Latest / Shermans Memoirs March to the Sea and Columbia Burning / Chronicles of Canada Volume 22 - Pioneers of the Pacific Coast A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters-Agnes C. Laut

Transcript

Chronicles of Canada Volume 22 - Pioneers of the Pacific Coast A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters-Agnes C. Laut · Shermans Memoirs March to the Sea and Columbia Burning

0:00
Speaker 1: Recording by Phil Schempf. Pioneers of the Pacific Coast. A
0:04
Speaker 1: Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters by Agnes C.
0:07
Speaker 2: Lout.
0:08
Speaker 1: Chapter 1. The Voyage of the Golden Hind. All through
0:13
Speaker 1: the 16th century, the South Seas were regarded as a
0:16
Speaker 1: mysterious wonder world, whence Spain drew unlimited wealth of gold
0:20
Speaker 1: and silver bullion, of pearls and precious stones. Spain had
0:24
Speaker 1: declared the Pacific a closed sea to the rest of
0:27
Speaker 1: the world. But in 1567, it happened that Sir John Hawkins,
0:32
Speaker 1: an English mariner, was cruising in the Gulf of Mexico
0:35
Speaker 1: when a terrific squall, as he said, drove his ships
0:39
Speaker 1: landward to Veracruz, and he sent a messenger to the
0:42
Speaker 1: Spanish viceroy there asking permission to dock and repair his
0:46
Speaker 1: battered vessels. Now on one of the English ships was
0:49
Speaker 1: a young officer, not yet 25 years of age, named
0:52
Speaker 1: Francis Drake. Twelve Spanish merchantmen, rigged as frigates, lay in
0:56
Speaker 1: the harbor, and Drake observed that cargo of small bulk
1:00
Speaker 1: but ponderous weight, and evidently precious, was being stowed under
1:04
Speaker 1: capacious holds. Was this the gold or silver bullion that
1:08
Speaker 1: was enriching Spain beyond men's dreams? Whence did it come?
1:12
Speaker 1: Could English privateers intercept it on the high seas? Perhaps
1:16
Speaker 1: the English adventurers evinced too great an interest in that
1:19
Speaker 1: precious cargo, for though the Spanish governor had granted them
1:22
Speaker 1: permission to repair their ships, the English had barely dismantled
1:26
Speaker 1: when Spanish fire-ships came drifting down on their moorings. A
1:30
Speaker 1: cannon-shot knocked a mug of beer from Hawkins' hand, and
1:34
Speaker 1: head over heels he fell into the sea, while a
1:36
Speaker 1: thousand Spaniards began sabering the English crew ashore. Some friendly
1:41
Speaker 1: hand threw out a rope to Hawkins, who was clad
1:43
Speaker 1: in complete armor. In the dark, unseen by the enemy,
1:47
Speaker 1: he pulled himself up the side of a smaller ship, and,
1:50
Speaker 1: cutting hawsers, scutted for the open sea. There escaped also,
1:54
Speaker 1: of Hawkins' fleet, another small ship, which was commanded by
1:57
Speaker 1: Francis Drake, and after much suffering both vessels reached England.
2:02
Speaker 1: One can imagine the effect on young Drake of the
2:05
Speaker 1: treacherous act, and of the glimpse of that cargo of
2:08
Speaker 1: gold and silver treasure. The English captains had but asked
2:12
Speaker 1: a night's lodging from a power supposed to be friendly,
2:15
Speaker 1: They had been met by a pirate raid. Good. Young
2:18
Speaker 1: Francis Drake eagerly took up Spain's challenge. He would meet
2:22
Speaker 1: the raid with counter-raid. Three years later, he was cruising
2:26
Speaker 1: the Spanish main, capturing and plundering ships and forts and towns.
2:30
Speaker 1: In 1572, he led his men across the isthmus of
2:34
Speaker 1: Panama and intercepted and captured a Spanish convoy of treasure
2:37
Speaker 1: coming overland. Near the south side of the isthmus, he
2:41
Speaker 1: climbed a tree and had his first glimpse of the Pacific.
2:44
Speaker 1: it set his blood on the leap. On bended knee
2:48
Speaker 1: he prayed aloud to the Almighty to be permitted to
2:50
Speaker 1: sail the first English ship on that fair sea, and
2:53
Speaker 1: having recrossed the Isthmus and loaded his ships with plunder,
2:57
Speaker 1: he bore away for England and reached Plymouth in August 1573.
3:00
Speaker 1: The raid on Panama had brought Drake enormous wealth. At
3:05
Speaker 1: his own cost he built three frigates and two sloops
3:08
Speaker 1: to explore the South Seas. his purpose being to enter
3:11
Speaker 1: the pacific through the strait of magellan which no englishman
3:15
Speaker 1: had yet ventured to pass these ships he equipped as
3:18
Speaker 1: if for royal tournament players of the violin and the
3:21
Speaker 1: harp discoursed music at each meal rarest wines filled the
3:25
Speaker 1: lockers drake clad in rich velvet dined on plates of
3:29
Speaker 1: pure gold served by ten young noblemen who never sat
3:33
Speaker 1: or donned hat in his presence and on his own
3:35
Speaker 1: ship the pelican afterwards called the golden hind he had
3:39
Speaker 1: a hundred picked marines men eager for battle and skilful
3:43
Speaker 1: in wielding the cutlass his men loved him as a
3:46
Speaker 1: dauntless leader they feared him too with a fear that
3:48
Speaker 1: commanded obedience on the instant Queen Elizabeth was in a
3:52
Speaker 1: quandary how to treat her gallant buccaneer and rover of
3:55
Speaker 1: the high seas. England and Spain were at peace, and
3:58
Speaker 1: she could not give Drake an open royal commission to
4:01
Speaker 1: raid the commerce of a friendly power, but she did
4:04
Speaker 1: present him with a magnificent sword, to signify that she
4:07
Speaker 1: would have no objection if he should cut his way
4:09
Speaker 1: through the portals leading to the close sea. The fleet
4:13
Speaker 1: set sail in December 1577, and steered by the west
4:17
Speaker 1: coasts of Morocco and the Cape Verde Islands. The coast
4:21
Speaker 1: of Brazil was reached in April. Two of the ships
4:24
Speaker 1: were abandoned near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata,
4:27
Speaker 1: after having been stripped of provisions. In August, the remaining
4:31
Speaker 1: three ships entered the tempestuous seas around Cape Horn. Drake
4:35
Speaker 1: drove before the gales with sails close-reefed and hatches battened,
4:39
Speaker 1: and came out with only one of his three ships left,
4:43
Speaker 1: the first English keel to cleave the waters of the Pacific.
4:46
Speaker 1: In honor of the feat, Drake renamed his ship the
4:49
Speaker 1: Golden Hind. Perhaps there was jocose irony in the suggestion
4:53
Speaker 1: of gold and speed. Certainly it is, the crew of
4:56
Speaker 1: the Golden Hind were well content with the possession of
4:59
Speaker 1: both gold and speed before advancing far up the west
5:01
Speaker 1: coast of South America. Quite by chance, which seems always
5:06
Speaker 1: to favor the daring, somewhere off the coast of Chile,
5:09
Speaker 1: Drake picked up an Indian fisherman. The natives of South America,
5:13
Speaker 1: for the best of reasons, hated their Spanish masters, who
5:16
Speaker 1: enslaved them, treated them brutally, and forced them to work
5:19
Speaker 1: in the pearl fisheries and the mines. Drake persuaded the
5:23
Speaker 1: Indian to pilot his ship into the harbor of Valparaiso.
5:26
Speaker 1: Never dreaming that any foreign vessel had entered the Pacific,
5:29
Speaker 1: Spanish treasure ships lay rocking to the tide in fancied security,
5:34
Speaker 1: and actually dipped colors to Drake. Drake laughed, waved his
5:38
Speaker 1: plume hat back in salute. dealt out wine to give
5:41
Speaker 1: courage to his merry boys and sailed straight amid the
5:44
Speaker 1: anchored treasure-ships barely had the golden hind taken a position
5:49
Speaker 1: in the midst of the enemy's fleet when selecting one
5:52
Speaker 1: of the staunchest vessels of the enemy drake had grappling-irons
5:56
Speaker 1: thrown out clamping his ship to her victim In a
5:59
Speaker 1: trice the English sailors were on the Spanish deck with
6:02
Speaker 1: swords out and the rallying cry of God and St. George,
6:06
Speaker 1: down with Spanish dogs. Dumbfounded and unarmed, down the hatches,
6:10
Speaker 1: over the bulwarks, into the sea, reeled the surprised Spaniards.
6:14
Speaker 1: Drake clapped hatches down upon those trapped inside and turned
6:18
Speaker 1: his cannon on the rest of the unguarded Spanish fleet.
6:21
Speaker 1: Literally not a drop of blood was shed. The treasure
6:24
Speaker 1: ships were looted of their cargoes and sent drifting out
6:27
Speaker 1: to sea. All the other harbors of the Pacific were
6:30
Speaker 1: raided and looted in similar summary fashion, and somewhere seaward
6:34
Speaker 1: from Lima, Drake learned of a treasure-ship bearing untold riches,
6:39
Speaker 1: the glory of the South Seas, the huge caravel in
6:42
Speaker 1: which the Spaniards sent home to Spain the yearly tribute
6:45
Speaker 1: of bullion. The golden hind, with her sails spread to
6:49
Speaker 1: the wind, sought for the glory like a harrier for
6:52
Speaker 1: its quarry. One crew of Spaniards, on a small ship
6:55
Speaker 1: that was scuttled, saved their throats by telling Drake that
6:58
Speaker 1: the great ship was only two days ahead, and loaded
7:01
Speaker 1: to the water-line with wealth untold. Drake crowded sail, had
7:05
Speaker 1: muskets and sword furbished and thirty cannon loaded, and called
7:09
Speaker 1: on his crew to quit themselves like men. And when
7:12
Speaker 1: the wind went down, he ordered small boats out to
7:14
Speaker 1: toll the Golden Hine. For five days the hunt lasted,
7:18
Speaker 1: never slackening by day or by night, and when, at
7:21
Speaker 1: three in the afternoon of a day in March, Drake's
7:24
Speaker 1: brother shouted from the cross-trees,' Sail ho!' every man aboard
7:29
Speaker 1: went mad with impatience to crowd on the last inch
7:31
Speaker 1: of canvas and overtake the rich prize. The Englishman saw
7:36
Speaker 1: that the Spanish ship was so heavily laden that she
7:38
Speaker 1: was making but slow progress, and so unconscious was the
7:42
Speaker 1: Spanish captain of danger that that when he discerned a
7:44
Speaker 1: ship approaching, he actually lowered canvas and awaited what he
7:48
Speaker 1: thought might be fresh orders from the Viceroy. The golden
7:51
Speaker 1: hind sped on till she was almost alongside the Spaniard.
7:55
Speaker 1: Then Drake let go full blast all thirty cannon, as
7:59
Speaker 1: fast as he could shift and veer for the cannoneers
8:01
Speaker 1: to take aim. Yards, sails, masts fell shattered and torn
8:06
Speaker 1: from the splendid Spanish ship. The English clapped their grappling
8:10
Speaker 1: hooks to her sides and naked swords did the rest.
8:13
Speaker 1: To save their lives, the Spanish crew, after a feeble resistance,
8:17
Speaker 1: surrendered and bullion to the value in modern money of
8:20
Speaker 1: almost a million dollars fell into the hands of the
8:22
Speaker 1: men of the Golden Hind. Drake's vessel was now loaded
8:26
Speaker 1: deep with treasure, and preparations were made to sail homeward,
8:30
Speaker 1: but her commander realized it would be dangerous to attempt
8:33
Speaker 1: to return to England by the way of the Spanish main,
8:36
Speaker 1: with a ship so heavily laden that she must sail slowly.
