal and shimmering and
fading in a cloudland.
Each night careful camping ground was chosen ashore with unblocked
way to the water in case of Piegan attack. July 3rd, Thompson reached
Kettle Falls. For a week he followed the great circular sweep of the
Columbia south through what is now Washington. At Spokane River, at
Okanogan River, near Walla Walla where the Snake comes in, he heard
rumors among the Indians that white men from the East had come to the
sea, whether overland or round the world he could not tell, so on
Tuesday, July 9th, Thompson judges it wise to pre-empt other claimants.
Near Snake River, “I erected a small pole,” he writes, “with a half
sheet of paper tied about it, with these words:
“Know hereby, this country is claimed by Great Britain and the N W
Company from Canada do hereby intend to erect a factory on this place
for the commerce of the country--D. Thompson.”
Broader spread the waters, larger the empire rolling away north and
south as the river swerved straight west. The river, that he had found
up at Blaeberry Creek near Howse’s Pass, was sweeping him to the sea.
This was the river, Gray, the Boston man, had found, and Alexander
MacKenzie had missed when he touched the Fraser. Thompson had now
explored it from source to sea, from the Columbia and Windermere Lakes
north through East Kootenay, south through West Kootenay, south through
Washington, west between Washington and Oregon to the Pacific--a region
in all as large as Germany and France and Spain.
But from Walla Walla to the sea was a dangerous stretch. At the Dalles
camped robber Indians to pillage travelers as they portaged overland.
Thompson kept sleepless vigil all night and by launching out at dawn
before the mountain mists had lifted from the water gave ambushed foes
the slip. Came a wash and a ripple in the current. It was the tide. The
salt water smell set the explorer’s pulses beating. Then the blue line
of the ocean washes the horizon of an opening vista like a swimming
sky. The voyageurs gave a shout and beat the gun’els of the canoe. A
swerve to left--chips floating on the water tell Thompson that Astor’s
men are already here, and there stands the little palisaded post all
raw in its newness with cannons pointing across the river from the fort
gates. Precisely at 1 P. M., Monday, July 15, 1811, Thompson arrives at
Astoria. The Astor men have beaten in the race to the Pacific. Thompson
is just two months too late for the Nor’Westers to claim the mouth of
the Columbia.
Then all his old friends of the Athabasca, McDougall and the Stuarts
and fighting John Clarke--all his old friends but Alex. McKay, who has
been cut to pieces by the Indians in the massacre of “the _Tonquin’s_
crew,” all but McKay and Donald MacKenzie, who has not yet arrived
from overland--rush down to welcome him. The Astorians receive the
Nor’Westers with open arms. It is good fellowship. It is not good
policy. “He had access everywhere,” writes Ross, a clerk in the
employment of Astor. “He saw and examined everything.” He heard how
the overland party of Astor’s men from the Missouri had not yet come.
He probably heard, too, that the crew of the ship _Tonquin_ had been
massacred, and he was not slow to guess that McDougall, head of Astor’s
fort, was homesick for his old Northwest comrades.
Thompson remained only a week. McDougall gave him what provisions were
necessary for the return voyage, and July 22nd he set out to ascend the
Columbia with a party of Astorians bound inland to trade. Bourland, his
voyageur, wanted to stay at Astoria, so Thompson traded his services
to McDougall for one of Astor’s Sandwich Island men. The Astor hunters
struck up Okanogan River to trade. Thompson pushed on up the Columbia
through the Arrow Lakes at feverish pace, noticing with disgust that
the Hudson’s Bay man, Howse, was camping hard on his trail, forming
trading connections with Sarcees and Piegans and Kootenays. Snow comes
early in the mountains. Thompson must succeed in crossing the pass
before winter sets in so that the report of what he learned at Astoria
can be sent down to Fort William in time for the annual meeting of
July, 1812. He pauses only for a night with Harmon and Henry at Rocky
Mountain Pass and curses his stars at more delay caused by the Piegan
raiders, who are keeping his men of the Big Bend at East Kootenay
cooped up in fear of their lives, but he reaches Edmonton in three
months, and is present at the annual meeting of the partners at Fort
William in July, 1812.
This is a fateful year. War is waged between the United States and
Canada. True soldiers of fortune as the Nor’Westers ever were, they
decided to take advantage of that war and capture Astoria. John George
McTavish and Alexander Henry of Howse’s Pass, with Larocque of the
Missouri, are to lead fifty voyageurs overland and down the Columbia
to Astoria, there to camp outside the palisades and parley with Duncan
McDougall. Old Donald McTavish, as gay an old reprobate as ever graced
the fur trade, is to sail with McDonald of Garth, the Highlander of the
Crooked Arm, from London on the Northwest ship, the _Isaac Todd_, under
convoy of the man-of-war, _Raccoon_, to capture Astoria.
