Arrival at the Fort of the Mountains.--Description of this
Post.--Some Details in Regard to the Rocky Mountains.--Mountain
Sheep, &c.--Continuation of the Journey.--Unhappy
Accident.--Reflections.--News from Canada.--Hunter's
Lodge.--Pembina and Red Deer Rivers.
On the 19th we raised our camp and followed the shore of the little dry
lake, along a smooth sandy beach, having abandoned our little bark
canoe, both because it had become nearly unserviceable, and because we
knew ourselves to be very near the Rocky Mountains House. In fact, we
had not gone above five or six miles when we discerned a column of smoke
on the opposite side of the stream. We immediately forded across, and
arrived at the post, where we found Messrs. M'Donald, Stuart, and
M'Kenzie, who had preceded us only two days.
The post of the Rocky Mountains, in English, _Rocky Mountains House_, is
situated on the shore of the little lake I have mentioned, in the midst
of a wood, and is surrounded, except on the water side, by steep rocks,
inhabited only by the mountain sheep and goat. Here is seen in the west
the chain of the Rocky Mountains, whose summits are covered with
perpetual snow. On the lake side, _Millet's Rock_, of which I have
spoken above, is in full view, of an immense height, and resembles the
front of a huge church seen in perspective. The post was under the
charge of a Mr. Decoigne. He does not procure many furs for the company,
which has only established the house as a provision depôt, with the view
of facilitating the passage of the mountains to those of its _employés_
who are repairing to, or returning from, the Columbia.
People speak so often of the Rocky Mountains, and appear to know so
little about them, that the reader will naturally desire me to say here
a word on that subject. If we are to credit travellers, and the most
recent maps, these mountains extend nearly in a straight line, from the
35th or 36th degree of north latitude, to the mouth of the _Unjighah_,
or _M'Kenzie's river_, in the Arctic ocean, in latitude 65° or 66° N.
This distance of thirty degrees of latitude, or seven hundred and fifty
leagues, equivalent to two thousand two hundred and fifty English miles
or thereabouts, is, however, only the mean side of a right-angled
triangle, the base of which occupies twenty-six degrees of longitude, in
latitude 35° or 36°, that is to say, is about sixteen hundred miles
long, while the chain of mountains forms the _hypotenuse_; so that the
real, and as it were diagonal, length of the chain, across the
continent, must be very near three thousand miles from S.E. to N.W. In
such a vast extent of mountains, the perpendicular height and width of
base must necessarily be very unequal. We were about eight days in
crossing them; whence I conclude, from our daily rate of travel, that
they may have, at this point, i.e., about latitude 54°, a base of two
hundred miles.
The geographer Pinkerton is assuredly mistaken, when he gives these
mountains an elevation of but three thousand feet above the level of the
sea; from my own observations I would not hesitate to give them six
thousand; we attained, in crossing them, an elevation probably of
fifteen hundred feet above the valleys, and were not, perhaps, nearer
than half way of their total height, while the valleys themselves must
be considerably elevated above the level of the Pacific, considering the
prodigious number of rapids and falls which are met in the Columbia,
from the first falls to Canoe river. Be that as it may, if these
mountains yield to the Andes in elevation and extent, they very much
surpass in both respects the Apalachian chain, regarded until recently
as the principal mountains of North America: they give rise,
accordingly, to an infinity of streams, and to the greatest rivers of
the continent.[AF]
[Footnote AF: This is interesting, as the rough calculation of an
unscientific traveller, unprovided with instruments, and at that date.
The real height of the Rocky Mountains, as now ascertained, averages
twelve thousand feet; the highest known peak is about sixteen
thousand.--ED.]
They offer a vast and unexplored field to natural history: no botanist,
no mineralogist, has yet examined them. The first travellers called them
the Glittering mountains, on account of the infinite number of immense
rock crystals, which, they say, cover their surface, and which, when
they are not covered with snow, or in the bare places, reflect to an
immense distance the rays of the sun. The name of Rocky mountains was
given them, probably, by later travellers, in consequence of the
enormous isolated rocks which they offer here and there to the view. In
fact, Millet's rock, and _M'Gillivray's_ above all, appeared to me
wonders of nature. Some think that they contain metals, and precious
stones.
