8o A History of the Pacific Northwest
possession of the northern forests, were now united under the name of the Hudson Bay Company.^ The dream of Alexander Mackenzie had been reahzed. From Montreal to Fort George, from Fort George to the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay, the wilderness traffic was at last organized under a single management, and carried on absolutely without competition, except where the British came in contact with Americans or Russians. York Factory on Hudson Bay was the eastern emporium, and the residence of the company's governor. Sir George Simpson. The station near the mouth of the Columbia was to be the western emporium.
Dr. McLoughlin builds Fort Vancouver, 18241825. In 1824 Dr. John McLoughlin, accompanied by Governor Simpson, arrived on the Columbia to take charge of the western department. One of their first steps was to abandon Fort George and to establish new headquarters at Point Vancouver.^ Here was an ideal location for a trading centre. The Willamette, entering the Columbia a short distance below, had its sources nearly two hundred miles to the south; the Cowlitz opened an avenue for trade toward Puget Sound; while for the Columbia itself, breaking through the Cascades a few miles above Vancouver, the site was
1 In 1816 actual war broke out in the Red River valley, where Lord Selkirk had established a colony for the Hudson Bay Company, across the path of the Northwesters. The union was brought about by the intercession of government officials.
2 The point reached and so named by Lieut. Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition in October, 1792.