8:40
Speaker 1: IT WAS THEN THAT LEGENDS OF A NORTHEAST PASSAGE CAME
8:42
Speaker 1: INTO HIS MIND. HE WOULD SAIL NORTHWARD IN SEARCH OF
8:46
Speaker 1: THE STRAIT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO LEAD THROUGH THE CONTINENT
8:48
Speaker 1: TO THE ATLANTIC, THE MYTHICAL STRAIT OF ANIAN. AS THE
8:52
Speaker 1: WORLD KNOWS, THERE WAS NO SUCH PASSAGE, BUT HOW FAR
8:56
Speaker 1: NORTH DID DRAKE SAIL SEEKING IT? SOME ACCOUNTS SAY AS
8:59
Speaker 1: FAR AS OREGON, OTHERS AS FAR AS THE NORTHERN COAST
9:02
Speaker 1: OF CALIFORNIA, BUT, AT ALL EVENTS, AS HE ADVANCED FURTHER
9:06
Speaker 1: NORTH HE FOUND THAT THE COAST SHEERED FARTHER AND FARTHER WEST,
9:10
Speaker 1: so he gave over his attempt to find the Strait
9:12
Speaker 1: of the Legends and turned back and anchored in a
9:14
Speaker 1: fair and good bay, which is now known as Drake's Bay,
9:18
Speaker 1: a short distance north of San Francisco, and naming the
9:21
Speaker 1: region New Albion, he claimed it for Queen Elizabeth. In
9:25
Speaker 1: July 1579, he weighed anchor and steered southwest. He reached
9:31
Speaker 1: the Maluka Islands in November and arrived at Java in March.
9:35
Speaker 1: IN JUNE HE ROUNDED THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND
9:38
Speaker 1: THEN BEAT HIS WAY UP THE ATLANTIC TO ENGLAND. IN
9:41
Speaker 1: SEPTEMBER 1580 THE GOLDEN HIND ENTERED THE HARBOR OF PLYMOUTH.
9:46
Speaker 1: HOW DRAKE BECAME THE LION OF THE HOUR WHEN HE
9:48
Speaker 1: REACHED ENGLAND, AFTER HAVING CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE, NEED NOT BE TOLD.
9:53
Speaker 1: BALLADS WERE RECITED IN HIS HONOR. QUEEN ELIZABETH DINED IN
9:56
Speaker 1: STATE ON THE GOLDEN HIND, AND AFTER THE DINNER with
10:00
Speaker 1: the sword which she had given him when he set out,
10:02
Speaker 1: she conferred on Drake the honor of knighthood as the
10:05
Speaker 1: seal of his country's acclaim. Drake's conclusion regarding the supposed
10:10
Speaker 1: passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic were correct, though
10:13
Speaker 1: for two hundred years they were rejected by geographers. His
10:17
Speaker 1: words are worth setting down, the asian and american continents
10:21
Speaker 1: if they be not fully joined yet seem they to
10:24
Speaker 1: come very near from those high and snow-covered mountains the
10:29
Speaker 1: north and north-west winds send abroad their frozen nymphs to
10:32
Speaker 1: the infecting of the whole air hence it comes that
10:36
Speaker 1: in the midst of their summer the snow hardly departeth
10:39
Speaker 1: from these hills at all Hence come those thick mists
10:43
Speaker 1: and most stinking fogs. For these reasons we conjecture that
10:47
Speaker 1: either there is no passage at all through these northern coasts,
10:50
Speaker 1: which is most likely, or, if there be, that it
10:54
Speaker 1: is unnavigable.
10:54
Speaker 2: According by Gilles Leblanc. Pioneers of the Pacific Coast. A
11:00
Speaker 2: Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters by Agnes C.
11:05
Speaker 1: Laut.
11:07
Speaker 2: Vitus bearing on the Pacific. Since Drake's day, more than
11:11
Speaker 2: a century had rolled on. Russia was awakening from ages
11:15
Speaker 2: of sleep, as Japan has awakened in our time, and
11:18
Speaker 2: Peter the Great was endeavoring to pilot the ship of
11:21
Speaker 2: state out to the wide seas of a world destiny. Peter,
11:25
Speaker 2: like the German Kaiser of today, was ambitious to make
11:28
Speaker 2: his country a world power. He had seen enough of
11:32
Speaker 2: Europe to learn that neighboring nations were increasing their strength
11:35
Speaker 2: in three ways, by conquest, by discovery, and by foreign commerce.
11:40
Speaker 2: And that foreign commerce meant not only buying and selling,
11:44
Speaker 2: but carrying the traffic of other nations. The East India Company,
11:48
Speaker 2: in whose dockyards he had worked as a carpenter, was
11:51
Speaker 2: a striking instance of the strength that could be built
11:54
Speaker 2: up by foreign commerce. Its ships cruised from Nova Zambia
11:59
Speaker 2: to Persia and East India, carrying forth the products of
12:03
Speaker 2: English workshops and farms, and bringing back the treasures of
12:06
Speaker 2: all lands. By conquest, Peter had extended the bounds of
12:11
Speaker 2: his empire from the Ural Mountains to the seas of China.
12:15
Speaker 2: By discovery, what remained to be done? France and England
12:19
Speaker 2: had acquired most of the North American continent. Spain and
12:23
Speaker 2: Portugal claimed South America. And Spain had actually warned the
12:27
Speaker 2: rest of the world that the Pacific was a closed sea.
12:31
Speaker 2: But there were legends of a vast domain yet undiscovered.
12:35
Speaker 2: Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot employed, as alleged, by
12:40
Speaker 2: Spanish explorers between 1587 and 1592, was reported to have
12:45
Speaker 2: told of a passage from the Pacific to the Arctic
12:48
Speaker 2: through a mountainous forested land up in the region of
12:51
Speaker 2: what is now British Columbia. Whether Juan lied or mistook
12:56
Speaker 2: his own fancies for facts, or whether the whole story
13:00
Speaker 2: was invented by his chronicler Michael Locke, does not much matter.
13:04
Speaker 2: the fact was that Spanish charts showed extensive unexplored land
13:09
Speaker 2: north of Drake's New Albion or California. At this time,
13:13
Speaker 2: geographers had placed on their maps a vast continent called
13:17
Speaker 2: Gramaland between America and Asia. And, as if in corroboration
13:22
Speaker 2: of this fiction, when Peter's Cossacks struggled doggedly across Asia
13:27
Speaker 2: through Siberia to the Pacific, people on these far shores
13:31
Speaker 2: told tales of driftwood coming from America. of islands leading
13:35
Speaker 2: like steps through the sea to America, and of a
13:37
Speaker 2: nation like themselves, whose walrus-hide boats sometimes drifted to Siberia
13:43
Speaker 2: and Kamchatka. If any new and wealthy region of the
13:47
Speaker 2: world remained to be discovered, Peter felt that it must
13:50
Speaker 2: be in the North Pacific. When it is recalled that
13:53
Speaker 2: Spain was supposed to have found in Peru temples lined
13:56
Speaker 2: with gold, floors paved with silver, and pearls readily exchanged
14:01
Speaker 2: in bucketfuls for glass beads, it can be realized that
14:05
Speaker 2: the motive for discovery was not merely scientific. It was
14:09
Speaker 2: one that actuated princes and merchants alike, and Peter the
14:13
Speaker 2: Great had an additional motive, the development of his country's
14:17
Speaker 2: merchant shipping. It was this that had induced him to
14:21
Speaker 2: establish the capital of his kingdom on the Baltic. So,
14:24
Speaker 2: in 1725, five weeks before his death, one of the
14:28
Speaker 2: most terrible deaths in history, when remorse and ghosts of
14:32
Speaker 2: terrible memories came to play his dying hours till his
14:35
Speaker 2: screams could be heard through the palace halls, he issued
14:38
Speaker 2: a commission for one of the greatest expeditions of discovery
14:41
Speaker 2: that ever set out for America, a commission to Vitus Bering,
14:45
Speaker 2: the Dane, to explore the Pacific for Russia. Like Peter
14:51
Speaker 2: the Great, Vitus Bering had served an apprenticeship with the
14:54
Speaker 2: East India Company. It is more than probable that he
14:57
Speaker 2: first met his royal patron while he was in this service.
15:01
Speaker 2: While other expeditions to explore America had but to cross
15:04
Speaker 2: the sea before beginning their quest, Bering's expedition had to
15:08
Speaker 2: cross the width of Europe and then the width of
15:11
Speaker 2: Asia before it could reach even the sea. Between St.
15:15
Speaker 2: Petersburg and the Pacific lay 6,000 miles of mountain and tundra. Caravans, flatboats,
15:21
Speaker 2: and dog-trains must be provided to transport supplies. and the
15:25
Speaker 2: vessels to be used at the end of the land
15:27
Speaker 2: journey must be built on the Pacific. The explorers were
15:31
Speaker 2: commissioned to levy tribute for food and fur on Tartar
15:34
Speaker 2: tribes as their caravans worked slowly eastward. Bering's first voyage
15:40
Speaker 2: does not concern America. He set out from Kachatka on
15:44
Speaker 2: July 9, 1728, with 44 men, and sailed far enough
15:50
Speaker 2: north to prove that Asia and America were not united
15:52
Speaker 2: by any gamelaned. and that the strait now bearing his
15:56
Speaker 2: name separated the two continents. But like the tribes of Siberia,
16:01
Speaker 2: he saw signs of a great land area on the
16:03
Speaker 2: other side of the rain-hidden sea. Out of the blanketing
16:07
Speaker 2: fog drifted trees, seaweed, bits of broken boats. And though Bering,
16:12
Speaker 2: like the English navigator Drake, was convinced that no Gamelan existed,
16:16
Speaker 2: he was confronted by the learned geographers, who had a
16:20
Speaker 2: Gamelan on their maps and demanded truculently whence came the
16:24
Speaker 2: signs of land. In March 1730, within one month of
16:28
Speaker 2: the time he returned to St. Petersburg, Bering was again
16:32
Speaker 2: ordered to prepare to carry out the dead emperor's command,
16:35
Speaker 2: to find and set down reliably what was in the Pacific.
16:39
Speaker 2: The explorer had now to take his orders from the
16:42
Speaker 2: authorities of the Academy of Scientists. whose bookish inexperience and
16:46
Speaker 2: visionary theories were to hamper him at every turn. Botanists, artists,
16:52
Speaker 2: seven monks, twelve physicians, Cossack soldiers, in all, nearly six
16:58
Speaker 2: hundred men, were to accompany him, and to transport the
17:02
Speaker 2: small army of explorers, four thousand pack-horses were sent winding
17:06
Speaker 2: across the desert wastes of Siberia, with one thousand exiles
17:11
Speaker 2: as guides and boatmen to work the boats and rafts
17:14
Speaker 2: on the rivers and streams. Great blaring of trumpets marked
17:18
Speaker 2: the arrival and departure of the caravans at the Russian
17:21
Speaker 2: forts on the way, and if the savants, whose presence
17:25
Speaker 2: pestered the soul of poor Bering, had been half as
17:28
Speaker 2: keen in overcoming the difficulties of the daily trail as
17:31
Speaker 2: they were in drinking a pottle deep to future successes,
17:35
Speaker 2: there would have been less bickering and delay in reaching
17:38
Speaker 2: the Pacific. Dead horses marked the trail across two continents.
17:43
Speaker 2: The Cossack soldiers deserted and joined the banditti that scoured
17:46
Speaker 2: the Tartar plains, and for three winters the travelers were
17:50
Speaker 2: storm-bound in the mountains of Siberia. But at length they
17:54
Speaker 2: reached Avacha Bay on the eastern shore of Kamchatka, and
17:57
Speaker 2: the waters of the Pacific gladdened the eyes of the
18:00
Speaker 2: weary travelers. At Petropavlovsk, on the bay they built a fort, houses, barracks,
18:06
Speaker 2: a chapel, and two vessels, named the St. Peter and
18:10
Speaker 2: and the St.
18:10
Speaker 3: Paul.
