Departure from Astoria or Fort George.—Accident.—Passage of the Dalles or Narrows.—Great Columbian Desert.—Aspect of the Country.—Wallawalla and Shaptin Rivers.—Rattlesnakes.—Some Details regarding the Natives of the Upper Columbia.
We quitted Fort George (or Astoria, if you please) on Monday morning, the 4th of April, 1814, in ten canoes, five of which were of bark and five of cedar wood, carrying each seven men as crew, and two passengers, in all ninety persons, and all well armed. Messrs. J.G. M'Tavish, D. Stuart, J. Clarke, B. Pillet, W. Wallace, D. M'Gillis, D. M'Kenzie, &c., were of the party. Nothing remarkable occurred to us as far as the first falls, which we reached on the 10th. The portage was effected immediately, and we encamped on an island for the night. Our numbers had caused the greater part of the natives to take to flight, and those who remained in the villages showed the most pacific dispositions. They sold us four horses and thirty dogs, which were immediately slaughtered for food.
We resumed our route on the 11th, at an early hour. The wind was favorable, but blew with violence. Toward evening, the canoe in which Mr. M'Tavish was, in doubling a point of rock, was run under by its press of sail, and sunk. Happily the river was not deep at this place; no one was drowned; and we succeeded in saving all the goods. This accident compelled us to camp at an early hour.
On the 12th, we arrived at a rapid called the Dalles: this is a channel cut by nature through the rocks, which are here almost perpendicular: the channel is from 150 to 300 feet wide, and about two miles long. The whole body of the river rushes through it, with great violence, and renders navigation impracticable. The portage occupied us till dusk. Although we had not seen a single Indian in the course of the day, we kept sentinels on duty all night: for it was here that Messrs. Stuart and Reed were attacked by the natives.
On the 13th, we made two more portages, and met Indians, of whom we purchased horses and wood. We camped early on a sandy plain, where we passed a bad night; the wind, which blew violently, raised clouds of sand, which incommoded us greatly, and spoiled every mouthful of food we took.
On the 14th and 15th, we passed what are called the Great Plains of the Columbia. From the top of the first rapid to this point, the aspect of the country becomes more and more triste and disagreeable; one meets at first nothing but bare hills, which scarcely offer a few isolated pines, at a great distance from each other; after that, the earth, stripped of verdure, does not afford you the sight of a single shrub; the little grass which grows in that arid soil, appears burnt by the rigor of the climate. The natives who frequent the banks of the river, for the salmon fishery, have no other wood but that which they take floating down. We passed several rapids, and a small stream called Utalah, which flows from the southeast.
On the 16th, we found the river narrowed; the banks rose on either side in elevations, without, however, offering a single tree. We reached the river Wallawalla, which empties into the Columbia on the southeast. It is narrow at its confluence, and is not navigable for any great distance. A range of mountains was visible to the S.E., about fifty or sixty miles off. Behind these mountains the country becomes again flat and sandy, and is inhabited by a tribe called the Snakes. We found on the left bank of the Wallawalla, an encampment of Indians, consisting of about twenty lodges. They sold us six dogs and eight horses, the greater part extremely lean. We killed two of the horses immediately: I mounted one of the six that remained; Mr. Ross took another; and we drove the other four before us. Toward the decline of day we passed the river Lewis, called, in the language of the country, the Sha-ap-tin. It comes from the S.E., and is the same that Lewis and Clarke descended in 1805. The Sha-ap-tin appeared to me to have little depth, and to be about 300 yards wide, at its confluence.
The country through which we were now passing, was a mingling of hills, steep rocks, and valleys covered with wormwood; the stems of which shrub are nearly six inches thick, and might serve for fuel. We killed six rattlesnakes on the 15th, and on the 16th saw a great many more among the rocks. These dangerous reptiles appeared to be very numerous in this part of the country. The plains are also inhabited by a little quadruped, only about eight or nine inches in length, and approaching the dog in form. These animals have the hair, or poil, of a reddish brown, and strong fore-paws, armed with long claws which serve them to dig out their holes under the earth. They have a great deal of curiosity: as soon as they hear a noise they come out of their holes and bark. They are not vicious, but, though easily tamed, can not be domesticated.