With the exception of the mountain sheep and goat, the animals of the
Rocky mountains, if these rocky passes support any, are not better known
than their vegetable and mineral productions. The mountain sheep resorts
generally to steep rocks, where it is impossible for men or even for
wolves to reach them: we saw several on the rocks which surround the
Mountain House. This animal has great curved horns, like those of the
domestic ram: its wool is long, but coarse; that on the belly is the
finest and whitest. The Indians who dwell near the mountains, make
blankets of it, similar to ours, which they exchange with the Indians of
the Columbia for fish, and other commodities. The ibex, or mountain
goat, frequents, like the sheep, the top and the declivities of the
rocks: it differs from the sheep in having hair instead of wool, and
straight horns projecting backward, instead of curved ones. The color is
also different. The natives soften the horns of these animals by
boiling, and make platters, spoons, &c., of them, in a very artistic
manner.
Mr. Decoigne had not sufficient food for us, not having expected so many
people to arrive at once. His hunters were then absent on _Smoke_ river
(so called by some travellers who saw in the neighborhood a volcanic
mountain belching smoke), in quest of game. We were therefore compelled
to kill one of the horses for food. We found no birch bark either to
make canoes, and set the men to work in constructing some of wood. For
want of better materials, we were obliged to use poplar. On the 22d, the
three men whom we had left at the old-house, arrived in a little canoe
made of two elk-skins sewed together, and stretched like a drum, on a
frame of poles.
On the 24th, four canoes being ready, we fastened them together two and
two, and embarked, to descend the river to an old post called _Hunter's
Lodge_, where Mr. Decoigne, who was to return with us to Canada,
informed us that we should find some bark canoes _en cache_, placed
there for the use of the persons who descend the river. The water was
not deep, and the stream was rapid; we glided along, so to speak, for
ten or a dozen leagues, and encamped, having lost sight of the
mountains. In proportion as we advanced, the banks of the river grew
less steep, and the country became more agreeable.
On the 25th, having only a little _pemican_ left, which we wished to
keep, we sent forward a hunter in the little elk-skin canoe, to kill
some game. About ten o'clock, we found him waiting for us with two
moose that he had killed. He had suspended the hearts from the branch of
a tree as a signal. We landed some men to help him in cutting up and
shipping the game. We continued to glide safely down. But toward two
o'clock, P.M., after doubling a point, we got into a considerable rapid,
where, by the maladroitness of those who managed the double pirogue in
which I was, we met with a melancholy accident. I had proposed to go
ashore, in order to lighten the canoes, which were loaded to the water's
edge; but the steersman insisted that we could go down safe, while the
bow-man was turning the head of the pirogue toward the beach; by this
manoeuvre we were brought athwart the stream, which was carrying us fast
toward the falls; just then our frail bark struck upon a sunken rock;
the lower canoe broke amid-ships and filled instantly, and the upper one
being lighted, rolled over, precipitating us all into the water. Two of
our men, Olivier Roy Lapensée and André Bélanger, were drowned; and it
was not without extreme difficulty that we succeeded in saving Messrs.
Pillet and Wallace, as well as a man named _J. Hurteau_. The latter was
so far gone that we were obliged to have recourse to the usual means for
the resuscitation of drowned persons. The men lost all their effects;
the others recovered but a part of theirs; and all our provisions went.
Toward evening, in ascending the river (for I had gone about two miles
below, to recover the effects floating down), we found the body of
Lapensée. We interred it as decently as we could, and planted at his
grave a cross, on which I inscribed with the point of my knife, his name
and the manner and date of his death. Bélanger's body was not found. If
anything could console the shades of the departed for a premature and
unfortunate end, it would be, no doubt, that the funeral rites have been
paid to their remains, and that they themselves have given their names
to the places where they perished: it is thus that the shade of
Palinurus rejoiced in the regions below, at learning from the mouth of
the Sibyl, that the promontory near which he was drowned would
henceforth be called by his name: _gaudet cognomine terra_. The rapid
and the point of land where the accident I have described took place,
will bear, and bears already, probably, the name of _Lapensée_.[AG]
[Footnote AG: Mr. Franchere, not having the fear of the _Abbé Gaume_
before his eyes, so wrote in his Journal of 1814; finding consolation in
a thought savoring, we confess, more of Virgil than of the catechism. It
is a classic term that calls to our mind rough Captain _Thorn's_
sailor-like contempt for his literary passengers so comically described
by Mr. _Irving_. Half of the humor as well as of the real interest of
Mr. Franchere's charming narrative, is lost by one who has never read
"Astoria."]