Thompson has fulfilled his mission. Though he was late in reaching
the mouth of the Columbia, he has played his fur trade tactics so
skillfully that Astoria will fall to his Company’s hands. The story
of John George McTavish’s voyage from Fort William, Lake Superior to
Astoria, or of old Donald McTavish’s drunken revels round the world
in the _Isaac Todd_, would fill a volume. John George McTavish and
Larocque reached Astoria first, sweeping gaily down the rain-swollen
flood of the Columbia on April 11th in two birch canoes, British flags
flying at the prow, voyageurs singing, Indians agape on the shore in
sheer amaze at these dare-devil fellows, who flitted back and forward
thinking no more of crossing the continent than crossing a river.
[Illustration:
FRASER
to
Tide Water
1808
]
Again McDougall welcomed his rivals in trade, his friends of yore,
with open arms. Had he trained his cannon on them, they had hardly
camped so smugly under his fort walls, nor stalked so surely in and out
of his fort, spreading alarm of the war, threatening what the coming
ships would do, offering service and partnership to any who would
desert Astor’s company for the Northwest. McDougall was tired of his
service with the Astor company. The _Tonquin_ had been lost. No word
yet of the second ship that was to come. The fort was demoralized,
partly with fear, partly with vice. There had been no strong hand to
hold the riotous voyageurs in leash, and loose masters mean loose
men. Now with news of a coming war vessel, all the pot valor of the
drunken garrison evaporated in cowardly desire to capitulate and avoid
bloodshed. The voyageurs were deserting to McTavish. On October 16,
1813, Duncan McDougall sold out Astor’s fort--furs and provisions worth
$100,000--for $40,000.
Four weeks later, on November 15th, came Alexander Henry and David
Thompson to convey the furs overland to Fort William. While the men are
packing the furs, at noon, November 30th, “being about half-tide, a
large ship appeared, standing in over the bar with all sails spread.”
Is it friend or enemy; the British man-of-war, _Raccoon_, or Astor’s
delayed ship? Duncan McDougall goes quakingly out in a small boat to
reconnoiter, to pacify the British if it is a man-of-war, to welcome
the captain if it is Astor’s ship. John George McTavish and Alexander
Henry and David Thompson scuttle upstream to hide ninety-two packs of
furs and all ammunition and provisions and canoes, but game in his
blood like a fighting cock, Henry can’t resist stealing back at night
to see what is going on. There is singing on the water. A canoe is
rocking outrageously. In it is a tipsy man, who shouts the welcome news
that the ship was the man-of-war, _Raccoon_, under Captain Black, and
that all the gentlemen are gloriously drunk. Thompson and Henry and
John George McTavish come downstream to witness, on December 13th, the
ceremony of a bottle of wine cracked on the flagstaff, guns roaring
from fort and ship, the American flag run down, the British flag run
up, and “Astoria” re-named Fort George. From all one can infer from
the old journals, the most of the gentlemen remained “intoxicated”
during the stay of _The Raccoon_. “Famous fellows for grog,” records
Henry. _The Raccoon_ puts to sea New Year’s Day of 1814. David Thompson
has long since left for his posts on the Kootenay, and in April, John
George McTavish conducts a brigade made up of Astor’s men enlisted as
Nor’Westers in ten canoes, seventy-six men in all, with the furs for
Fort William.
