A History of the Pacific Northwest/Chapter 2

by Joseph Schafer

CHAPTER II

DISCOVERY OF PUGET SOUND AND COLUMBIA RIVER

Cook's men discover the world's best fur market. The voyage of Captain Cook had one resuh which neither he nor his government had foreseen. At several points along the northwest coast and the Alaska coast, particularly at Nootka Sound and at Cook's Inlet, the natives crowded around the ships to exchange sea-otter skins and other furs for such baubles as the sailors cared to part with. The white men wanted the skins for clothing and bedding, to make their voyage more comfortable, no one suspecting that their value was more than nominal. But when the exploring squadron touched at Canton, on the south coast of China, merchants came on board to bargain for these furs. The prices offered went up day by day until at last the men were selling the remains of their otter-skin garments and a few unused furs for sums that seemed ahnost fabulous. "Skins which did not cost the purchaser sixpence sterling," writes one of the men, "sold for one hundred dollars." The excitement on shipboard was intense. The crew wished to return at once, secure a cargo of furs on the northwest coast, and make their fortunes. When the officers refused, they begged, blustered, and even threatened mutiny, but of course in vain.

Beginnings of the Northwest Coast fur trade. The discovery of the value of otter skins in the Canton market instantly changed the thought of the world with respect to the northwest coast. The region abounded in furs, but thus far it had not been visited for commercial purposes. Spain had sent her navigators along those coasts to confirm her ancient claim of sovereignty over them. Great Britain because she hoped to find, half hidden behind some jagged cape, the long sought passage to the eastern sea. A powerful new motive now became operative. In a few years ships flying the colours of England, of France, of Portugal and of the new Republic of the United States began regularly to visit those waters, their crews prospecting madly among the coves and inlets wherever the presence of Indian tribes gave promise of a profitable trade.

So far as is now known, the first definite plan for carrying on this northwest fur trade was projected by Captain King who, in the published report of Cook's voyage, recommended that the East India Company should begin the trade, combining exploration with it.^[1] While this plan was not carried out, a private company under Richard Cadman Etches prepared in 1785 to undertake "a regular and reciprocal system of commerce between Great Britain, the Northwest Coast of America, the Japanese, Kureil, and Jesso Islands, and the coasts of Asia, Corea and China." This company,

The Sea Otter

The Sea Otter

which seems to have received the government's blessing, with no financial help, sent forward the same year two well equipped vessels, named the King George and the Queen Charlotte, under command respectively of Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon, both of whom were naval officers on leave.^[2]

Discoveries of Dixon, Barclay, Meares, Dufifin. The King George and Queen Charlotte were not the first vessels to sail for the northwest coast in response to the new commercial stimulus.^[3] But we are interested in the way the fur trade influenced exploration and we know from the journal of Captain Dixon that important results aside from commercial gains flowed from the voyage of the Queen Charlotte in the years 1786 to 1787. Dixon, in sailing south from Alaska, discovered that the land lying just below fifty-four degrees was an island and he named it Queen Charlotte's Island. He explored nearly its entire circuit and named several points on what he supposed was the mainland to the east, among them Cape Pitt, Cape Chatham, and Cape Dalrymple which outlined Dixon's Strait.

Other traders from Macao in China and from Ostend were on the coast during the years 1786 to 1788 and their commanders, Captain John Meares and Captain Barclay especially, while on profits bent as their main issue, incidentally made discoveries of considerable value. Barclay, sailing from Nootka in July, 1787, discovered a passage between Cape Flattery and the land he had just left, which we know as Vancouver Island but supposed at that time to be the mainland. The next year Meares ordered his lieutenant Robert Duffin to explore that passage which now was traced for the distance of several leagues. The passage lay only one degree north of the fabled strait of Juan de Fuca and while, unlike that creation of a sailor's fancy, it did not in fact connect the two great oceans, no one knew what it might lead into and its discovery revived the most active geographical speculation.

Men began to see that Cook's voyage after all left many things unsettled. The great navigator had located Cape Flattery and Nootka Sound, after which he had sailed to the Alaska coast without so much as suspecting that he had been running past a succession of great islands instead of along the continental coastline. That fact was now becoming clear, and the new found strait suggested a sea of indefinite extent in that latitude, eating into the continent.