The natives of the upper Columbia, beginning at the falls, differ essentially in language, manners, and habits, from those of whom I have spoken in the preceding chapters. They do not dwell in villages, like the latter, but are nomads, like the Tartars and the Arabs of the desert: their women are more industrious, and the young girls more reserved and chaste than those of the populations lower down. They do not go naked, but both sexes wear habits made of dressed deer-skin, which they take care to rub with chalk, to keep them clean and white. They are almost always seen on horseback, and are in general good riders; they pursue the deer and penetrate even to Missouri, to kill buffalo, the flesh of which they dry, and bring it back on their horses, to make their principal food during the winter. These expeditions are not free from danger; for they have a great deal to apprehend from the Black-feet, who are their enemies. As this last tribe is powerful and ferocious, the Snakes, the Pierced-noses or Sha-ap-tins, the Flatheads, &c., make common cause against them, when the former go to hunt east of the mountains. They set out with their families, and the cavalcade often numbers two thousand horses. When they have the good fortune not to encounter the enemy, they return with the spoils of an abundant chase; they load a part of their horses with the hides and beef, and return home to pass the winter in peace. Sometimes, on the contrary, they are so harassed by the Blackfeet, who surprise them in the night and carry off their horses, that they are forced to return light-handed, and then they have nothing to eat but roots, all the winter.
These Indians are passionately fond of horseraces: by the bets they make on these occasions they sometimes lose all that they possess. The women ride, as well as the men. For a bridle they use a cord of horse-hair, which they attach round the animal's mouth; with that he is easily checked, and by laying the hand on his neck, is made to wheel to this side or that. The saddle is a cushion of stuffed deer-skin, very suitable for the purpose to which it is destined, rarely hurting the horse, and not fatiguing the rider so much as our European saddles. The stirrups are pieces of hard wood, ingeniously wrought, and of the same shape as those which are used in civilized countries. They are covered with a piece of deer-skin, which is sewed on wet, and in drying stiffens and becomes hard and firm. The saddles for women differ in form, being furnished with the antlers of a deer, so as to resemble the high pommelled saddle of the Mexican ladies.
They procure their horses from the herds of these animals which are found in a wild state in the country extending between the northern latitudes and the gulf of Mexico, and which sometimes count a thousand or fifteen hundred in a troop. These horses come from New Mexico, and are of Spanish race. We even saw some which had been marked with a hot iron by Spaniards. Some of our men, who had been at the south, told me that they had seen among the Indians, bridles, the bits of which were of silver. The form of the saddles used by the females, proves that they have taken their pattern from the Spanish ones destined for the same use. One of the partners of the N.W. Company (Mr. M'Tavish) assured us that he had seen among the Spokans, an old woman who told him that she had seen men ploughing the earth; she told him that she had also seen churches, which she made him understand by imitating the sound of a bell and the action of pulling a bell-rope; and further to confirm her account, made the sign of the cross. That gentleman concluded that she had been made prisoner and sold to the Spaniards on the Del Norte; but I think it more probable it was nearer, in North California, at the mission of San Carlos or San Francisco.
As the manner of taking wild horses should not be generally known to my readers, I will relate it here in few words. The Indian who wishes to capture some horses, mounts one of his fleetest coursers, being armed with a long cord of horsehair, one end of which is attached to his saddle, and the other is a running noose. Arrived at the herd, he dashes into the midst of it, and flinging his cord, or lasso, passes it dexterously over the head of the animal he selects; then wheeling his courser, draws the cord after him; the wild horse, finding itself strangling, makes little resistance; the Indian then approaches, ties his fore and hind legs together, and leaves him till he has taken in this manner as many as he can. He then drives them home before him, and breaks them in at leisure.