18:12
Speaker 2: Early on the morning of June 4, 1741, the chapel
18:16
Speaker 2: bells were set ringing. At dawn, prayers were chanted to
18:20
Speaker 2: invoke the blessing of heaven on the success of the voyage. Monks,
18:24
Speaker 2: in solemn procession, paraded to the water's edge, singing. The big,
18:28
Speaker 2: bearded men, who had doggedly, drunkenly, profanely, religiously, marched across
18:34
Speaker 2: deserts and mountains to reach the sea, gave comrades a
18:37
Speaker 2: last fond embrace, ran down the sand, jumped into the jolly-boats,
18:42
Speaker 2: rowed out, and clambered up the ship's ladders. And when
18:45
Speaker 2: the reverberating roll of the fort cannon signaled the hour
18:49
Speaker 2: of departure, anchors were weighed, and sails, loosened from the
18:53
Speaker 2: creaking yard-arms, fluttered and filled to the wind. While the
18:57
Speaker 2: landsmen were still cheering and waving a farewell, Bering and
19:00
Speaker 2: his followers watched the shores slip away, the waters widen,
19:04
Speaker 2: the mountains swim past and back. Then the St. Peter
19:07
Speaker 2: and the St. Paul headed out proudly to the lazy
19:10
Speaker 2: roll of the ocean. Now the savants, of whom Bering
19:14
Speaker 2: carried too many with him for his own peace of mind,
19:16
Speaker 2: had averred that he had found no Gamelan on his
19:19
Speaker 2: first voyage because he had sailed too far north. This
19:23
Speaker 2: time he was to voyage southward for that passage named
19:26
Speaker 2: after Juan de Fuca. This would lead him north of
19:29
Speaker 2: Drake's New Albion in California, and north of the Spanish
19:33
Speaker 2: cruisings about modern Vancouver Island. This was to bring him
19:36
Speaker 2: to the mythical Gamelan. Barry knew there was no Gamelan,
19:41
Speaker 2: but in the captain's cabin, where the savants have bent
19:44
Speaker 2: all day over charts, was the map of Delisle, the
19:47
Speaker 2: geographer of French Canada, showing... vast unnamed lands north of
19:52
Speaker 2: the Spanish possessions, and in the expedition was a member
19:55
Speaker 2: of the Delisle family. So Bering must have known or
19:59
Speaker 2: guessed that an empire half the size of Russia lay
20:02
Speaker 2: undiscovered north of Juan de Fuca's passage. So confident were
20:08
Speaker 2: the members of the expedition of reaching land to the
20:10
Speaker 2: east at an early date that provisions and water for
20:14
Speaker 2: only a few weeks were carried along. Bering had a
20:17
Speaker 2: crew of 77 on the St. Peter, and among the
20:19
Speaker 2: other men of science with him was the famous naturalist
20:22
Speaker 2: George W.
20:23
Speaker 1: Steller.
20:25
Speaker 2: Lieutenant Kirikov sailed the St. Paul with 76 men, and
20:29
Speaker 2: Delisle de la Croyere was his most distinguished passenger. As
20:33
Speaker 2: is usual during early June in that latitude, driving rains
20:37
Speaker 2: and dense fogs came rolling down from the north over
20:40
Speaker 2: a choppy sea. The fog turned to snow, and the St. Paul,
20:44
Speaker 2: far in the lead, came about to signal if they
20:47
Speaker 2: should not keep together to avoid losing each other in
20:49
Speaker 2: the thick weather, but the St. Peter was careening dangerously
20:53
Speaker 2: and shipping thunderous seas astern. Bering's laconic signal and answer
20:58
Speaker 2: was to keep on south, to Gamelan. but when the
21:01
Speaker 2: fog lifted the St. Peter was in latitude 46 degrees,
21:05
Speaker 2: far below the supposed location of the Strait of Juan
21:08
Speaker 2: de Fuca, and there was in sight neither Gamelan nor
21:11
Speaker 2: the sister ship. The scientists with Bering were in such
21:14
Speaker 2: a peevish mood over the utter disproof of their mythical
21:17
Speaker 2: continent that they insisted on the commander wasting a whole
21:21
Speaker 2: month pottering back and forth looking for Cherokov's ship. By
21:26
Speaker 2: this time, The weather had become very warm, the drinking
21:29
Speaker 2: water very rank, and the provisions stale. Finally, the learned
21:34
Speaker 2: men gave decision that as the other ship could not
21:36
Speaker 2: be found, the St. Peter might as well turn north.
21:40
Speaker 2: Baring had become very depressed, and so irritable that he
21:43
Speaker 2: could not tolerate approach. If the men of learning had
21:47
Speaker 2: been but wise in the dangers of ocean travel, they
21:49
Speaker 2: would have recognized in their commander the symptoms of the
21:52
Speaker 2: common sea scourge of the age, scurvy. Presently he was
21:56
Speaker 2: too ill to leave his bed, and Waxell, who hated
22:00
Speaker 2: all interference and threatened to put the scientists in irons
22:03
Speaker 2: or throw them overboard, took command. By the middle of
22:06
Speaker 2: July passengers and crew were reduced to half allowance of
22:09
Speaker 2: bad water. Still there were signs that afforded hope. As
22:13
Speaker 2: the ship worked through the fog blanket northward, driftwood and
22:16
Speaker 2: land birds, evidently from a land other than Asia, were seen.
22:20
Speaker 2: At last came a land wind from the southeast. lifting
22:23
Speaker 2: the fog and driving it back to the north. And
22:26
Speaker 2: early one morning there were confused cries from the deck hands,
22:30
Speaker 2: then silence, and shouts of exultant joy. Everybody rushed above decks,
22:35
Speaker 2: even the sick in their night robes, among them bearing,
22:38
Speaker 2: wan and weak, answering scarce a word to the happy
22:41
Speaker 2: clamour about him. Before the sailors' astonished gaze, in the
22:45
Speaker 2: very early light of that northern latitude, lay a turquoise sea,
22:50
Speaker 2: A shining sheet of water, milky and metallic like a
22:53
Speaker 2: mountain tarn, with the bright greens and blues of glacial silt,
22:57
Speaker 2: and looming through the primrose clouds of the horizon hung
23:00
Speaker 2: a huge opal dome in mid-heaven. At first they hardly
23:04
Speaker 2: realized what it meant. Then shouts went up. Land! Mountains! Snowpeaks!
23:11
Speaker 2: The St. Peter glided forward noiseless as a bird on
23:13
Speaker 2: the wing. Inlets and harbors, turquoise green and silent, opened
23:17
Speaker 2: along a jagged green and alabaster shore. As the vessel
23:22
Speaker 2: approached the land, the explorers saw that the white wall
23:25
Speaker 2: of the inner harbor was a rampart of solid ice.
23:28
Speaker 2: But where the shoreline extended out between ice and sea
23:32
Speaker 2: was a meadow of ferns and flowers that bloomed knee-deep
23:35
Speaker 2: and grasses waist-high. The spectators shouted and laughed and cried
23:39
Speaker 2: and embraced one another. Russia, too, had found a new empire. St.
23:45
Speaker 2: Elias they named the great peak that hung like a
23:47
Speaker 2: temple dome of marble above the lesser ridges, but bearing
23:51
Speaker 2: only side. We think we have done great things, eh? Well,
23:56
Speaker 2: who knows where this is? We're almost out of provisions,
24:00
Speaker 2: and not a man of us knows which way to
24:02
Speaker 2: sail home. Stellar was down the ship's ladder with the
24:06
Speaker 2: glee of a schoolboy, and off for the shore with
24:08
Speaker 2: fifteen men in one of the rowboats to explore. They
24:11
Speaker 2: found the dead ashes of a campfire on the sands,
24:14
Speaker 2: and some remnants of smoked fish, but any hope that
24:18
Speaker 2: the lost ship's crew had camped here was at once
24:20
Speaker 2: dispelled by the print of moccasin feet in the fine sand.
24:24
Speaker 2: Stellar found some rude huts covered with sea moss, but
24:28
Speaker 2: no human presence. Water casks were filled, and that relieved
24:32
Speaker 2: a pressing need. On July 21st, when the wind began
24:36
Speaker 2: to blow freshly seaward, Bering appeared unexpectedly on deck, ashen
24:41
Speaker 2: of view and staggering from weakness, and peremptorily ordered anchors up.
24:48
Speaker 2: Bells were rung and gongs beaten to call those ashore
24:51
Speaker 2: back to the ship. Stellar stormed and swore. Was it
24:55
Speaker 2: for this hurried race ashore that he had spent years
24:58
Speaker 2: toiling across two continents? He wanted to botanize, to explore,
25:03
Speaker 2: to gather data for science, but the commander had had
25:06
Speaker 2: enough of science. He was sick unto death. in body
25:09
Speaker 2: and in soul, sick with the knowledge that they were
25:12
Speaker 2: two thousand miles from any known port, in a tempestuous sea,
25:16
Speaker 2: on a rickety ship manned for the most part by landlubbers.
25:21
Speaker 2: As they scudded before the wind, Bering found that the
25:24
Speaker 2: shore was trending south towards the home harbour. They were
25:27
Speaker 2: following that long line of reefed islands, the Aleutians, which
25:31
Speaker 2: project out from Alaska towards Asia. A roar of reefs
25:36
Speaker 2: through the fog warned them off the land, but one
25:39
Speaker 2: midnight of August the lead recorded less than three feet
25:43
Speaker 2: of water under the keel. Before there was time for panic,
25:47
Speaker 2: a current that rushed between rocks threw the vessel onto
25:50
Speaker 2: a deep pool of backwash, and there she lay till morning.
25:54
Speaker 2: By this time many of the sailors were down with scurvy.
25:57
Speaker 2: It became necessary to land for fresh water. One man
26:01
Speaker 2: died as he was lifted from the decks to the shore.
26:04
Speaker 2: bearing could not stand unaided. Twenty emaciated sailors were taken
26:09
Speaker 2: out of their berths and propped up on the sand,
26:12
Speaker 2: and the water they took from this rocky island was brackish,
26:15
Speaker 2: and only increased the ravages of the malady. From the
26:19
Speaker 2: date of this ill-fated landing, a pall, a state of paralysis,
26:24
Speaker 2: of inaction and fear, seemed to hang over the ship.
26:28
Speaker 2: The tide-rip was mistaken for earthquake, and when the lurid
26:31
Speaker 2: glare of volcanic smoke came through the fog The sailors
26:35
Speaker 2: huddled panic-stricken below decks and refused to obey orders. Every
26:39
Speaker 2: man became his own master, and if that ever works
26:42
Speaker 2: well on land, it means disaster at sea. Thus it
26:46
Speaker 2: has almost always been with the inefficient and the misfits
26:49
Speaker 2: who have gone out in ships, landlubbers trying to be navigators.
26:53
Speaker 2: Just when Bering's crew should have braced themselves to resist
26:57
Speaker 2: the greatest stress, they collapsed and huddled together with bowed heads,
27:02
Speaker 2: inviting the worst that fate could do to them. When
27:05
Speaker 2: the tide-rip came through the reefs from the north along
27:08
Speaker 2: the line of the Aleutian Islands with the swiftness of
27:10
Speaker 2: a mill-race, the men had literally to be held to
27:13
Speaker 2: the rudder at pistol-point and beaten up the masts with
27:16
Speaker 2: the flat of the officers' swords. But while they skulked,
27:21
Speaker 2: a hurricane rolled up the fog, and the ship could
27:23
Speaker 2: but scud under bare poles before the wind. Rations were
27:28
Speaker 2: now down to mouldy sea-biscuits, and only fifteen casks of
27:31
Speaker 2: water remained for threescore men. Out of the turmoil of
27:36
Speaker 2: waters and wind along the wave-lashed rocks came the hoarse, shrill,
27:40
Speaker 2: strident cry of the sea-line, the boom and snort of
27:44
Speaker 2: the great walrus, the roar of the sealed rookeries, where
27:47
Speaker 2: millions of cubs wallowed, and where bulls lashed themselves in
27:51
Speaker 2: their rage and fought for mastery of the herd. By November,
27:56
Speaker 2: Waxell alone was holding the vessel up to the wind.
27:59
Speaker 2: No more solemn conferences of self-important, self-willed scientists filled the
28:03
Speaker 2: commander's cabin. No more solemn conclaves and arguments and counter-arguments
28:08
Speaker 2: to induce the commander to sail this way and that.
28:11
Speaker 2: Bedlam rained above and below decks. No man had any
28:15
Speaker 2: thought but how to reach home alive. Prayers and vows
28:18
Speaker 2: and offerings went up from the decks of the St.
28:20
Speaker 2: Peter like smoke. The Russians vowed themselves to holy lies
28:25
Speaker 2: and stopped swearing. To the inexpressible delight of all hands
28:30
Speaker 2: the prayers seemed to be heard. On November 4th, the
28:34
Speaker 2: storm abated, and land loomed up on the horizon, dim
28:37
Speaker 2: at first, but taking shape as the vessel approached it
28:40
Speaker 2: and showing a well-defined rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour?
28:45
Speaker 2: The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway
28:48
Speaker 2: to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom.
28:52
Speaker 2: A cask of brandy was opened, and tears gave place
28:55
Speaker 2: to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear
28:58
Speaker 2: that he recognized this headland. that he had known they
29:01
Speaker 2: were following the right course after all, and that he
29:05
Speaker 2: had never felt any fear at all. Barely had the
29:08
Speaker 2: grief become joy when a chill silence fell over the ship.