The Nootka Sound Controversy. The new geographical problems raised by the work of the maritime fur traders, in themselves would have justified a new British exploring expedition under government auspices. Another circumstance tending to the same result was the now celebrated Nootka Sound Controversy of 1789–1790. This arose over the attempt of Spain, in 1789, to fortify Nootka Sound and exclude all foreigners from that region, of which as we saw she claimed the exclusive sovereignty. Harsh treatment of British traders and the forcible seizure by Don Martinez, the Spanish commander, of several British owned vessels at Nootka precipitated the quarrel which at one time seemed to foreshadow war. Finally, the two nations reached an agreement called the Nootka Convention which records a complete triumph for Britain. In it Spain conceded the right of British subjects to trade and make settlements upon any part of the coast not already occupied. In other words, Spain gave up her exclusive claim so far as the coast above California was concerned.^[4]

For carrying out the terms of the Nootka Convention it was necessary for both nations to send navigators to the Northwest Coast and Great Britain sent on that service Captain George Vancouver, who was destined to become pre-eminent as the geographer of the Northwest Coast.

Vancouver's Voyage. Vancouver spent portions of three summers in those waters and he gave to the world a great map of the west coast of North America from San Diego in California to Cook's River, or Cook's Inlet, in Alaska. He explored the inland sea into which De Fuca's Strait was found to lead and named it Puget's Sound for his friend Lieutenant Puget; he circumnavigated Vancouver Island; he explored the numerous inlets which penetrate the continent between Fuca's Strait and Alaska. While a portion of the work in Puget Sound waters had been done before Vancouver arrived by the Spanish explorers Quimper, Eliza, Galieno and Valdez, and while the great Spanish explorer Cuadra was so closely associated with himself that he called the island north of Fuca's Strait Vancouver and Cuadra's Island, yet to Vancouver is due the credit for combining into one system the results of many separate explorations and for giving the world an intelligible view of northwest coast geography as a whole.

Vancouver had been instructed by the Admiralty to secure accurate information concerning any waterway that might help to connect the northwest coast, for commercial purposes, with Canada, and the admiralty suggested to him that such a waterway might perhaps be found by entering Fuca's Strait and the sea into which it must lead. They say: "The discovery of a near communication between any such sea or strait, and any river running into or from the Lake of the Woods would be particularly useful." ^[5] This supposed river, flowing into the western sea near Nootka Sound, from the Lake of the Woods, or thereabouts, was an idea which the government had derived from the Montreal fur traders who as early as 1784-5 were anxious to explore to the Pacific and who sent in memorials fortified by fanciful maps based upon their own conjectures or upon the equally indefinite guesses of the Indians, near and remote.^[6] Therefore, in a sense, Vancouver's instructions represent a transition from the earlier idea of finding a strait through which ships might sail from Pacific to Atlantic, to the later idea of finding a practicable line of communication, such as a river or rivers, across the continent.

The Columbia River. On Vancouver's map one such possibility is indicated in the delineation of a great river which enters the Pacific just above the 46th parallel and which was traced for the distance of about one hundred miles inland. The name it bears is Columbia River. This is the first time it has appeared on a map of the coast. It was not, however, a discovery of the British geographer, but of a plain Yankee skipper and it is to be credited to the maritime fur trade just as are the discoveries of Fuca's Strait and Queen Charlotte's Island.

John Ledyard. The American interest in the Northwest Coast trade possibly sprang also from the reports of Cook's voyage. John Ledyard of Hartford, Connecticut, was a corporal on Cook's flagship. In 1783 Ledyard returned to the United States and promptly published a small volume giving an account of Cook's voyage. He had been so deeply impressed with the chance for gain in a fur trade between the Northwest Coast and Canton that he laboured incessantly to interest Boston, New York and Philadelphia merchants to fit out a ship, of which Ledyard was to be supercargo, for the purpose of inaugurating that trade. He failed, and went to France, where he pursued the same idea, again without success.^[7]

A Boston company organized for the N. W. and China trade. Whether the tradition of Ledyard's appeal was bearing fruit among the merchants of Boston, whether they became interested in reports of English ships outfitting for the Northwest trade, or whether they were moved by the reading of "Cook's Voyage," we do not know.^[8] But in 1787 a company headed by Joseph Barrell was formed for carrying on a trade to the Northwest Coast, from there to Canton and thence back to Boston. The ships Columbia and Lady Washington, under John Kendrick and Robert Gray sailed from Boston harbour October 1 of that year, rounded Cape Horn and appeared the next autumn on the Northwest Coast. They wintered at Nootka, and in 1789, having completed a cargo, Gray in the Columbia sailed for China and on the 9th of August, 1790, arrived at Boston after circumnavigating the globe.