Henry stays on with McDougall awaiting the coming of Donald McTavish
on the _Isaac Todd_. The long delayed, storm-battered Northwest ship
comes tottering in on April 23rd with Governor Donald McTavish drunk
as a lord, accompanied by a barmaid, Jane Barnes, to whose charms the
dissipated old man had fallen victim at Portsmouth. Old punk takes fire
easiest. What with rum and Jane Barnes to ply it, Astoria was not a
pretty place for the next few weeks. Masters and men “gave themselves
up to feasting and drinking all the day.” Sometimes in his cups,
McDougall would forget that he had become a Nor’Wester and rising in
his place at the governor’s table would hurrah for the Americans till
the rafters were ringing. Then Henry would overset table and chairs
hiccoughing a challenge to a duel, and the maudlin old governor would
troll off a stave that would turn fighting to singing till daylight
came in at the windows revealing the gentlemen asleep on the floor,
the servants sodden drunk on the sands outside. In May, the weather
clears and my pleasure-loving gentlemen setting such an edifying
example to the benighted heathen around Astoria, must enjoy a sail
across the flooded Columbia. Five voyageurs rig a small boat. In it
step the partners, Donald McTavish and Alexander Henry. A stiff breeze
is blowing, and a heavy sea running; but they must have a sail up. The
boat tilts to the gun’els. A heavy wave struck her and washed over. She
sank at once, carrying all hands down but one voyageur, who was rescued
by the Chinooks. Thus perished Donald McTavish and Alexander Henry.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, what had Simon Fraser accomplished in the North, while
Thompson was exploring the South? Like Thompson, he, too, was ordered
to the mountains in 1805. James McDougall, a Northwest clerk, had
already followed MacKenzie’s footsteps up Peace River across the
mountains to the Forks, when Simon Fraser came on the scene in the fall
of 1805. If Nor’Westers are to pass this way to the Western hunting
ground, first of all there must be a fort at the entrance to the Pass.
Fraser knocks up a cluster of cabins, leaves two clerks and twelve
voyageurs in charge and ascends the south fork--the Parsnip. This was
the stream where MacKenzie had such tremendous difficulties. Fraser
avoids these rapids by going up a western branch of the Parsnip to a
little lake narrow and seventeen miles long, set like an emerald among
the mountains. There on a point of land beside a purling brook, he
built the first fur post west of the Rockies, which he named after the
partner, Archibald Norman McLeod. To this day it stands exactly where
and as Fraser built it. James McDougall and La Malice, a blackguard
half-breed, are left at the fort. Fraser spent three months at the
post in the pass, but McDougall goes westward from Fort McLeod to a
magnificent lake surrounded by forests and mountains. This lake is the
center of the Carrier Indians’ country. To an old Shaman or Medicine
Man, McDougall presents a piece of red cloth, telling him white men
will come to trade in the spring. Blazing initials on the trees, he
takes possession of the country for the Northwest Company. Fraser,
at Peace River Pass, has sent the furs East and been joined by the
wintering partner, Archibald McGillivray, who has come to take charge,
while Fraser explores.
Now it must be kept in mind that Fraser, like MacKenzie, thought the
great river flowing south was the Columbia, and setting out from the
Pass in May with John Stuart as second in command, Fraser follows
the exact trail of MacKenzie--up the Parsnip, down Bad River to the
great unknown river. Sweeping south, they come to a large stream
coming in from the west--the Nechaco. Will that lead to the Pacific?
Fraser ascends it June 11th, only to find that like an endless maze
the Nechaco has another branch, the Stuart. They proceed leisurely,
hunting along shore, blazing a trail through the forests as the canoes
advance, encountering two grizzly bears that pursue the Indian hunter
so furiously they flounder over the hunter’s wife, who has fallen to
the ground flat on her face with fright, tear the man badly and are
only driven off by dogs. It is the end of July before the canoes emerge
from the second branch on a windy lake, surrounded by mountains with
forests to the water’s edge--the lake McDougall had found the preceding
autumn. Carrier Indians tell the legends yet of their tribe’s amazement
that July day to see two huge things float out on the water and come
galloping--galloping (such is the appearance of rows of paddlers at
a distance) across the waves of their lake; but the old Medicine Man
dashes out in a small canoe flourishing his red cloth and welcomes
the white men ashore. To impress the Carrier Indians, the white men
fire a volley that sets echoes rocketing among the peaks; and the
Indians fall prostrate with terror. Fraser allays fear with presents,
and bartering begins on the spot, for the Carriers are clothed in fine
beaver. The white men then clear the ground for a fort. The lake, which
McDougall had found the preceding fall and to which Fraser had now
ascended, was named Stuart after Fraser’s second officer. It was fifty
miles long, dotted with islands, broken by beautiful recesses into the
forests and mountains. East were the snowy summits of the Rockies, west
and north and south, the mighty hills rolling back in endless tiers to
the clouds. Fraser names the region New Caledonia and the fort, St.
James.
For some reason, salmon were tardy coming to Lake Stuart this year.
Fraser’s provisions were exhausted and his men were now dependent on
wild fruit and chance game. Forty-five miles to the south was another
lake also drained by the Nechaco to the great unknown river. To avoid
having so many hungry men in one camp, Fraser at the end of August sent
Stuart and two men southward to this new lake, which Stuart named in
honor of Fraser. Blais remains for the winter with voyageurs at Stuart
Lake. Fraser goes on downstream, and where the Stuart joins the Nechaco
meets John Stuart and hears so favorably of the new lake that the two
pole back and build on Fraser Lake the third fort west of the Rockies.