29:12
Speaker 2: The only sounds were the rattling of the rigging against
29:15
Speaker 2: the masts, the groaning of the timbers of the vessel,
29:18
Speaker 2: and the swish of waves cut by the prow. These
29:21
Speaker 2: were not Kamchatka shores. This was only another of the
29:25
Speaker 2: endless island reefs they had been chasing since July. The
29:29
Speaker 2: tattered sails flapped and beat dismally against the cordage. Night fell.
29:34
Speaker 2: There was a retributive glee in the whistle of the
29:37
Speaker 2: mocking wind through the rotten rigging, and the ship timbers
29:40
Speaker 2: groaned to the boom of the heavy tide. Bering was
29:44
Speaker 2: past caring whether he lived or died. Morning revealed a
29:47
Speaker 2: shore of black basalt, reef upon reef, like sentinels of death, saying,
29:53
Speaker 2: Come in, come in. We are here to see that
29:57
Speaker 2: you never go out. AND THERE WAS A NASTY CLUTCH
29:59
Speaker 2: TO THE BACKWASH OF THE BILLOWS SMASHING DOWN FROM THOSE ROCKS.
30:03
Speaker 2: WAXELL CALLED THE LAST COUNSEL OF ALL HANDS IN THE
30:06
Speaker 2: CAPTAIN'S CABIN. WE SHOULD GO ON HOME, SAID BEARING, RISING
30:10
Speaker 2: ON HIS ELBOW IN HIS BIRTH. IT MATTERS NOT TO ME.
30:14
Speaker 2: I AM PAST MENDING. BUT EVEN IF WE HAVE ONLY
30:17
Speaker 2: THE FOREMAST LEFT AND ONE KEG OF WATER, LET US
30:20
Speaker 2: STRIVE FOR THE HOME HARBOR. A FEW DAYS MUST MAKE IT.
30:24
Speaker 2: HAVING RISKED SO MUCH, LET US RISK ALL TO WIN.
30:29
Speaker 2: AS THEY AFTERWARDS FOUND, THEY WERE ONLY ONE WEEK FROM KAMCHATKA.
30:34
Speaker 2: BUT THEY WERE TERRIFIED AT THE PROSPECT OF ANY MORE
30:37
Speaker 2: DEEP SEA WANDERINGS, AND WHEN ONE OF THE OFFICERS DARED
30:40
Speaker 2: TO SUPPORT BEARING'S VIEW, THEY FELL ON HIM LIKE WILD
30:43
Speaker 2: BEASTS AND THREW HIM FROM THE CABIN. TO A MAN
30:46
Speaker 2: THEY VOTED TO LAND. THAT VOTE WAS FATE'S SEAL TO
30:50
Speaker 2: THE PENALTY MEN MUST PAY FOR THEIR MISTAKES. ABOVE THE
30:54
Speaker 2: WHITE FRED OF REEFS, PRECIPICES TOWERED IN PINNACLES TWO THOUSAND
30:58
Speaker 2: FEET HIGH. Through the reefs the doomed ship stole like
31:02
Speaker 2: a hunted thing. Only one man kept his head clear
31:05
Speaker 2: and his hand to the helm, the lieutenant whom all
31:07
Speaker 2: the rest had thrown out of the cabin. The island
31:10
Speaker 2: seemed absolutely treeless, covered only with sedge and shingle and grass.
31:15
Speaker 2: The tide began to toss the ship about so that
31:18
Speaker 2: the sick were rolled from their berths. Night came with
31:21
Speaker 2: a ghostly moonlight silvering the fret of a seething sea
31:24
Speaker 2: that seemed to be reaching up white arms for its
31:27
Speaker 2: puny victims. The lieutenant threw out an anchor. It raked
31:31
Speaker 2: bottom and the cable snapped. The crazed crew began throwing
31:35
Speaker 2: the dead overboard as an offering to appease the anger
31:38
Speaker 2: of the sea. The St. Peter swept stern foremost full
31:42
Speaker 2: on a reef. Quickly, the lieutenant and Stuller threw out
31:45
Speaker 2: the last anchor. It gripped between rocks and held. The
31:51
Speaker 2: tide at midnight had thrown the vessel into a sheltered cove.
31:55
Speaker 2: Stellar and the lieutenant at once rode ashore to examine
31:58
Speaker 2: their surroundings and to take steps to make provision for
32:01
Speaker 2: the morrow. They were on what is now known as
32:04
Speaker 2: Bering Island. Fortunately, it was literally swarming with animal life,
32:09
Speaker 2: the great manatee or sea cow in herds on their
32:12
Speaker 2: kelp beds, blue foxes in thousands, the seal rookeries that
32:16
Speaker 2: were to make the islands famous, but there was no
32:19
Speaker 2: timber to build houses for wintering in. It was a
32:22
Speaker 2: barren island. They could make floors of sand, walls of peat,
32:27
Speaker 2: roofs of sea moss, but what shelter was this against
32:30
Speaker 2: northern gales? By November 8, a rude pit shelter had
32:34
Speaker 2: been constructed to house the invalidated crew, but the sudden
32:38
Speaker 2: transition from a putrid hole to the open, frosty air
32:41
Speaker 2: caused the death of many as they were lowered on stretchers.
32:45
Speaker 2: Amid a heavy snow, Bering was wrapped in furs and
32:47
Speaker 2: carried ashore. The dauntless Stellar faced the situation with judgment
32:51
Speaker 2: and courage. He acted as doctor, nurse, and hunter, and
32:55
Speaker 2: daily brought in meat for the hungry and furs to
32:57
Speaker 2: cover the dying. Five pits sheltered the castaways. When examined
33:03
Speaker 2: in 1885, the walls of the pits were still intact,
33:06
Speaker 2: three feet of solid peat. Clothing of sea otter skins
33:10
Speaker 2: of priceless value, which afterwards proved a fortune to those
33:15
Speaker 2: who survived, and food of the flesh of the great
33:18
Speaker 2: sea cow saved a remnant of the wretched crew. During
33:22
Speaker 2: most of the month of November, the St. Peter rode
33:24
Speaker 2: safely at anchor while storms thundered around her retreat. But
33:29
Speaker 2: on the 28th, her cable snapped beneath a hurricane, and
33:33
Speaker 2: she was driven high and dry on the shore, a
33:35
Speaker 2: broken wreck. In all, 31 men had perished of scurvy
33:39
Speaker 2: by January 1742. Among these was a poor old commander.
33:45
Speaker 2: On the morning of December 8, as the wind went
33:48
Speaker 2: moaning around their shelter, Stellar heard the Dane praying in
33:52
Speaker 2: a low voice, and just at daybreak he passed into
33:55
Speaker 2: that great, quiet, unknown world when Snow Traveler has returned.
34:01
Speaker 2: How the consort ship, the St. Paul, found her way
34:04
Speaker 2: back to Kamchatka, and how Bering's castaways in the spring
34:08
Speaker 2: built themselves a raft and mustered their courage to essay
34:11
Speaker 2: the voyage home which they ought to have attempted in
34:14
Speaker 2: the autumn, are matters for more detailed history. But just
34:19
Speaker 2: as Cartier's discoveries of the St. Lawrence led to the
34:22
Speaker 2: pursuit of the Little Beaver across a continent, so the
34:26
Speaker 2: Russians' discovery of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands led to
34:30
Speaker 2: the pursuit of the sea otter up and down the
34:32
Speaker 2: North Pacific, led the way, indeed, to that contest for
34:36
Speaker 2: world supremacy on the Pacific, in which the great powers
34:40
Speaker 2: of three continents are today engaged.
34:43
Speaker 1: According by Phil Shams. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST A
34:48
Speaker 1: CHRONICLE OF SEA ROVERS AND FUR HUNTERS By Agnes C.
34:51
Speaker 1: Laut Chapter 3 The Outlaw Hunters Chirikov's crew on the St.
34:57
Speaker 1: Paul had long since returned in safety to Kamchatka, and
35:01
Speaker 1: the garrison of the fort on Avacha Bay had given
35:03
Speaker 1: up Bering's men as lost forever, when one August morning
35:07
Speaker 1: the sentinel on guard along the shorefront of Petropavlovsk described
35:11
Speaker 1: a strange apparition approaching across the silver surface of an
35:14
Speaker 1: unruffled sea. It was like a huge whale, racing, galloping,
35:19
Speaker 1: coming in leaps and bounds of flying fins over the
35:22
Speaker 1: water towards the fort. The soldier telescoped his eyes with
35:26
Speaker 1: his hands, and looked again. This was no whale. It
35:29
Speaker 1: was a mast-pole, with a limp-skin thing for a sail.
35:33
Speaker 1: It was a big, clumsy, raft-shaped flat-boat. The oarsmen were
35:37
Speaker 1: rowing like pursued maniacs, rising and falling bodily as they pulled.
35:42
Speaker 1: It was this that gave the craft the appearance of
35:45
Speaker 1: galloping over the water. The soldier called down to others
35:48
Speaker 1: to look. Someone ran for the commander of the fort.
35:52
Speaker 1: What puzzled the onlookers was the appearance of the rowers.
35:55
Speaker 1: They did not look like human beings. Their hair was long,
35:59
Speaker 1: their beards were unkempt. They were literally naked except for
36:03
Speaker 1: breech clouts and shoulder pieces of fur. Then somebody shouted
36:07
Speaker 1: the unexpected tidings that they were the castaways of Bering's crew.
36:12
Speaker 1: Bugles ran, the fort drum rumbled a muster, the chapel
36:15
Speaker 1: bells pealed forth, and the whole population of the fort
36:19
Speaker 1: rushed to the waterside, shouting, gesticulating, laughing, crying, and welcomed
36:24
Speaker 1: with wild embraces the returning castaways. And while men looked
36:29
Speaker 1: for this one and that among the two score coming
36:32
Speaker 1: ashore from the raft, and women wept for those they
36:35
Speaker 1: did not find, on the outskirts of the crowd stood
36:38
Speaker 1: silent observers, Chinese traders and peddlers from Manchuria, who yearly
36:42
Speaker 1: visited Kamchatka to gather pelts for the great annual fur
36:46
Speaker 1: fairs held in China. The Chinese merchants looked hard, then
36:49
Speaker 1: nodded knowingly to each other, and came furtively down amid
36:53
Speaker 1: the groups along the shore front and timidly fingered the
36:56
Speaker 1: matted pelts worn by the half-naked men. It was incredible.
37:01
Speaker 1: Each penniless castaway was wearing the fur of the sea otter,
37:04
Speaker 1: or what the Russians called the sea beaver, more valuable
37:07
Speaker 1: than seal, and even at that day, rarer than silver fox.