Captain Gray discovers the Columbia River. The successful opening of the trade excited great interest in the New England capital.^[9] The Columbia

was sent back at once and it was on this second voyage that Captain Gray made his famous discovery. He had wintered on the coast and in the spring was working southward, turning his prow into every strange inlet in the hope of finding fresh villages of natives to exploit for furs.^ On the 7th of May he ran into a harbour in latitude 46° 58' which he called Bulfinch Harbour but to which Vancouver later gave the more appropriate name of Gray's Harbour. Four days later he ran in between the breakers into what at first he supposed to be another harbour. He says, however, " When we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered." Gray traded with the Indians along the lower Columbia, and before leaving the river, which he did on Alay 20, he bestowed upon it the name of his good ship.^

Vancouver explores the Columbia. Vancouver learned from Gray about the new discovery, and in October he sent Lieutenant Broughton into the river with the ship Chatham. Broughton ascended to the first rapids, about one hundred miles from the bar, whereas Gray had sailed up only some thirty miles.

iThe traders found that the largest profits came from the trade with Indians who had never before seen white men. The Americans in one case secured furs vallied at several hundred dollars for an old chisel! Hence profitable trade was dependent on new explorations.

2 Gray also named the north and south headlands at the mouth of the river, calling the first Cape Hancock, the second Cape Adams. Meares, in 1788, had named the North Cape Disappointment which name it retains.

24 -^ History of the Pacific Northwest

Vancouver's map represents Bronghton's survey but retains Gray's name for the river.

Vancouver's map was published in 1798. Three years later appeared Mackenzie's map of the w^estern parts of North America, which was constructed by combining with Vancouver's map certain features which Mackenzie himself had discovered, or supposed he had discovered. The result, so far as the Columbia is concerned, is very striking.

Rivalry of the Northwest and Hudson Bay Companies. Alexander Mackenzie was a partner of the Northwest Company, the Montreal concern which as early as 1784-5 projected an exploring expedition having the Pacific Ocean as its objective. This company was a bitter rival of the old chartered Hudson Bay Company, and it was seeking ways of hedging that company about. Arthur Dobbs, in 1744, complained of the Hudson Bay Company's want of exploring or even trading enterprise; that they merely allowed certain tribes of the natives to come down the rivers to their forts to trade but did not deign to go among them or send agents to develop commerce with tribes not yet reached. Later, however, the company became more active and the great journey of Samuel Hearne to Coppermine River, 1769-72, had added enormously to their trading field in the far Northwest.

Exploration of Mackenzie River, 1789. But the Northwest Company had an establishment called Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca, which was favourably located with reference to explorations either to the

north or to the west. In 1789 Mackenzie set out from Fort Chipewyan with a small party in canoes and, circling Great Slave Lake, discovered a river flowing out of that lake toward the north. He descended the river to the Arctic Ocean, making the entire journey in forty days. Returning, he immediately organized the trade along the line thus opened. Since he had found the estuary of Mackenzie River choked with ice in July, and since he observed in the west a chain of mountains running still farther north, Mackenzie became convinced of the impracticability of a northwest passage around the continent. He therefore came to believe in the extreme desirability of finding a way through or across the continent to the Pacific, an idea we saw the British admiralty suggesting in its instructions to Captain Vancouver about the same time.

Accordingly, Mackenzie proposed to reach the Pacific by ascending Peace River which flows into Lake Athabasca from the west, and from its sources to cross to some west-flowing stream. Wintering near the Rocky Mountains on Peace River in 1792-3, he resumed his journey May 9, 1793, and on the 18th of June discovered a river having a westerly course. This he descended for twenty-five days when the difficulties of navigation impelled him to leave the river. By following an old trail and afterward descending another smaller stream with a more direct course, he and his party of ten intrepid woodsmen reached the Pacific in latitude 52° 20' at a place which had been recently surveyed by Vancouver and by him called Cascade Canal.