CHAPTER XXII.
Meeting with the Widow of a Hunter.—Her Narrative.—Reflections of the Author.—Priest's Rapid.—River Okenakan.—Kettle Falls.—Pine Moss.—Scarcity of Food.—Rivers, Lakes, &c.—Accident.—A Rencontre.—First View of the Rocky Mountains.
On the 17th, the fatigue I had experienced the day before, on horseback, obliged me to re-embark in my canoe. About eight o'clock, we passed a little river flowing from the N.W. We perceived, soon after, three canoes, the persons in which were struggling with their paddles to overtake us. As we were still pursuing our way, we heard a child's voice cry out in French—"arrêtez donc, arrêtez donc"—(stop! stop!). We put ashore, and the canoes having joined us, we perceived in one of them the wife and children of a man named Pierre Dorion, a hunter, who had been sent on with a party of eight, under the command of Mr. J. Reed, among the Snakes, to join there the hunters left by Messrs. Hunt and Crooks, near Fort Henry, and to secure horses and provisions for our journey. This woman informed us, to our no small dismay, of the tragical fate of all those who composed that party. She told us that in the month of January, the hunters being dispersed here and there, setting their traps for the beaver, Jacob Regner, Gilles Leclerc, and Pierre Dorion, her husband, had been attacked by the natives. Leclerc, having been mortally wounded, reached her tent or hut, where he expired in a few minutes, after having announced to her that her husband had been killed. She immediately took two horses that were near the lodge, mounted her two boys upon them, and fled in all haste to the wintering house of Mr. Reed, which was about five days' march from the spot where her husband fell. Her horror and disappointment were extreme, when she found the house—a log cabin—deserted, and on drawing nearer, was soon convinced, by the traces of blood, that Mr. Reed also had been murdered. No time was to be lost in lamentations, and she had immediately fled toward the mountains south of the Wallawalla, where, being impeded by the depth of the snow, she was forced to winter, having killed both the horses to subsist herself and her children. But at last, finding herself out of provisions, and the snow beginning to melt, she had crossed the mountains with her boys, hoping to find some more humane Indians, who would let her live among them till the boats from the fort below should be ascending the river in the spring, and so reached the banks of the Columbia, by the Wallawalla. Here, indeed, the natives had received her with much hospitality, and it was the Indians of Wallawalla who brought her to us. We made them some presents to repay their care and pains, and they returned well satisfied.
The persons who lost their lives in this unfortunate wintering party, were Mr. John Reed, (clerk), Jacob Regner, John Hubbough, Pierre Dorion (hunters), Gilles Leclerc, François Landry, J.B. Turcotte, André la Chapelle and Pierre De Launay, (voyageurs).[AB] We had no doubt that this massacre was an act of vengeance, on the part of the natives, in retaliation for the death of one of their people, whom Mr. John Clark had hanged for theft the spring before. This fact, the massacre on the Tonquin, the unhappy end of Captain Cook, and many other similar examples, prove how carefully the Europeans, who have relations with a barbarous people, should abstain from acting in regard to them on the footing of too marked an inequality, and especially from punishing their offences according to usages and codes, in which there is too often an enormous disproportion between the crime and the punishment. If these pretended exemplary punishments seem to have a good effect at first sight, they almost always produce terrible consequences in the sequel.
On the 18th, we passed Priest's Rapid, so named by Mr. Stuart and his people, who saw at this spot, in 1811, as they were ascending the river, a number of savages, one of whom was performing on the rest certain aspersions and other ceremonies, which had the air of being coarse imitations of the Catholic worship. For our part, we met here some Indians of whom we bought two horses. The banks of the river at this place are tolerably high, but the country back of them is flat and uninteresting.