37:12
Speaker 1: Never suspecting their value, the castaways had brought back a
37:16
Speaker 1: great number of the pelts of these animals, and when
37:18
Speaker 1: the Chinese merchants paid over the value of these furs
37:21
Speaker 1: in gold, the Russians awakened to a realization that while
37:25
Speaker 1: Bering had not found a gamelan, he might have stumbled
37:28
Speaker 1: on as great a resource of wealth as the furs
37:31
Speaker 1: of French Canada or the gold-lined temples of Peru. The
37:35
Speaker 1: story Bering's men told was that, while searching ravenously for
37:38
Speaker 1: food on the barren island where they had been cast,
37:41
Speaker 1: they found vast kelp beds and seaweed marshes where pastured
37:45
Speaker 1: the great manatee known as the sea cow. Its flesh
37:49
Speaker 1: had saved their lives. While hunting the sea cow in
37:52
Speaker 1: the kelp beds and sea marshes, the men had noticed
37:55
Speaker 1: that whenever a washing sea or tide drove the shattered
37:58
Speaker 1: spray up the rocks, there would come riding in on
38:01
Speaker 1: the storm whole herds of another sea denizen, thousands upon
38:04
Speaker 1: thousands of them, so tame that they did not know
38:07
Speaker 1: the fear of man. burying their heads in the sea
38:10
Speaker 1: kelp while the storm raged lifting them only to breathe
38:14
Speaker 1: at intervals this creature was six feet long from the
38:17
Speaker 1: tip of its round cat-shaped nose to the end of
38:20
Speaker 1: its stumpy beaver-shaped tail with fur the color of ebony
38:24
Speaker 1: on the surface soft seal color and gray below and
38:28
Speaker 1: deep as sable Quite unconscious of the worth of the fur,
38:31
Speaker 1: the castaway sailors fell on these visitors to the kelp beds,
38:35
Speaker 1: and clubbed right and left for skins to protect their
38:37
Speaker 1: nakedness from the biting winter winds. It was the news
38:41
Speaker 1: of the sea wealth brought to Kamchatka by Bering's men
38:44
Speaker 1: that sent traders scurrying to the Aleutian Islands and the
38:46
Speaker 1: Alaskan shores. Henceforth, Siberian merchants were to vie with each
38:51
Speaker 1: other in outfitting hunters, criminals, political exiles, refugees, destitute sailors—
38:57
Speaker 1: to scour the coasts of America for sea otter. Throughout
39:00
Speaker 1: the long line of the Aleutian Islands and the neighboring
39:03
Speaker 1: coasts of North America, for over a century, hunters' boats,
39:06
Speaker 1: little cockle-shell skiffs made of oiled walrus skin stretched on
39:10
Speaker 1: whalebone frames, narrow as a canoe, light as a cork,
39:14
Speaker 1: rode the wildest seas in the wildest storms in the
39:17
Speaker 1: pursuit of the sea otter. Sea otter became to the
39:20
Speaker 1: Pacific coast what beaver was to the Atlantic, the magnet
39:23
Speaker 1: that drew traders to the Northwest Seas, and ultimately led
39:27
Speaker 1: to the settlement of the northwest coast. IT WAS, TO
39:31
Speaker 1: BE SURE, DANGEROUS WORK HUNTING IN WILD NORTHERN GALES ON
39:34
Speaker 1: ROCKS SLIPPERY WITH ICE, AND THROUGH SPRAY THAT WIPED OUT
39:37
Speaker 1: EVERY OUTLINE OF PRECIPICE EDGE OR REEF, BUT IT OFFERED
39:41
Speaker 1: VARIETY TO EXILES IN SIBERIA, AND IT OFFERED MORE, A
39:45
Speaker 1: CHANCE OF WEALTH IF THEY SURVIVED, Iron for bolts of
39:49
Speaker 1: boats must be brought all the way from Europe, so
39:52
Speaker 1: the outlaw hunters did without iron, and fastened planks together
39:55
Speaker 1: as best they could with deer thongs in place of nails,
39:59
Speaker 1: and moss and tallow in place of tar. In the
40:01
Speaker 1: crazy vessel so constructed they ventured out from Kamchatka two
40:05
Speaker 1: thousand miles across unknown boisterous seas. Once they had reached
40:10
Speaker 1: the Aleutians, natives were engaged to do the actual hunting
40:13
Speaker 1: under their directions. EXILES AND CRIMINALS COULD NOT BE EXPECTED
40:18
Speaker 1: TO USE GENTLE METHODS TO ATTAIN THEIR ENDS. GOD IS
40:21
Speaker 1: HIGH IN THE HEAVENS, AND THE CZAR IS FAR AWAY,
40:23
Speaker 1: THEY SAID. THE OBJECT WAS QUICK PROFIT, AND PLUNDERING WAS
40:27
Speaker 1: THE EASIEST WAY TO ATTAIN IT. HOW WERE THE ILLUSION
40:30
Speaker 1: INDIANS PAID? AT FIRST THEY WERE NOT PAID AT ALL.
40:34
Speaker 1: THEY WERE DRUGGED INTO SERVICE WITH VODKA, A LIQUOR THAT
40:36
Speaker 1: PUT THEM IN A FRENZY, AND BAYONETTED AND BLUDGENED INTO OBEDIENCE.
40:40
Speaker 1: These methods failing, wives and children were seized by the
40:44
Speaker 1: Russians and held in camp as hostages to guarantee a
40:47
Speaker 1: big hunt. The Aleuts' one object in meeting the Russian
40:51
Speaker 1: hunter at all was to get possession of firearms. From
40:54
Speaker 1: the time Bering's crew and Chirikov's men had first fired
40:57
Speaker 1: rifles in the presence of these poor savages of the north,
41:00
Speaker 1: the Indians had realized that the stick that thundered was
41:03
Speaker 1: a weapon they must possess or see their tribe exterminated.
41:08
Speaker 1: The brigades of sea otter hunters far exceeded in size
41:11
Speaker 1: and wild daring the platoons of beaver hunters, who ranged
41:15
Speaker 1: by pack horse and canoe from Hudson Bay to the
41:17
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains. The Russian ship, provisioned for two or three years,
41:22
Speaker 1: would moor and draw up ashore for the winter on
41:25
Speaker 1: one of the 1,100 Aleutian Islands. Huts would be constructed
41:29
Speaker 1: of driftwood, roofed with sea moss, and as time went
41:33
Speaker 1: on even rude forts were erected on two or three
41:35
Speaker 1: of the islands. like onalaska and kadiak where the kelp
41:39
Speaker 1: beds were extensive and the hunting was good enough to
41:42
Speaker 1: last for several years the indians would then be attracted
41:46
Speaker 1: to camp by presents of brandy and glass beads and
41:49
Speaker 1: gay trinkets and firearms perhaps one thousand aleut hunters would
41:53
Speaker 1: be assembled two types of hunting boats were used the
41:57
Speaker 1: big badarki carrying twenty or thirty men, and the little kayak,
42:01
Speaker 1: a mere cockle-shell, oiled walrus-skin, stretched taut as a drum-head,
42:05
Speaker 1: served as the covering for the kayak against the seas,
42:09
Speaker 1: a manhole being left in the center for the paddler
42:11
Speaker 1: to ensconce himself waist-deep with oil-skin around his waist to
42:15
Speaker 1: keep the water out. Clothing was worn fur-side in, oiled
42:19
Speaker 1: side out, and the soles of all moccasins were padded
42:22
Speaker 1: with moss to protect the feet from the sharp rocks.
42:25
Speaker 1: Armed with clubs, spears, steel gaffs, and rifles, the hunters
42:29
Speaker 1: would paddle out into the storm. There were three types
42:33
Speaker 1: of hunting. Long-distance rifle shooting, which the Russians taught the Aleuts,
42:37
Speaker 1: still hunting in a calm sea, storm hunting on the
42:40
Speaker 1: kelp beds and rocks as the wild tide rode in
42:43
Speaker 1: with its myriad swimmers. Rifles could be used only when
42:47
Speaker 1: the wind was away from the sea otter beds, and
42:49
Speaker 1: the rocks offered good hiding above the sea swamps. This
42:53
Speaker 1: method was sea otter hunting deluxe. Still hunting could only
42:56
Speaker 1: be followed when the sea was smooth as glass. The
42:59
Speaker 1: Russian schooner would launch out a brigade of cockle-shell kayaks
43:03
Speaker 1: on an unruffled stretch of sea, which the sea otter traversed,
43:06
Speaker 1: going to and from kelp beds. While the sea otter
43:09
Speaker 1: is a marine denizen, it must come up to breathe,
43:12
Speaker 1: and if it does not come up frequently of its
43:14
Speaker 1: own volition, the gases formed in its body bring it
43:17
Speaker 1: to the surface. Little kayaks would circle out silent as
43:20
Speaker 1: shadows over the silver surface of the sea, A round
43:24
Speaker 1: head would bob up, or a bubble show where a
43:26
Speaker 1: swimmer was moving below the surface. The kayaks would narrow
43:30
Speaker 1: their surrounding circle. Presently a head would appear. The hunter
43:34
Speaker 1: nearest would deal the death-stroke with his steel gaff, and
43:38
Speaker 1: the quarry would be drawn in. But it was in
43:40
Speaker 1: the storm-hunt over the kelp beds that the wildest work
43:43
Speaker 1: went on. Through the fiercest storm scutted badarkies and kayaks,
43:48
Speaker 1: meeting the herds of sea-otter as they drove before the gale.
43:52
Speaker 1: To be sure, the Badarkis filled and foundered, and kayaks
43:55
Speaker 1: were ripped on the teeth of the rock reefs, but
43:58
Speaker 1: the sea took no account of its dead, neither did
44:00
Speaker 1: the Russians. Only the Aleut women and children wept for
44:03
Speaker 1: the loss of the hunters who never returned, and sea
44:07
Speaker 1: otter hunting decreased the population of the Aleutian Islands by thousands.
44:11
Speaker 1: It was as fatal to the Indian as to the
44:13
Speaker 1: sea otter. Two hundred thousand sea otters were taken by
44:16
Speaker 1: Russians in a half-century. Kadiak yielded as many as 6,000
44:20
Speaker 1: pelts in a single year, Unalaska 3,000, the Pribilofs 5,000,
44:26
Speaker 1: Sitka used to yield 15,000 a year. Today there are
44:30
Speaker 1: barely 200 a year found from the Commander Islands to Sitka.
44:34
Speaker 1: It may be imagined that Russian criminals were not easy
44:37
Speaker 1: masters to the simple Elliot women and children who were
44:40
Speaker 1: held as hostages in camp to guarantee a good hunt.
44:43
Speaker 1: Brandy flowed like water. The Tsar was far away, and
44:46
Speaker 1: it was a land with no law but force. The
44:49
Speaker 1: Russian hunters cast conscience and fear to the winds. Who
44:52
Speaker 1: would know? God did not seem to see, and it
44:55
Speaker 1: was 2,000 miles to the home fort in Kamchatka. When
44:58
Speaker 1: the hunt was poor, children were brained with clubbed rifles.
45:02
Speaker 1: Women knouted to death before the eyes of husbands and fathers.
45:06
Speaker 1: In 1745, a whole village of Aleuts had poison put
45:09
Speaker 1: in their food by the Russians. Men were to eat first,
45:13
Speaker 1: and when they had perished, the women and children would
45:15
Speaker 1: be left as slaves to the Russians. A Cossack, Pushkarev,
45:19
Speaker 1: brought a ship out for the merchant Betshevin in 1762,
45:24
Speaker 1: and in punishment for the murder of several brutal members
45:26
Speaker 1: of the crew by the Aleuts, he kidnapped 25 of
45:30
Speaker 1: their women. Then, as storm drove him towards Kamchatka, he
45:34
Speaker 1: feared to enter the home port with such a damning
45:36
Speaker 1: human cargo, so he promptly marooned 14 victims on a
45:39
Speaker 1: rocky coast and and binding the others hand and foot,
45:42
Speaker 1: threw them into the sea. The merchant and Cossack were
45:46
Speaker 1: both finally punished by the Russian government for crimes of
45:49
Speaker 1: this voyage, but this did not silence the blood of
45:51
Speaker 1: the murdered women, crying to heaven for vengeance. In September 1762,
45:56
Speaker 1: the criminal ship came back to Ovachevei. In complete ignorance
46:00
Speaker 1: of the Cossacks' diabolical conduct, four Russian ships sailed that
46:04
Speaker 1: very month for the Aleutian Islands. Since 1741, when Bering's
46:09
Speaker 1: sailors had found the kelp beds, Aleuts had hunted the
46:12
Speaker 1: sea otter, and Russians had hunted the Aleuts. For three years,
46:16
Speaker 1: fate reversed the wheel. It was to be a manhunt
46:19
Speaker 1: of fugitive Russians. Just before the snow fell in the
46:22
Speaker 1: autumn of 1763, Alexis Drusenin anchored his ship on the
46:27
Speaker 1: northeast corner of Unalaska, where the rocks sprout out in
46:30
Speaker 1: the sea in five great spurs like fingers of a hand.
46:34
Speaker 1: The spurs are separated by tempestuous reef-ribbed seas. The Indians
46:38
Speaker 1: were so friendly that they voluntarily placed hostages of good
46:42
Speaker 1: conduct in the Russians' hands. Two or three thousand Aleut
46:46
Speaker 1: hunters came flocking over the sea in their kayaks to
46:48
Speaker 1: join the sea otter brigades. On the spur opposite to
46:52
Speaker 1: Drusenin's anchorage stood an Aleut village of forty houses. On
46:56
Speaker 1: the next spur, ten miles away across the sea, another
46:59
Speaker 1: village of seventy people. The Russian captain divided his crew
47:03
Speaker 1: and placed from nine to twelve men in each of
47:05
Speaker 1: the villages. With ample firearms and enough brandy, half a
47:09
Speaker 1: dozen Russians can control a thousand Aleuts. Swaggering and bullying,
47:13
Speaker 1: and loud-voiced and pot-valiant, Drusenin and two Cossacks stooped to
47:17
Speaker 1: enter a low-thatched Aleut hut. The entrance step pitched down
47:21
Speaker 1: into sort of a pit, and as Drusenin stumbled in,
47:24
Speaker 1: face foremost, a cudgel clubbed down on his skull. The
47:28
Speaker 1: Cossack behind stumbled headlong over the prostrate form of his officer.