Here on the smooth, protected surface of an overhanging cHfT, the trader-explorer left a memorial of his achievement in the legend: "Alexander Mackenzie from Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety three."

The river down which Mackenzie floated so many days was called by the Indians Tacoutchee Tesse. It must, he argued, flow into the Pacific, and since it trended strongly southward he concluded that it was identical with the river shown on Vancouver's map under the name Columbia. This identification Mackenzie indicated on his map by a dotted line which relates the lower Columbia to the Tacoutchee Tesse.

In fact, Mackenzie had been on Fraser River, which flows into Puget Sound, and not on the upper Columbia at all. But his mistake gave rise to most interesting speculations about the practicability of connecting the fur trade of the Columbia with that of Canada and Hudson Bay. Mackenzie's "Voyages," published in 1801, presents his trading plan in detail.

Mackenzie's plan for consolidating the British North American fur trade. Mackenzie proposed that the Hudson Bay Company and Northwest Company should unite in a single organization to control the fur trade of North America from the parallel of 45° to the pole. The line of communication from the Rocky Mountains by way of Lake Winnipeg and Nelson River to Hudson Bay was so much shorter than the line which ran to Montreal that Hudson Bay at the mouth of Nelson River should be regarded as the proper place for the trade emporium on the Atlantic side. "But," says Mackenzie, "whatever course may be taken from the Atlantic, the Columbia is the line of communication from the Pacific Ocean, pointed out by nature, as it is the only navigable river in the whole extent of Vancouver's minute survey of that coast; its banks also form the first level country in all the southern extent of continental coast from Cook's entry [Inlet] and, consequently, the most northern situation fit for colonization, and suitable for the residence of a civilized people." The line of posts would begin at the mouth of Columbia River, and in the Rocky Mountains it would connect with the head of Saskatchewan River, which it would follow to Lake Winnipeg and Nelson River. Related to this continental trade would be " the fishing in both seas and the markets of the four quarters of the globe."^[10]

Mackenzie appeared to anticipate little difficulty in carrying out his plan of using the Columbia, assuming that it would be a simple matter for Great Britain to acquire title to the territory through which it flowed. He remarked that the boundary between British and American possessions in the Northwest must be rectified^[11] by drawing a line from the Lake of the Woods to some point on the Mississippi. But since, under the treaty of 1783, Great Britain had a right to navigate the river, that line must come down to a point where it becomes navigable. And wherever that might be, probably at the parallel of 45°, it must be continued west, till it terminates in the Pacific Ocean, to the south of the Columbia.

1. Cook's Voyage, II, 437–440.
2. An Authentic Statement, etc., of facts relating to Nootka Sound. By Argonaut (Richard Cadman Etches) London, 1790.
3. James Hanna, an Englishman from the coast of China is supposed to have reached the northwest coast in 1785. He had a small vessel and flew the Portuguese flag, doubtless to elude the British East India Co. He secured a profitable cargo.
4. See Manning, William Ray. The Nootka Sound Controversy. Rept. of Am. Hist. Assn, 1904 p. 279–478.
5. Instructions in Vancouver's Voyage, Ed. of 1801, 1–40–41.
6. Such a map was executed by Peter Pond, agent of the Northwest Company, or as it then was the Frobisher Brothers of Montreal, and sent to the government in 1785. Brymner, Canadian Archives, Report for 1890.
7. For Ledyard's relations Jefferson at Paris, see page 35 below.
8. Bulfinch's Oregon & El Dorado, published in 1866, in which we are told that Cook's voyage was "the topic of the day" in Boston in 1787 cannot be accepted as proof on the point.
9. See newspaper notices as reprinted in the author's Acquisition of Oregon, p. 21–22.
10. Mackenzie's Voyage, p. 411. It should be pointed out that, although Mackenzie was mistaken in supposing he had been on the Columbia, his inferences from that supposition were perfectly sound, for it was the Columbia, not the Fraser, which interlocked with the Saskatchewan.
11. The boundary line described in the treaty of 1753 was an impossible line. It assumed that a line drawn due west from the northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods would strike the Mississippi, but the source of that river proved to be too far south.