The winter of 1806-7 was passed collecting furs at these posts; and
the eastern brigade sent to Peace River with the furs carried out a
request from Fraser to the partners of Fort William for more men and
merchandise for farther exploration. Back with the autumn brigade in
answer to his request came Jules Maurice Quesnel and Hugh Faries with
orders for Fraser to push down the unknown river to the Pacific at all
hazards. Where the Nechaco joined the great river, Fraser in the fall
of 1807 built a fourth post--St. George.
Somewhere from the vicinity of this post, at five in the morning toward
the end of May, 1808, Fraser launched four canoes downstream for tide
water, firmly believing he was on the Columbia. With him went Stuart
and Quesnel and nineteen voyageurs. Eighteen miles down came Fort
George cañon with a roar of rapids that swirled one canoe against a
precipice almost wrecking it; then smooth going till night camp, when
all slept with firearms at hand. Next day, the real perils of the
voyage began. Canoes were on the water before the mists had rolled up
the hills and the river had presently contracted to a violent whirlpool
between rock walls--Cottonwood Cañon. Portaging baggage overland,
Fraser ran the lightened canoes safely down. The river passed on the
east was later to be known as Quesnel, famous for its gold fields. At
Soda Creek, those natives, who had opposed MacKenzie, suddenly appeared
along the banks on horseback, and called to Fraser “that the river
below was but a succession of falls and cascades,” which no boats could
pass. An old chief and a slave joined Fraser as guides and soon enough,
the worst predictions were verified. “June 1st, we found the channel
contracted to fifty yards, an immense body of water passing through
the narrow space forming gulfs and cascades and making a tremendous
noise. It was impossible to carry the canoes across land, owing to the
steepness of the hills, and it was resolved to venture them,” writes
Fraser.
“Leaving Mr. Stuart and two men at the lower end of the rapid to watch
the natives, I returned to camp and ordered the five best men into a
canoe lightly loaded, and in a moment it was under way. Passing the
first cascade, she lost her course and was drawn into the eddy where
she was whirled about, the men having no power over her. In this
manner, she flew from one danger to another till the last cascade but
one, where in spite of every effort the whirlpools forced her against
a low rock. The men debarked, saving their lives; but to continue
would be certain destruction. Their situation rendered our approach
perilous. The bank was high and steep. We had to plunge our daggers
into the bank to keep from sliding into the river. We cut steps in the
declivity, fastened a line to the front of the canoe, which the men
hauled up, others supporting it, our lives hanging on a thread, as one
false step would have hurled us all to eternity. We cleared the bank
before dark.”
The amazed Indians made no motion to molest these mad white men, but
tried to explain by signs to Fraser that another great river (the
Columbia) led by smooth water to the sea. But Fraser thought he _was_
on the Columbia; and “going to the sea by an indirect way was not the
object of the undertaking; I therefore continued our route.”
Nevertheless, the Indians were right. The river grew worse and worse.
Fraser bought four horses from them and went on, half the men along
the shore, half in the canoes. The task of bringing the baggage
overland “was as difficult as going by water. We were obliged to pass a
declivity, the border of a huge precipice, where the loose gravel slid
under our feet. One man with a large pack on his back got so entangled
on the rocks he could move neither forward nor backward. I crawled out
to the edge and saved his life by dropping his load over the precipice
into the river. This carrying place, two miles long, shattered our
shoes so that our feet were covered with blisters. A pair of shoes”
(moccasins) “does not last a day.”
The river grew worse and worse. On the 9th of June “the river contracts
to forty yards, enclosed by two precipices of immense height narrower
above than below. The water rolls down in tumultuous waves with great
velocity. It was impossible to carry canoes by land, so all hands
without hesitation embarked as it were _a corps perdu_ upon the mercy
of this awful tide. Once in, the die was cast. Our great difficulty was
in keeping the canoes clear of the precipice on one side and the gulfs
formed by the waves on the other. 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 at our escape.”
Again the Indians waited at the end of the rapids and again they drew
maps on Fraser’s oilcloth coverings for baggage, showing which way the
river flowed and that canoes could not pass down. The 10th of June,
Fraser places his canoes on a shaded scaffolding where the gummed seams
will not be melted and hides his baggage in a _cache_. At five A. M. on
the 11th, all the crews set out on foot, each man carrying a pack of
eighty pounds. Fraser is now between Lillooet and Thompson River, or
where the passing traveler can to-day see the old Caribou trail from
Lytton to Ashcroft clinging to the mountain like basketwork stuck on a
huge wall. The river becomes calmer, and on the fifteenth Fraser buys a
canoe from the Chilcotins, which Stuart and two voyageurs pilot, while
the rest of the men walk along the banks.