47:32
Speaker 1: and in the dark there was a flash of long knives,
47:35
Speaker 1: such knives as the hunters used in skinning their prey.
47:38
Speaker 1: Both bodies were cut to fragments. The third man seized
47:41
Speaker 1: an axe as the murderers crowded round him and beat
47:44
Speaker 1: them back. He then sought safety in flight. There was
47:48
Speaker 1: a hiss of hurtling spears thrown after him with terrible deafness.
47:52
Speaker 1: With his back pierced in a dozen places, drenched in
47:54
Speaker 1: his own blood, the Cossack almost tumbled over the prostrate
47:57
Speaker 1: body of a sentinel who had been on guard at
48:00
Speaker 1: a house down by the ship. and had been wounded
48:02
Speaker 1: by the flying spears. A sailor dashed out, a yard-long
48:06
Speaker 1: bear-knife in his grasp, and dragged the two men inside.
48:10
Speaker 1: Of the dozen Russians stationed here, only four survived, and
48:14
Speaker 1: their hut was beset by a rabble of Aleuts drunk
48:17
Speaker 1: with vodka, drunk with blood, drunk with a frenzy of revenge.
48:21
Speaker 1: Cooped up in the hut, the Russians kept guard by
48:24
Speaker 1: twos till nightfall, when, dragging a badarki down to the water,
48:28
Speaker 1: they loaded it with provisions and firearms, and pushed out
48:31
Speaker 1: in the dark, to the moan and heave of an
48:33
Speaker 1: unquiet sea. Though weakened from loss of blood, the fugitives
48:37
Speaker 1: rowed with fury for the next spur of rock ten
48:40
Speaker 1: miles away, where they hoped to find help. The tide-rip
48:44
Speaker 1: came out of the north with angry threat and broke
48:46
Speaker 1: against the rocks, but no blink of light shone through
48:49
Speaker 1: the dark from the Russian huts ashore. The men were
48:52
Speaker 1: afraid to land, and afraid not to land. Wind and
48:55
Speaker 1: sea would presently crush their frail craft to kindling wood
48:58
Speaker 1: against the rocky shore. The Russians sprang out, waded ashore,
49:02
Speaker 1: uttered a shout. Instantly lances and spears fell about them
49:06
Speaker 1: like rain. They joined hands and ran for the cove,
49:09
Speaker 1: where the big schooner had been moored. Breathlessly they waited
49:13
Speaker 1: for dawn to discover where the ship lay, but daylight
49:16
Speaker 1: revealed only the broken wreckage of the vessel along the shore,
49:19
Speaker 1: while all about were bloodstains and pieces of clothing and
49:23
Speaker 1: mutilated bodies, which told but too plainly that the crew
49:26
Speaker 1: had been hacked to pieces. There was not a moment
49:29
Speaker 1: to be lost. Before the mist could lift, the fugitives
49:32
Speaker 1: gathered up some provisions scattered on the shore, and ran
49:35
Speaker 1: for their lives to the high mountains farther inland. When
49:38
Speaker 1: daylight came, they scooped a hole in the sand, drew
49:41
Speaker 1: a piece of sailcloth over this, and lay in hiding
49:44
Speaker 1: till night. From early December to early February, the Russians
49:48
Speaker 1: hid in the caves of the Unalaska Mountains. Clams, shellfish,
49:52
Speaker 1: seabirds stayed their hunger. It is supposed that they must
49:55
Speaker 1: have found shelter in one of the caves where there
49:57
Speaker 1: are medicinal hot springs. Otherwise, they would have perished of cold.
50:02
Speaker 1: In February they succeeded in making a rude boat, and
50:05
Speaker 1: in this they set out by night to seek the
50:07
Speaker 1: ships of other Russian hunters. For a week they rowed
50:10
Speaker 1: out only at night. Then they began to row by day.
50:14
Speaker 1: They were seen by Indians, and once more sought safety
50:16
Speaker 1: in the caves of the mountains, where they remained in
50:19
Speaker 1: hiding for five weeks, venturing out only at night in
50:22
Speaker 1: search of food. Here snow-water and shell-fish were all they
50:26
Speaker 1: had to sustain them, and again they must build a
50:29
Speaker 1: rude raft to escape. Towards the end of March, they
50:32
Speaker 1: described a Russian vessel in the offing, and at last
50:35
Speaker 1: succeeded in reaching friends. Almost the same story could be
50:39
Speaker 1: told of the crews of each of the ships that
50:42
Speaker 1: had sailed from Avacha Bay in September 1762. One ship foundered,
50:47
Speaker 1: the castaways were stabbed, or they lay in exhausted sleep.
50:51
Speaker 1: Every member of the crew on a third ship had
50:53
Speaker 1: been slain round a bathhouse, such as Russian hunters built
50:56
Speaker 1: in that climate, to enable them to ward off rheumatism
50:59
Speaker 1: by vapor plunges. One ship only escaped the general butchery
51:03
Speaker 1: and carried the refugees home. Of course, Cossack and hunter
51:06
Speaker 1: extracted terrible vengeance for this massacre. Whole villages were burned
51:10
Speaker 1: to the ground and every inhabitant sabred. On one occasion,
51:14
Speaker 1: as many as 300 victims were tied in line and shot.
51:18
Speaker 1: The result was that the Cossacks' outrages and the Aleuts'
51:21
Speaker 1: vengeance drew the intention of the Russian government to this
51:23
Speaker 1: lucrative fur trade in the far new land. The disorders
51:27
Speaker 1: put an end to free, unrestricted trade. Henceforth, a hunter
51:31
Speaker 1: must have a license, and a license implied the favor
51:34
Speaker 1: of the court. The court saw to it that a
51:36
Speaker 1: governor took up his residence in the region to enforce
51:39
Speaker 1: justice and to compel the hunters to make honest returns.
51:43
Speaker 1: Like the Hudson's Bay men, the Russian fur traders had
51:46
Speaker 1: to report direct to the crown. Thus was inaugurated on
51:49
Speaker 1: the west coast of America the Russian regime, which ended
51:53
Speaker 1: only in 1867, when Alaska was ceded to the United States.
51:58
Speaker 3: Recording by Son of the Exiles Pioneers of the Pacific
52:04
Speaker 3: Coast A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters by
52:09
Speaker 3: Agnes C. Loud Cook and Vancouver It was the quest
52:17
Speaker 3: for a passage to the Atlantic that brought Captain James
52:20
Speaker 3: Cook to the Pacific. Before joining the Royal Navy, Cook
52:25
Speaker 3: had been engaged as a captain in the Baltic trade
52:28
Speaker 3: and from Russian merchantmen he had learned all about Bering's
52:32
Speaker 3: voyage in the North Pacific, which was being quoted by
52:35
Speaker 3: the geographers in proof of an open passage north of Alaska.
52:40
Speaker 3: In the Baltic, too, Cook had heard about the Strait
52:42
Speaker 3: of Juan de Fuca, which was supposed to lead through
52:45
Speaker 3: the continent to the Atlantic. At this time, all England
52:49
Speaker 3: was agog with demands that the Hudson's Bay Company should
52:52
Speaker 3: find a northwest passage or surrender its charter. Parliament had
52:58
Speaker 3: offered a reward of 20,000 pounds to anyone discovering a
53:02
Speaker 3: passageway to the Pacific, and Samuel Hearn had been sent
53:06
Speaker 3: tramping inland to explore the North by land. Curiously enough,
53:10
Speaker 3: Cook had been born in 1728, the very year that
53:14
Speaker 3: Baring had set out on his first expedition, and he
53:17
Speaker 3: was in the Baltic when news came back to St.
53:20
Speaker 3: Petersburg of Baring's death. The year 1759 found him at
53:25
Speaker 3: Quebec with Wolfe, During the next ten years he explored
53:29
Speaker 3: and charted northern and southern seas, and when the British
53:32
Speaker 3: Parliament determined to set at rest forever the myth of
53:35
Speaker 3: a passage, Cook was chosen to conduct the expedition. He
53:39
Speaker 3: was granted two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, and
53:44
Speaker 3: among the crews was a young midshipman named Vancouver. The
53:48
Speaker 3: vessels left England in the summer of 1776. and sailed
53:53
Speaker 3: from the Sandwich Islands in 1778 for Drake's New Albion.
53:58
Speaker 3: The orders were to proceed from New Albion up to
54:01
Speaker 3: 65 degrees north latitude and search for a passage to
54:05
Speaker 3: Hudson Bay. On March 7, 1778, 200 years after Drake's
54:12
Speaker 3: famous voyage, Cook's ships described thin, sharp lines of land
54:17
Speaker 3: in the offing. As the vessels drew nearer the coast,
54:20
Speaker 3: towering mountains met the gaze of the explorers. Cook had
54:24
Speaker 3: orders to keep a sharp lookout in this region for
54:26
Speaker 3: the strait of Juan de Fuca. But storm drove him offshore,
54:31
Speaker 3: and although he discovered and named Cape Flattery at the
54:34
Speaker 3: entrance to the strait that now bears the name of
54:36
Speaker 3: the old Greek pilot, he did not catch as much
54:39
Speaker 3: as a glimpse of the Great Bay opening inland. In fact,
54:43
Speaker 3: he set down that in this latitude... there was no
54:46
Speaker 3: possibility of Juan de Fuca Strait existing. Landing was made
54:51
Speaker 3: on Vancouver Island at the famous harbour now known as Nootka,
54:55
Speaker 3: and Indians swarmed the sea in gaily painted dugouts with
54:59
Speaker 3: prows carved like totem poles. Women and children were in
55:03
Speaker 3: the canoes, that signified peace, and though cannon were manned
55:07
Speaker 3: in readiness, an active and friendly trade at once opened
55:10
Speaker 3: between the crews and the natives. 1,500 beaver and sea
55:14
Speaker 3: otter pelts were exchanged for a handful of old nails.
55:19
Speaker 3: At least 2,000 natives gathered round the two ships. Some
55:23
Speaker 3: of the men wore masks and had evidently just returned
55:26
Speaker 3: from a raid, for they offered Cook human skulls from
55:29
Speaker 3: which the flesh had not been removed and pointed to
55:32
Speaker 3: slave captives. Anyone who knows Vancouver Island in spring needs
55:38
Speaker 3: no description of the inspiring scene surveyed by the sea-weary crews.
55:43
Speaker 3: Snow rested on the coastal mountains. The huge opal dome,
55:47
Speaker 3: now known as Mount Baker, loomed up through the clouds
55:50
Speaker 3: of dawn and dusk on the southern skyline. In fair weather,
55:54
Speaker 3: the long pink ridge of the Olympics could be seen
55:57
Speaker 3: towards Puget Sound. Inland from Nootka were vast mountain ridges
56:02
Speaker 3: heavily forested to the very clouds with fir trees and
56:06
Speaker 3: spruce of incredible size. Lower down grew cypress, with gnarled
56:11
Speaker 3: red roots entangling the rocks to the very water's edge,
56:14
Speaker 3: Spanish moss swinging from branch to branch, and partridge drumming
56:18
Speaker 3: in the underbrush. For a month, the deep-sea travellers enjoyed
56:23
Speaker 3: a welcome furlough on shore. One night, the underbrush surrounding
56:27
Speaker 3: the encampment was found to be literally alive with painted warriors.
56:32
Speaker 3: Cook demanded an explanation of the great Taiyi, or chief.
56:37
Speaker 3: The Indian explained that These were guards to protect the encampment.
56:41
Speaker 3: However that might be, Cook deemed it well to be off.
56:46
Speaker 3: On May 1st, the ships were skirting the Sitka coast,
56:49
Speaker 3: which Chirikov and Bering had explored a quarter of a
56:52
Speaker 3: century previously.
56:54
Speaker 1: St.
56:55
Speaker 3: Elias, Bering's landfall, was sighted. So was the spider-shaped bay,
57:00
Speaker 3: now known as Prince William Sound. The Indians here resembled
57:04
Speaker 3: the Eskimos of Greenland so strongly that that the hopes
57:07
Speaker 3: of the explorers began to rise. So keen were they
57:10
Speaker 3: to prove the existence of a passage to the Atlantic
57:13
Speaker 3: that when swords, beads, powder, evidently obtained from white traders,
57:18
Speaker 3: were observed among the Indians, the Englishmen tried to persuade
57:22
Speaker 3: themselves that these Indians must be in communication with the
57:25
Speaker 3: Indians of the domain of the Hudson's Bay Company, forgetting
57:29
Speaker 3: that Russians had been on the ground for 40 years.
