CHAPTER XXV

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.

Letus 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 preparedin 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 wereto 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 fieldsof 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 theSt.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 thawhas 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 guessthis 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—andDuncan 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 hemust, 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 thefur 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 OkanoganRiver, 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 dangerousstretch. 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 “theTonquin’screw,” 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 shipTonquinhad 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 anight 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, theIsaac 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 DonaldMcTavish’s drunken revels round the world in theIsaac 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.

FRASER to Tide Water 1808Clickherefor larger map

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. TheTonquinhad 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 October16, 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 flagrun 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 ofThe Raccoon. “Famous fellows for grog,” records Henry.The Raccoonputs 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 theIsaac 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 wouldtroll 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 knocksup 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 southwas 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 setsechoes 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 poleback 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 ranthe 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 becertain 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 hewason 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 precipiceinto 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 werea corps perduupon 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 acache. At fiveA. M.on the 11th, all the crews set out on foot, eachman 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 ofthe 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 swarminglike 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 theEddystone, 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 necessaryto 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,onlythe 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 sixtydays. 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.

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 theEddystone, 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 necessaryto 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,onlythe 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 sixtydays. 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.

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