June 20th, a great river comes in on the east. Knowing that Thompson is
somewhere exploring these same mountains to the south, Fraser names the
river after his friend of the Kootenay. At the Thompson, all hands once
more embark in the canoes. A canoe goes to smash in what is now known
as Fraser Cañon, but no lives are lost; so above modern Yale it is
deemed safer to portage past the worst places. The portage is almost as
dangerous as the rapids, for where the rock is sheer wall, the Indians
have made rope ladders across chasms “or hung twigs across poles,” the
ends fastened from precipice to precipice, and across these swaying
gangways the voyageurs had to carry canoe and packs. That night, June
26th, camp was made at Spuzzum.
The river now swerved directly west. Fraser knew where the Columbia
turned west was south of the Boundary. There was only one
conclusion--_this was not the Columbia_. He had been exploring a new
river. It was the wildly magnificent stream now called after Fraser.
The coast Indians were always notoriously hostile. The mountain tribes
warned Fraser not to go on. Mount Baker loomed south an opal fire, and
on the river near what is now New Westminster Fraser saw the ripple
of the tide. Where the river divided into two channels, armed Indians
pursued in their canoes “singing war songs, beating time with paddles,
howling like so many wolves,” flourishing spears. A few hours would
have carried Fraser to the sea; but these warriors barred the way. He
had fulfilled his order. He had followed the unknown river to tide
water. On the 3rd of July, Fraser turned back up the river. The coast
Indians pursued, pillaging packs when the white men camped, threatening
violence when the voyageurs embarked. Two warriors feigned friendship
and asked passage in Fraser’s canoe. Thinking their presence might
afford protection, Fraser took them on board. No sooner was the canoe
afloat pursued by a flotilla of Indian warriors than the two struck up
a war song. One was caught in the act of stealing a voyageur’s dagger.
Fraser hurriedly put the traitor ashore; but that night, July 6th,
hostile Indians were swarming like hornets round the camp and every
man kept guard with back to tree and musket in hand. The voyageurs
became panicky. They were for throwing their provisions to the winds
and scattering in the forest. Fraser listened to the mutiny without
word of reproach, showed the men how desertion would be certain death
and how they might escape by keeping together. Then he shook hands all
round, and each voyageur took oath “to perish sooner than forsake the
crew.” Fear put speed into the paddles. They decamped from that place
“singing” to keep the men’s spirits up, and the hostiles were left
far behind. Fraser had been forty days going downstream. He was only
thirty-three going up to Fort George.
In thirty years “the Pedlars”--as the English called the
Nor’Westers--had explored from Lake Superior to the Pacific, from the
Missouri to the Arctic.
_Notes to Chapters XXIII, XXIV, XXV._--Details of the advance up
the Saskatchewan are to be found in Alexander Henry’s Journals, in
Harmon’s Journals, and in those fur trade journals of the Masson
Collection. Of unpublished data I find the most about the Saskatchewan
and Athabasca in Colin Robertson’s letters, of which only two copies
exist--the original in H. B. C. Archives, a transcript which I made
from them.
* * * * *
About Chippewyan--for which there are as many spellings as there are
writers--Pond built the first fort thirty miles south of the lake on
what he called Elk River; Roderick MacKenzie built the next fort on
the south side of the lake. In the 1800’s this was abandoned for a
post on the north side.
* * * * *
About Slave Lake--it is named after the Slave Indians, who were called
“Slaves,” not because they were slaves, but because they had been
driven from their territory of the South.
* * * * *
MacKenzie’s Voyage, I have told fully in “Pathfinders of the West.”
The authority for that volume is to be found in MacKenzie’s Journals,
and in MacKenzie’s letter to his cousin, Roderick. Norman McLeod, the
clerk under MacKenzie, became the aggressive partner of a later day.
* * * * *
The dates of Thompson’s service with the H. B. C. are variously given.
I do not find him in H. B. C. books after 1789, and rather suspect
that he wintered with Alexander MacKenzie as well as Rory before the
former went to the Pacific; but I left this unsaid. It is well to
note that Howse did as great service as an explorer as Thompson, but
Thompson’s services became known to the world. Howse’s work passed
unnoticed, owing to the policy of secrecy followed by the H. B. C.