57:32
Speaker 3: Cook sailed around the coast, past Cape Prince of Wales,
57:36
Speaker 3: and through Bering Strait, keeping his prowls northward until an
57:40
Speaker 3: impassable wall of ice barred his way. Having now thoroughly
57:45
Speaker 3: explored the coast, Cook was satisfied that Drake and Bering
57:49
Speaker 3: had been right. There was no passage east. He then
57:54
Speaker 3: crossed to Siberia, sailed down the Asiatic coast, and visited
57:58
Speaker 3: the Aleutian Islands. The Russians of Unalaska and Kamchatka resented
58:04
Speaker 3: the English intrusion on their hunting ground while the English
58:07
Speaker 3: refused to acknowledge that they were invading Russian territory. It
58:13
Speaker 3: was planned to winter and repair the ships at the
58:15
Speaker 3: Sandwich Islands. This part of Cook's voyage does not concern Canada.
58:20
Speaker 3: It was something like a repetition of the transgressions of
58:23
Speaker 3: the Russian outlaw hunters, and was followed by the penalty
58:27
Speaker 3: that transgressors pay. The islanders had welcomed the white men
58:31
Speaker 3: as demigods, but the gods proved to have feet of clay.
58:36
Speaker 3: To the islanders, a sacred taboo always existed round the
58:40
Speaker 3: burial graves. Cook permitted his sailors to violate this taboo
58:44
Speaker 3: in order to take timber for the repair of his ships.
58:48
Speaker 3: Perhaps it was a reaction from almost three years of
58:50
Speaker 3: Navy discipline. Perhaps it was the influence of those seductive
58:54
Speaker 3: southern seas. However that may be, the sailors apparently gave
58:59
Speaker 3: themselves up to riotous debauch. The best of the islanders withdrew, disillusioned. sad, sullen,
59:06
Speaker 3: resentful over the violation of their sacred burial places. Only
59:11
Speaker 3: the riffraff of the natives foregathered with the riotous crew.
59:15
Speaker 3: When the ships at length set sail with a crew
59:17
Speaker 3: sore-headed from dissipation, by way of a climax to the debauch,
59:22
Speaker 3: a number of women and children were carried along. Retribution
59:27
Speaker 3: came swift as sword-stroke, the women set up such a
59:31
Speaker 3: whaling that Cook stopped the ships to set them ashore.
59:35
Speaker 3: In the delay of rowing the boats to land, a
59:37
Speaker 3: fierce gale sprang up. The wind snapped off the foremast
59:41
Speaker 3: of the resolution, clean to the decks. The two ships
59:45
Speaker 3: had to put back to the harbour for repairs. Not
59:48
Speaker 3: a canoe, not a man, not a voice welcomed them.
59:51
Speaker 3: The sailors were sullen, Cook was angry, and when the
59:54
Speaker 3: white men wanted to trade for fresh food, the islanders
59:57
Speaker 3: would take only daggers and knives in barter. The white
1:00:02
Speaker 3: men had stolen from their burial graves. The savages now
1:00:06
Speaker 3: tried to steal from the ships, and on Sunday, February 14th,
1:00:09
Speaker 3: they succeeded in carrying off the large rowboat of the discovery.
1:00:16
Speaker 3: Cook landed with a strong bodyguard to demand hostages for
1:00:19
Speaker 3: the return of the lost boat. The islanders remembered the
1:00:23
Speaker 3: kidnapping of the women and refused. Cook was foolhardy enough
1:00:28
Speaker 3: to order his men to fire on any canoe trying
1:00:30
Speaker 3: to escape from the harbour. The rest of the episode
1:00:34
Speaker 3: is so familiar that it scarcely needs telling. A chief
1:00:38
Speaker 3: crossing the harbour in a skiff was shot. The women
1:00:42
Speaker 3: were at once hurried off to the hills. The men
1:00:45
Speaker 3: donned their spears and war mats. A stone hurled from
1:00:49
Speaker 3: the rabble running down to the shore struck Cook. Enraged
1:00:53
Speaker 3: out of all self-control, he shot the culprit dead. In
1:00:57
Speaker 3: defence of their commander, some marines rowing ashore at once
1:01:01
Speaker 3: fired a musketry volley into the horde of islanders. Cook
1:01:06
Speaker 3: turned his back to the thronging savages, now frenzied to
1:01:09
Speaker 3: a delirium, and signalled the marines to cease firing. As
1:01:13
Speaker 3: he did so, a dagger was plunged beneath his shoulder blade.
1:01:17
Speaker 3: He was hacked to pieces under the eyes of his
1:01:20
Speaker 3: powerless men, and four soldiers also fell beneath the furious onslaught.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: What need to tell of the wild scramble for the sea,
1:01:29
Speaker 3: of the warhorns blowing all night in the dark, of
1:01:33
Speaker 3: the campfires glimmering from the women's retreat in the hills?
1:01:37
Speaker 3: By dint of threat and show of arms and promises,
1:01:40
Speaker 3: Captain Charles Clerk, who was now in command, induced the
1:01:44
Speaker 3: islanders to deliver the remnants of Cook's body. In an
1:01:48
Speaker 3: impressive silence on Sunday 21 February 1779, the coffin containing
1:01:54
Speaker 3: the great commander's bones was committed to the deep. The
1:02:00
Speaker 3: sensational nature of Cook's death, within half a century of
1:02:04
Speaker 3: Baring's equally tragic fate, while exploring the same unknown seas,
1:02:09
Speaker 3: spread around the world the fame of the exploits of both.
1:02:13
Speaker 3: It was recalled that Drake had claimed New Albion for
1:02:16
Speaker 3: England two centuries before. Then rumours came that the Spanish
1:02:20
Speaker 3: Viceroy in Mexico had been following up the discoveries of
1:02:24
Speaker 3: both Drake and Bering. One Bruno Hecata from Monterey made
1:02:29
Speaker 3: report that there were signs of a great turbid river
1:02:32
Speaker 3: cutting the coastline north of Drake's New Albion. In spite
1:02:36
Speaker 3: of Cook's adverse report, the questions were again mooted. Where
1:02:40
Speaker 3: was Juan de Fuca's strait? Did it lead to Hudson Bay?
1:02:45
Speaker 3: Where was this great river of which both the inland
1:02:48
Speaker 3: savages and the Spanish explorers spoke? Quebec had fallen. Scottish
1:02:53
Speaker 3: fur merchants of Montreal had formed the Northwest Company in
1:02:57
Speaker 3: opposition to the Hudson's Bay Company and were pushing their
1:03:01
Speaker 3: traders far west towards the Rockies, far north towards the
1:03:05
Speaker 3: Arctic Circle. Who would be the first to find the
1:03:08
Speaker 3: great unknown river to fathom the mysteries of Juan de
1:03:12
Speaker 3: Fuca's strait? Dreaming of these things up in the Athabasca country,
1:03:18
Speaker 3: Alexander Mackenzie, a trader for the Nor'westers, was preparing to
1:03:22
Speaker 3: push his canoes down to the Arctic as a preliminary
1:03:25
Speaker 3: for his greater journey to the Pacific. If Bering's crew,
1:03:29
Speaker 3: if Cook's crew, both sold half-rotted cargoes of furs for
1:03:33
Speaker 3: thousands of pounds, how much more easily could trading vessels
1:03:37
Speaker 3: properly equipped reap fortune from the new El Dorado? inland
1:03:43
Speaker 3: by canoe from Montreal, overland by flatboat and packhorse from
1:03:47
Speaker 3: the Missouri, across the continent from Hudson Bay, round the
1:03:52
Speaker 3: world by the Cape and the Horn, across the ocean
1:03:55
Speaker 3: from China. It now became a race to the Pacific.
1:03:59
Speaker 3: Greater wealth seemed there in furs than had been found
1:04:02
Speaker 3: in gold in the temples of Peru or in silver
1:04:05
Speaker 3: in the mines of Mexico. The struggle for control of
1:04:09
Speaker 3: the Pacific, which has culminated in our own day, now began. Spain, Russia, England, Canada,
1:04:17
Speaker 3: and the newborn United States were the contestants in the arena.
1:04:22
Speaker 3: What has reached its climax in the sluicing of two
1:04:25
Speaker 3: oceans together at Panama began in the pursuit of sea
1:04:30
Speaker 3: otter and seal after the voyages of Bering and of Cook.
1:04:35
Speaker 3: The United States had an added motive. On the principle
1:04:39
Speaker 3: of protecting native shipping, American ports discriminated against British ships,
1:04:44
Speaker 3: and British ports discriminated against American ships. It was absolutely
1:04:49
Speaker 3: necessary to their existence as a nation that the United
1:04:53
Speaker 3: States should build up a merchant fleet. Under fostering laws,
1:04:58
Speaker 3: with the advantages of cheap labour and abundant timber, a
1:05:01
Speaker 3: wonderful clipper fleet had been constructed in Massachusetts and Maryland
1:05:06
Speaker 3: and Virginia shipyards. consisting of swift sailing vessels suitable for
1:05:11
Speaker 3: belting the seas in promoting commerce and in war. The
1:05:15
Speaker 3: shipyards built on shares with the merchants who outfitted the cargo.
1:05:20
Speaker 3: Builders and merchants would then divide the profits. Under these conditions,
1:05:25
Speaker 3: American traders were penetrating almost every sea in the world,
1:05:29
Speaker 3: and the cargoes brought back built up the substantial fortunes
1:05:32
Speaker 3: of many old Boston families. Boston A's, These swift new
1:05:37
Speaker 3: traders were called from the Baltic to China. It can
1:05:41
Speaker 3: be readily believed that what they heard of Cook and
1:05:43
Speaker 3: Baring interested the Boston men mightily. At all events, they
1:05:48
Speaker 3: fitted out two ships for the Pacific trade, ships that
1:05:51
Speaker 3: were to range the seas for the United States as
1:05:55
Speaker 3: Drakes and Cooks had drawn a circle round the world
1:05:58
Speaker 3: for England. Captain John Kendrick commanded the Columbia, Captain Robert
1:06:02
Speaker 3: Gray the Lady Washington. and on one of the vessels
1:06:05
Speaker 3: was a sailor who had been to the northwest coast
1:06:08
Speaker 3: with Cook. In order to secure Spain's goodwill, letters were
1:06:13
Speaker 3: obtained to the Viceroy of Mexico, and when, in the
1:06:16
Speaker 3: course of the voyage, these letters were presented to the
1:06:19
Speaker 3: Viceroy of Mexico at San Blas, he honoured them by
1:06:23
Speaker 3: at once issuing orders to the Presidios of Monterrey and
1:06:27
Speaker 3: Santa Barbara and San Francisco to arrest both officers and
1:06:31
Speaker 3: crew if the Americans touched at any Spanish port Spain
1:06:35
Speaker 3: was still dreaming of the Pacific being a closed sea.
1:06:39
Speaker 3: She took cognizance of Bering's exploits to the north, but
1:06:43
Speaker 3: she at once strove to checkmate and advance south from
1:06:46
Speaker 3: the north by herself advancing north from the south. It
1:06:50
Speaker 3: was in 1775 that Hecata had observed the turbid entrance
1:06:56
Speaker 3: to a great river and the opening to a strait
1:06:59
Speaker 3: that might be that of Juan de Fuca. However, on Monday,
1:07:04
Speaker 3: October 1, 1787, the two American vessels sailed away from Boston.
1:07:10
Speaker 3: It was August of 1788 before they were off Drake's
1:07:14
Speaker 3: New Albion, and in the stormy weather encountered all the
1:07:17
Speaker 3: way up the Pacific, the little sloop Lady Washington had
1:07:21
Speaker 3: proved a faster, better sailor than the heavier cargo vessel,
1:07:25
Speaker 3: the Columbia. Signs of a river were observed, and a
1:07:29
Speaker 3: pause was made at one of the harbors of the coast.
1:07:32
Speaker 3: either Tillamook or Grays Harbor. Here the Indians, indignant at
1:07:37
Speaker 3: a recent outrage committed against them by whites, attacked the
1:07:41
Speaker 3: Americans and drove them off before they could search for
1:07:44
Speaker 3: an entrance to the Great River. It now became apparent
1:07:47
Speaker 3: that the small sloop had the advantage, not only in speed,
1:07:51
Speaker 3: but because it could go in closer to the coast.