On the 20th, we arrived at a place where the bed of the river is extremely contracted, and where we were obliged to make a portage. Messrs. J. Stuart and Clarke left us here, to proceed on horseback to the Spokan trading house, to procure there the provisions which would be necessary for us, in order to push on to the mountains.
On the 21st, we lightened of their cargoes, three canoes, in which those who were to cross the continent embarked, to get on with greater speed. We passed several rapids, and began to see mountains covered with snow.
On the 22d, we began to see some pines on the ridge of the neighboring hills; and at evening we encamped under trees, a thing which had not happened to us since the 12th.
On the 23d, toward 9, A.M., we reached the trading post established by D. Stuart, at the mouth of the river Okenakan. The spot appeared to us charming, in comparison with the country through which we had journeyed for twelve days past: the two rivers here meeting, and the immense prairies covered with a fine verdure, strike agreeably the eye of the observer; but there is not a tree or a shrub to diversify the scene, and render it a little less naked and less monotonous. We found here Messrs. J. M'Gillivray and Ross, and Mr. O. de Montigny, who had taken service with the N.W. Company, and who charged me with a letter for his brother.
Toward midday we re-embarked, to continue our journey. After having passed several dangerous rapids without accident, always through a country broken by shelving rocks, diversified with hills and verdant prairies, we arrived, on the 29th, at the portage of the Chaudieres or Kettle falls. This is a fall where the water precipitates itself over an immense rock of white marble, veined with red and green, that traverses the bed of the river from N.W. to S.E. We effected the portage immediately, and encamped on the edge of a charming prairie.
We found at this place some Indians who had been fasting, they assured us, for several days. They appeared, in fact, reduced to the most pitiable state, having nothing left but skin and bones, and scarcely able to drag themselves along, so that not without difficulty could they even reach the margin of the river, to get a little water to wet their parched lips. It is a thing that often happens to these poor people, when their chase has not been productive; their principal nourishment consisting, in that case, of the pine moss, which they boil till it is reduced to a sort of glue or black paste, of a sufficient consistence to take the form of biscuit. I had the curiosity to taste this bread, and I thought I had got in my mouth a bit of soap. Yet some of our people, who had been reduced to eat this glue, assured me that when fresh made it had a very good taste, seasoned with meat.[AC] We partly relieved these wretched natives from our scanty store.
On the 30th, while we were yet encamped at Kettle falls, Messrs. J. Stuart and Clarke arrived from the post at Spokan. The last was mounted on the finest-proportioned gray charger, full seventeen hands high, that I had seen in these parts: Mr. Stuart had got a fall from his, in trying to urge him, and had hurt himself severely. These gentlemen not having brought us the provisions we expected, because the hunters who had been sent for that purpose among the Flatheads, had not been able to procure any, it was resolved to divide our party, and that Messrs. M'Donald, J. Stuart, and M'Kenzie should go forward to the post situated east of the mountains, in order to send us thence horses and supplies. These gentlemen quitted us on the 1st of May. After their departure we killed two horses and dried the meat; which occupied us the rest of that day and all the next. In the evening of the 2d, Mr. A. Stuart arrived at our camp. He had recovered from his wounds (received in the conflict with the natives, before related), and was on his way to his old wintering place on Slave lake, to fetch his family to the Columbia.
We resumed our route on the morning of the 3d of May, and went to encamp that evening at the upper-end of a rapid, where we began to descry mountains covered with forests, and where the banks of the river themselves were low and thinly timbered.
On the 4th, after having passed several considerable rapids, we reached the confluence of Flathead river. This stream comes from the S.E., and falls into the Columbia in the form of a cascade: it may be one hundred and fifty yards wide at its junction.
On the morning of the 5th, we arrived at the confluence of the Coutonais river. This stream also flows from the south, and has nearly the same width as the Flathead. Shortly after passing it, we entered a lake or enlargement of the river, which we crossed to encamp at its upper extremity. This lake may be thirty or forty miles, and about four wide at its broadest part: it is surrounded by lofty hills, which for the most part have their base at the water's edge, and rise by gradual and finely-wooded terraces, offering a sufficiently pretty view.