Father Morice’s “History of Northern B. C.” traces MacKenzie’s course
very clearly.
In H. B. C. Archives of 1804 is Duncan McGillivray’s letter to the
English company proposing division of the hunting field, the H. B. C.
to keep the bay, the Nor’Westers to have inland--which was very much
like the boy’s division of the apple when he offered the other boy the
core.
* * * * *
November 16, 1808, Minutes record £800 of stock transferred to Sir
Alexander MacKenzie, £742-10--to Earl of Selkirk. This marks as far as
I could find the beginning of the end. Selkirk’s visit to Canada was
in 1803. His observations will be found in his book on “Sketch of the
British Fur Trade,” 1815, pp. 38-52. The Minutes of H. B. C., 1804,
order suit against John Richards, “late commander for the Co’y,” for
entering H. B. in the month of August in the _Eddystone_, and erecting
a fort at “Charlton Island and leaving men with goods for trade.”
* * * * *
Details of clashes between 1800 and 1810 will be found in the court
records and Canadian Archives.
* * * * *
I have given the explorations of Thompson in great detail because it
has never before been done, and it seems to me is very essential to
the exploration period of the West. Thompson’s MS. is in the Parl.
Building, Toronto, Ontario. The Ontario Boundaries Report gives
brief account of his Eastern explorations. Henry’s Journal, Harmon’s
Journal, Ross, Cox, Franchere of the Astor expedition give in their
journals his movements in the West. Fraser’s voyage is to be found
in his own MS. Masson Collection. It ought not to be necessary to
say here that I know both regions traversed by Thompson well, very
well, from personal travel. Nor ought it to be necessary to forewarn
that Thompson’s Journals do not use the same names as apply to modern
regions. To avoid confusion, I have used in every case possible,
_only_ the modern names. The men who went with Thompson to the Mandane
country were--Rene Jussuame, Boisseau, McCracken, Hoole, Gilbert,
Mimie, Perrault, Vaudriel. Who the H. B. C. men were who had been on
the Missouri before Thompson, I could not find out. Whoever they were,
they preceded Lewis and Clarke on the Missouri by ten years. That
is worth remembering, when the H. B. C. is accused of being torpid.
Thompson never received any recognition whatever for explorations
that far exceeded Alexander Mackenzie’s. He died unknown in Longeuil,
opposite Montreal, in 1857.
The H. B. C. Minutes of 1805 record that “Mad McKay” (Donald) cannot
procure a man in the Orkneys. They also record that the copper brought
by Hearne from the North, was given to the British Museum.
I regret space forbids quoting the Minutes on the Louisiana Boundary.
1808, Peter Fidler is paid £25 bonus, which he surely had won.
Morice says the Indians of Stuart Lake are called “Carriers” from
their habit of burning the dead and carrying the ashes.
It may be explained that Mt. Thompson of the Howse Pass region was
not named after the explorer, but after a Mr. Thompson of Chicago,
who with Mr. Wilcox and Professor Fay and Professor Parker of the
U. S. and Mr. Stutfield and Professor Collie and Rev. James Outram,
London, explored all this region from 1900 to 1904. I was in the
mountains at the time this was done and attempted to go up Bow River,
but in those days there was no trail. We were late going up the river
and were stopped by the early autumn rains, just beyond Mt. Hector.
On a previous occasion, when I was in the mountains, I happened to
be delayed at Kootenay Lake for two days. Mr. Mara, who was then
president of the Navigation Co., offered me the opportunity to go
down on one of his steamers to this very region of Idaho, past the
reclamation workers attempting the impossible task of draining the
floods of Kootenay Lake. In Thompson’s trip from Canoe River, in 1811,
to Astoria are some discrepancies I cannot explain, and I beg to
state them; otherwise I shall be charged with them. Thompson says he
left Canoe River in January. That is a very early date to navigate a
mountain river, even though there is no ice. Snow swells the streams
to a torrent. Pass that: His journal shows that he did not reach
Astoria till July--nearly seven months on a voyage that was usually
accomplished in forty or at most sixty days. He may, of course,
have been hunting and caching furs on the way, or he may have been
exploring east and west as he went on. The reliability of Thompson’s
Journal is beyond cavil. I merely draw attention to the time taken on
this voyage. In the text I “dodge” the difficulty by saying Thompson
set out “toward spring.” For his exploration, Fraser was offered
knighthood, but declined the honor on the plea that it would entail
expense that he could not afford.