On the 26th, a part of our people embarked in the three canoes which
remained, and the others followed the banks of the river on foot. We saw
in several places some veins of bituminous coal, on the banks between
the surface of the water and that of the plain, say thirty feet below
the latter; the veins had a dip of about 25°. We tried some and found it
to burn well. We halted in the evening near a small stream, where we
constructed some rafts, to carry all our people.
On the 27th, I went forward in the little canoe of skins, with the two
hunters. We soon killed an elk, which we skinned and suspended the hide,
besmeared with blood, from the branch of a tree at the extremity of a
point, in order that the people behind, as they came up, might perceive
and take in the fruit of our chase. After fortifying ourselves with a
little food, we continued to glide down, and encamped for the night near
a thick wood where our hunters, from the tracks they observed, had hopes
of encountering and capturing some bears. This hope was not realized.
On the 28th, a little after quitting camp, we killed a swan. While I was
busy cooking it, the hunters having plunged into the wood, I heard a
rifle-shot, which seemed to me to proceed from a direction opposite to
that which they had taken. They returned very soon running, and were
extremely surprised to learn that it was not I who had fired it.
Nevertheless, the canoes and rafts having overtaken us, we continued to
descend the river. Very soon we met a bark canoe, containing two men and
a woman, who were ascending the river and bringing letters and some
goods for the _Rocky Mountains House_. We learned from these letters
addressed to Mr. Decoigne, several circumstances of the war, and among
others the defeat of Captain Barclay on Lake Erie. We arrived that
evening at _Hunter's Lodge_, where we found four new birch-bark canoes.
We got ready two of them, and resumed our journey down, on the 31st. Mr.
Pillet set out before us with the hunters, at a very early hour. They
killed an elk, which they left on a point, and which we took in. The
country through which we passed that day is the most charming possible;
the river is wide, handsome, and bordered with low outjutting points,
covered with birch and poplar.
On the 1st of June, in the evening, we encamped at the confluence of the
river _Pembina_. This stream comes from the south, and takes its rise in
one of the spurs of the great chain of the Rocky mountains; ascending it
for two days, and crossing a neck of land about seventy-five miles, one
reaches Fort Augustus, a trading post on the _Saskatchawine_ river.
Messrs. M'Donald and M'Kenzie had taken this route, and had left for us
half a sack of pemican in a _cache_, at the mouth of the river
_Pembina_. After landing that evening, Mr. Stuart and I amused ourselves
with angling, but took only five or six small fish.
On the 2d, we passed the confluence of _Little Slave Lake_ river. At
eight o'clock in the morning, we met a band or family of Indians, of the
_Knisteneaux_ tribe. They had just killed a buffalo, which we bought of
them for a small brass-kettle. We could not have had a more seasonable
_rencontre_, for our provisions were all consumed.
On the 3d, we reached _Little Red Elk_ river, which we began to ascend,
quitting the _Athabasca_, or _Great Red Elk_. This stream was very
narrow in its channel, and obstructed with boulders: we were obliged to
take to the shore, while some of the men dragged along the canoes. Their
method was to lash poles across, and wading themselves, lift the canoes
over the rocks--a laborious and infinitely tedious operation. The march
along the banks was not less disagreeable: for we had to traverse points
of forest where the fire had passed, and which were filled with fallen
trees.
Wallace and I having stopped to quench our thirst at a rill, the rest
got in advance of us; and we lost our way in a labyrinth of buffalo
tracks which we mistook for the trail, so that we wandered about for
three hours before we came up with the party, who began to fear for our
safety, and were firing signal-guns to direct us. As the river now grew
deeper, we all embarked in the canoes, and about evening overtook our
hunters, who had killed a moose and her two calves.
We continued our journey on the 4th, sometimes seated in our canoes,
sometimes marching along the river on foot, and encamped in the evening,
excessively fatigued.