On the 6th, after we had run through a narrow strait or channel some fifteen miles long, we entered another lake, of less extent than the former but equally picturesque. When we were nearly in the middle of it, an accident occurred which, if not very disastrous, was sufficiently singular. One of the men, who had been on the sick-list for several days, requested to be landed for an instant. Not being more than a mile from the shore, we acceded to his request, and made accordingly for a projecting head-land; but when we were about three hundred or four hundred yards from the point, the canoe struck with force against the trunk of a tree which was planted in the bottom of the lake, and the extremity of which barely reached the surface of the water.[AD] It needed no more to break a hole in so frail a vessel; the canoe was pierced through the bottom and filled in a trice; and despite all our efforts we could not get off the tree, which had penetrated two or three feet within her; perhaps that was our good fortune, for the opening was at least a yard long. One of the men, who was an expert swimmer, stripped, and was about to go ashore with an axe lashed to his back, to make a raft for us, when the other canoe, which had been proceeding up the lake, and was a mile ahead, perceived our signals of distress, and came to our succor. They carried us to land, where it was necessary to encamp forthwith, as well to dry ourselves as to mend the canoe.
On the 7th, Mr. A. Stuart, whom we had left behind at Kettle falls, came up with us, and we pursued our route in company. Toward evening we met natives, camped on the bank of the river: they gave us a letter from which we learned that Mr. M'Donald and his party had passed there on the 4th. The women at this camp were busy spinning the coarse wool of the mountain sheep: they had blankets or mantles, woven or platted of the same material, with a heavy fringe all round: I would gladly have purchased one of these, but as we were to carry all our baggage on our backs across the mountains, was forced to relinquish the idea. Having bought of these savages some pieces of dried venison, we pursued our journey. The country began to be ascending; the stream was very rapid; and we made that day little progress.
On the 8th we began to see snow on the shoals or sand-banks of the river: the atmosphere grew very cold. The banks on either side presented only high hills covered to the top with impenetrable forests. While the canoes were working up a considerable rapid, I climbed the hills with Mr. M'Gillis, and we walked on, following the course of the river, some five or six miles. The snow was very deep in the ravines or narrow gorges which are found between the bases of the hills. The most common trees are the Norway pine and the cedar: the last is here, as on the borders of the sea, of a prodigious size.
On the 9th and 10th, as we advanced but slowly, the country presented the same aspect as on the 8th. Toward evening of the 10th, we perceived a-head of us a chain of high mountains entirely covered with snow. The bed of the river was hardly more than sixty yards wide, and was filled with dry banks composed of coarse gravel and small pebble.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Course of the Columbia River.—Canoe River.—Foot-march toward the Rocky Mountains.—Passage of the Mountains.
On the 11th, that is to say, one month, day for day, after our departure from the falls, we quitted the Columbia, to enter a little stream to which Mr. Thompson had given, in 1811, the name of Canoe river, from the fact that it was on this fork that he constructed the canoes which carried him to the Pacific.
The Columbia, which in the portion above the falls (not taking into consideration some local sinuosities) comes from the N.N.E., takes a bend here so that the stream appears to flow from the S.E.[AE] Some boatmen, and particularly Mr. Regis Bruguier, who had ascended that river to its source, informed me that it came out of two small lakes, not far from the chain of the Rocky Mountains, which, at that place, diverges considerably to the east. According to Arrowsmith's map, the course of the Tacoutche Tessé, from its mouth in the Pacific Ocean, to its source in the Rocky mountains, is about twelve hundred English miles, or four hundred French leagues of twenty-five to a degree; that is to say, from two hundred and forty to two hundred and eighty miles from west to east, from its mouth to the first falls: seven hundred and fifty miles nearly from S.S.W. to N.N.E., from the first rapids to the bend at the confluence of Canoe river; and one hundred and fifty or one hundred and eighty miles from that confluence to its source. We were not provided with the necessary instruments to determine the latitude, and still less the longitude, of our different stations; but it took us four or five days to go up from the factory at Astoria to the falls, and we could not have made less than sixty miles a day: and, as I have just remarked, we occupied an entire month in getting from the falls to Canoe river: deducting four or five days, on which we did not travel, there remain twenty-five days march; and it is not possible that we made less than thirty miles a day, one day with another.
We ascended Canoe river to the point where it ceases to be navigable, and encamped in the same place where Mr. Thompson wintered in 1810-'11. We proceeded immediately to secure our canoes, and to divide the baggage among the men, giving each fifty pounds to carry, including his provisions. A sack of pemican, or pounded meat, which we found in a cache, where it had been left for us, was a great acquisition, as our supplies were nearly exhausted.
On the 12th we began our foot march to the mountains, being twenty-four in number, rank and file. Mr. A. Stuart remained at the portage to bestow in a place of safety the effects which we could not carry, such as boxes, kegs, camp-kettles, &c. We traversed first some swamps, next a dense bit of forest, and then we found ourselves marching up the gravelly banks of the little Canoe river. Fatigue obliged us to camp early.
On the 13th we pursued our journey, and entered into the valleys between the mountains, where there lay not less than four or five feet of snow. We were obliged to ford the river ten or a dozen times in the course of the day, sometimes with the water up to our necks. These frequent fordings were rendered necessary by abrupt and steep rocks or bluffs, which it was impossible to get over without plunging into the wood for a great distance. The stream being very swift, and rushing over a bed of stones, one of the men fell and lost a sack containing our last piece of salt pork, which we were preserving as a most precious treasure. The circumstances in which we found ourselves made us regard this as a most unfortunate accident. We encamped that night at the foot of a steep mountain, and sent on Mr. Pillet and the guide, M'Kay, to hasten a supply of provisions to meet us.
On the morning of the 14th we began to climb the mountain which we had before us. We were obliged to stop every moment, to take breath, so stiff was the ascent. Happily it had frozen hard the night before, and the crust of the snow was sufficient to bear us. After two or three hours of incredible exertions and fatigues, we arrived at the plateau or summit, and followed the footprints of those who had preceded us. This mountain is placed between two others a great deal more elevated, compared with which it is but a hill, and of which, indeed, it is only, as it were, the valley. Our march soon became fatiguing, on account of the depth of the snow, which, softened by the rays of the sun, could no longer bear us as in the morning. We were obliged to follow exactly the traces of those who had preceded us, and to plunge our legs up to the knees in the holes they had made, so that it was as if we had put on and taken off, at every step, a very large pair of boots. At last we arrived at a good hard bottom, and a clear space, which our guide said was a little lake frozen over, and here we stopped for the night. This lake, or rather these lakes (for there are two) are situated in the midst of the valley or cup of the mountains. On either side were immense glaciers, or ice-bound rocks, on which the rays of the setting sun reflected the most beautiful prismatic colors. One of these icy peaks was like a fortress of rock; it rose perpendicularly some fifteen or eighteen hundred feet above the level of the lakes, and had the summit covered with ice. Mr. J. Henry, who first discovered the pass, gave this extraordinary rock the name of M'Gillivray's Rock, in honor of one of the partners of the N.W. Company. The lakes themselves are not much over three or four hundred yards in circuit, and not over two hundred yards apart. Canoe river, which, as we have already seen, flows to the west, and falls into the Columbia, takes its rise in one of them; while the other gives birth to one of the branches of the Athabasca, which runs first eastward, then northward, and which, after its junction with the Unjighah, north of the Lake of the Mountains, takes the name of Slave river, as far the lake of that name, and afterward that of M'Kenzie river, till it empties into, or is lost in, the Frozen ocean. Having cut a large pile of wood, and having, by tedious labor for nearly an hour, got through the ice to the clear water of the lake on which we were encamped, we supped frugally on pounded maize, arranged our bivouac, and passed a pretty good night, though it was bitterly cold. The most common wood of the locality was cedar and stunted pine. The heat of our fire made the snow melt, and by morning the embers had reached the solid ice: the depth from the snow surface was about five feet.
On the 15th, we continued our route, and soon began to descend the mountain. At the end of three hours, we reached the banks of a stream—the outlet of the second lake above mentioned—here and there frozen over, and then again tumbling down over rock and pebbly bottom in a thousand fantastic gambols; and very soon we had to ford it. After a tiresome march, by an extremely difficult path in the midst of woods, we encamped in the evening under some cypresses. I had hit my right knee against the branch of a fallen tree on the first day of our march, and now began to suffer acutely with it. It was impossible, however, to flinch, as I must keep up with the party or be left to perish.
On the 16th, our path lay through thick swamps and forest; we recrossed the small stream we had forded the day before, and our guide conducted us to the banks of the Athabasca, which we also forded. As this passage was the last to be made, we dried our clothes, and pursued our journey through a more agreeable country than on the preceding days. In the evening we camped on the margin of a verdant plain, which, the guide informed us, was called Coro prairie. We had met in the course of the day several buffalo tracks, and a number of the bones of that quadruped bleached by time. Our flesh-meat having given out entirely, our supper consisted in some handfuls of corn, which we parched in a pan.
We resumed our route very early on the 17th, and after passing a forest of trembling poplar or aspen, we again came in sight of the river which we had left the day before. Arriving then at an elevated promontory or cape, our guide made us turn back in order to pass it at its most accessible point. After crossing it, not without difficulty, we soon came upon fresh horse-prints, a sure indication that there were some of those animals in our neighborhood. Emerging from the forest, each took the direction which he thought would lead soonest to an encampment. We all presently arrived at an old house which the traders of the N.W. Company had once constructed, but which had been abandoned for some four or five years. The site of this trading post is the most charming that can be imagined: suffice to say that it is built on the bank of the beautiful river Athabasca, and is surrounded by green, and smiling prairies and superb woodlands. Pity there is nobody there to enjoy these rural beauties and to praise, while admiring them, the Author of Nature. We found there Mr. Pillet, and one of Mr. J. M'Donald's party, who had his leg broken by the kick of a horse. After regaling ourselves with pemican and some fresh venison, we set out again, leaving two of the party to take care of the lame man, and went on about eight or nine miles farther to encamp.
On the 18th, we had rain. I took the lead, and after having walked about ten or twelve miles, on the slope of a mountain denuded of trees, I perceived some smoke issuing from a tuft of trees in the bottom of a valley, and near the river. I descended immediately, and reached a small camp, where I found two men who were coming to meet us with four horses. I made them fire off two guns as a signal to the rest of our people who were coming up in the rear, and presently we heard it repeated on the river, from which we were not far distant. We repaired thither, and found two of the men, who had been left at the last ford, and who, having constructed a bark canoe, were descending the river. I made one of them disembark, and took his place, my knee being so painful that I could walk no further. Meanwhile the whole party came up; they loaded the horses, and pursued their route. In the course of the day my companion (an Iroquois) and I, shot seven ducks. Coming, at last, to a high promontory called Millet's rock, we found some of our foot-travellers with Messrs. Stewart and Clarke, who were on horseback, all at a stand, doubting whether it would answer to wade round the base of the rock, which dipped in the water. We sounded the stream for them, and found it fordable. So they all passed round, thereby avoiding the inland path, which is excessively fatiguing by reason of the hills, which it is necessary perpetually to mount and descend. We encamped, to the number of seven, at the entrance of what at high water might be a lake, but was then but a flat of blackish sand, with a narrow channel in the centre. Here we made an excellent supper on the wild ducks, while those who were behind had nothing to eat.
CHAPTER XXIV.
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]
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]
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.