1:07:55
Speaker 3: Towards the end of August, Gray's crew distinctly observed the
1:07:59
Speaker 3: Olympic Mountains and set down record of Cape Flattery. I
1:08:03
Speaker 3: am of opinion, notes the mate, that the Straits of
1:08:07
Speaker 3: Juan de Fuca do exist, for the coast takes a
1:08:11
Speaker 3: great bend here. At Nootka, surprise awaited the Americans. John
1:08:18
Speaker 3: Mears and William Douglas, English captains, were there in a
1:08:22
Speaker 3: palisaded fort and with two vessels. A little trading schooner
1:08:27
Speaker 3: of 30 tons, named the Northwest America, had just been built,
1:08:31
Speaker 3: the first ship built on the northwest coast, and was
1:08:34
Speaker 3: being launched amid thunder of cannon and clinking of glasses.
1:08:38
Speaker 3: And September the 19th was observed as a holiday, the
1:08:42
Speaker 3: first public holiday in what is now British Columbia. Mears
1:08:47
Speaker 3: and Douglas entertained Gray at dinner, and over brimming wine
1:08:50
Speaker 3: glasses gave him the news of recent happenings on the coast.
1:08:55
Speaker 3: Captain Barclay, another English trader, had looked into the Strait
1:08:59
Speaker 3: of Wanda first. and placed it on his chart. Mears
1:09:03
Speaker 3: had sought in vain for the River of the West
1:09:06
Speaker 3: and did not believe that it existed. In fact, he
1:09:09
Speaker 3: had named the headland that hid it Cape Disappointment. And,
1:09:13
Speaker 3: of course, no furs existed on the Pacific coast. When
1:09:17
Speaker 3: did a fur trader ever acknowledge to a rival that
1:09:20
Speaker 3: there were furs. Mears reported that he, too, had been
1:09:24
Speaker 3: down at Tillamook Bay, and Gray guessed that it had
1:09:27
Speaker 3: been Mears' injustice to the Indians that provoked the raid
1:09:31
Speaker 3: on himself. Mears was short of provisions, and the Lady
1:09:35
Speaker 3: Washington needed repairs. The American gave the Englishman provisions to
1:09:40
Speaker 3: reach China, and the Englishman repaired the American's ship. Mears
1:09:44
Speaker 3: declared that he had bought all Nootka from the Indians.
1:09:48
Speaker 3: He did not relate that he had paid only two
1:09:51
Speaker 3: pocket pistols and some copper for it. Towards the end
1:09:54
Speaker 3: of September came Kendrick on the belated Columbia. Both Americans
1:09:59
Speaker 3: were surprised to learn that half a dozen navigators had
1:10:02
Speaker 3: already gone as far north as Nootka Sound. Perez, Hecata, Cuadra,
1:10:08
Speaker 3: all had coasted Vancouver Island for Spain from 1774 to 1779,
1:10:11
Speaker 3: and so had La Perouse. the French explorer, in 1787.
1:10:18
Speaker 3: Hannah had come out from China for furs in 1785.
1:10:24
Speaker 3: In 1787, Portlock and Dixon had secured almost 2,000 sea
1:10:29
Speaker 3: otter skins as far north as the Queen Charlotte Islands.
1:10:33
Speaker 3: These were things Mears did not tell the Americans. It
1:10:37
Speaker 3: would have been to acknowledge that an abundance of furs
1:10:40
Speaker 3: was there to draw so many trading ships. But during
1:10:43
Speaker 3: the winter at Nootka, The men from Boston learned these
1:10:47
Speaker 3: facts from the Indians. Recording by Son of the Exiles
1:10:55
Speaker 3: Pioneers of the Pacific Coast A Chronicle of Sea Rovers
1:11:00
Speaker 3: and Fur Hunters by Agnes C. Lout Cook and Vancouver
1:11:07
Speaker 3: Part 2 The winter was passed in trading with the
1:11:11
Speaker 3: Indians and and spring saw grey far up the strait
1:11:15
Speaker 3: of Juan de Fuca. By May 1st, the ships were
1:11:19
Speaker 3: loaded with furs and were about to sail. Meanwhile, what
1:11:23
Speaker 3: had the Spanish Viceroy been doing? Strange that the Spaniards
1:11:27
Speaker 3: should look on complacently while English traders from China, Mears
1:11:32
Speaker 3: and Hanna and Barclay and Douglas, were taking possession of Nootka.
1:11:37
Speaker 3: The answer came unexpectedly. Just as the Bostonais were sailing
1:11:42
Speaker 3: out for a last run up the coast, they glided
1:11:45
Speaker 3: into Nootka Sound, a proud ship. All sails set, 20
1:11:49
Speaker 3: cannon pointed, Spanish colours spread to the breeze. The captain
1:11:54
Speaker 3: of this vessel, Don Josef Martinez, took a look at
1:11:58
Speaker 3: the English fortifications and another at the Americans. The Americans
1:12:02
Speaker 3: were enemies of England. Therefore, the pompous Don treated them royally.
1:12:07
Speaker 3: presented them with spices and wines, and allowed them to
1:12:11
Speaker 3: depart unmolested. When the Americans returned from the run-up coast,
1:12:15
Speaker 3: they found the English fort dismantled, a Spanish fort erected
1:12:19
Speaker 3: on Hog Island at the entrance of the Sound, and
1:12:22
Speaker 3: Douglas's ship, the Companion of Mears vessel, held captive by
1:12:27
Speaker 3: the Spaniard. Gray and Kendrick now exchanged ships and sailed
1:12:31
Speaker 3: for China to dispose of their cargos of furs and
1:12:35
Speaker 3: receive in exchange cargoes of tea for Boston. The whole
1:12:39
Speaker 3: city of Boston welcomed the Columbia home in the autumn
1:12:42
Speaker 3: of 1790. 50,000 miles she had ploughed through the seas
1:12:47
Speaker 3: in three years. In June 1791, Gray was out again
1:12:53
Speaker 3: on the Columbia. This time he went as far north
1:12:56
Speaker 3: as the Portland Canal, past the Queen Charlotte Islands, where
1:13:00
Speaker 3: he met Kendrick on the Lady Washington. The quarrel at
1:13:04
Speaker 3: Nootka between the English and the Spaniards was still going on.
1:13:08
Speaker 3: So this autumn, the two Bostonais anchored for the winter
1:13:11
Speaker 3: in Clayquot Sound, a place later to be made famous
1:13:15
Speaker 3: by tragedy, south of Nootka. Here they built a stockaded
1:13:20
Speaker 3: fur post for themselves, which they named Fort Defence. During
1:13:24
Speaker 3: the winter, they built and launched a little coasting schooner,
1:13:28
Speaker 3: the Adventure. Up at Nootka, the Spaniard González de Haro
1:13:35
Speaker 3: had replaced Martínez, and his countrymen, Quimper and Elisa, were
1:13:40
Speaker 3: daily exploring on the east side of Vancouver Island, where
1:13:44
Speaker 3: to this day Spanish names tell of their charting. Some
1:13:48
Speaker 3: of the names, however, were afterwards changed. What is today
1:13:52
Speaker 3: known as Esquimalt, Quimper called Valdez, and Victoria he named Cordoba.
1:13:59
Speaker 3: Amid much firing of muskets and drinking of wine, Quimper
1:14:03
Speaker 3: took solemn possession of all this territory for Spain. Then,
1:14:08
Speaker 3: early in August of 1791, he sailed away for Monterey,
1:14:13
Speaker 3: while Elisa remained at Nutca. Gray knew that three English vessels,
1:14:20
Speaker 3: which had come from China for furs, Colnett's Argonaut, Douglas's Impfegina,
1:14:27
Speaker 3: and the Princess Royal, had been seized by the Spanish
1:14:30
Speaker 3: at Nutca. Though the fact had not been trumpeted to
1:14:34
Speaker 3: the world, the Spanish said that their pilots had explored
1:14:37
Speaker 3: these coasts as early as 1775, at least three years
1:14:42
Speaker 3: before Cook's landing at Nootka, so that if first exploration
1:14:46
Speaker 3: counted for possession, Spain had first claim. Whether the Spaniards
1:14:51
Speaker 3: instigated the raid that now threatened the rival American fort
1:14:55
Speaker 3: at Clayoquot, the two Bostonais never knew. The Columbia had
1:15:01
Speaker 3: been beached and dismantled. Loopholes punctured the palisades of the fort,
1:15:06
Speaker 3: and cannon were above the gates. Sentinels kept constant guard.
1:15:12
Speaker 3: But what was Gray's horror to learn in February 1792
1:15:16
Speaker 3: that Indians to the number of 2,000 were in ambush
1:15:19
Speaker 3: round the fort and had bribed a Hawaiian boy to
1:15:22
Speaker 3: wet the priming of the Bostonese guns? The fort could
1:15:26
Speaker 3: not be defended against such a number of enemies. for
1:15:30
Speaker 3: there were not twenty men within the walls. Grey hastily
1:15:33
Speaker 3: got the Columbia ready for sea. Having stowed in the
1:15:37
Speaker 3: hold enough provisions to carry them home if flight should
1:15:40
Speaker 3: become necessary, the sailors worked in the dark to their
1:15:43
Speaker 3: necks in water, scraping the hulls free of barnacles, and
1:15:47
Speaker 3: when the high tide came in, she was floated out
1:15:49
Speaker 3: with all on board. On the morning of the 20th,
1:15:53
Speaker 3: the woods were seen to be alive with Indians. The
1:15:55
Speaker 3: Indians had not counted on their prey escaping by sea,
1:15:59
Speaker 3: and an old chief came swively aboard offering Gray sea
1:16:02
Speaker 3: otter skins if the Bostonese would go ashore to trade.
1:16:06
Speaker 3: Gray slapped the old rascal across the face. The Indian
1:16:10
Speaker 3: was over the side of the plunge, and the marauders
1:16:13
Speaker 3: were seen no more. In spite of the difficulties and
1:16:18
Speaker 3: dangers it presented, Gray determined to make another effort to
1:16:22
Speaker 3: find the river which old Bruno Hecata had sighted in 1775.
1:16:28
Speaker 3: and early in April, after sending his mate North on
1:16:31
Speaker 3: the little vessel Adventure to trade, Grey sailed away south
1:16:35
Speaker 3: on the Columbia. Let us leave him for the present,
1:16:38
Speaker 3: stealing furtively along the coast from Cape Flattery to Cape Disappointment.
1:16:46
Speaker 3: It was the spring of 1792. The Spaniard Elisar of
1:16:51
Speaker 3: Nutca had for a year kept his pilot Narvaez in
1:16:55
Speaker 3: a crazy little schooner, crowded with 30 sailors, charting northeast
1:17:00
Speaker 3: past the harbour of Victoria, through Harrah Strait, following very
1:17:05
Speaker 3: much the same channel that steamers follow today as they
1:17:08
Speaker 3: ply between Victoria and Vancouver. East of a high island,
1:17:14
Speaker 3: where holiday folk now have their summer camps, Pilate Narvaez
1:17:18
Speaker 3: came on the estuary of a great river, which he
1:17:21
Speaker 3: called Boca de Florida Blanca. This could not be Bruno
1:17:27
Speaker 3: Hecata's river, for this was further north and inland. It
1:17:31
Speaker 3: was a new river with wonderful purple water, the purple
1:17:35
Speaker 3: of river silt blending with ocean blue. The banks were
1:17:38
Speaker 3: wooded to the very water's edge with huge girthed and
1:17:42
Speaker 3: mossed trees, such as we today see in Stanley Park, Vancouver.
1:17:47
Speaker 3: The river swept down behind a deep harbour with forested
1:17:51
Speaker 3: heights between Rivermouth and Roadstead, as if nature had purposely
1:17:55
Speaker 3: interposed to guard this harbour against the deposit of silt
1:17:59
Speaker 3: borne down by the mighty stream. Today a boulevard rises
1:18:03
Speaker 3: from the landlocked harbour and goes over the heights to
1:18:06
Speaker 3: the river mouth like the arc of a bow. The
1:18:09
Speaker 3: finest residences of the Canadian Pacific coast stand there, and
1:18:13
Speaker 3: the river is lined with mile upon mile of lumberyards
1:18:17
Speaker 3: and sawmills. Where the rock projects like a hand into
1:18:21
Speaker 3: the turbid waters stands a crowded city, built like New
1:18:24
Speaker 3: York on what is almost an island. Where the opposite
1:18:29
Speaker 3: shores slope down in a natural park, arising the buildings
1:18:32
Speaker 3: of a great university. The ragged, starveling crew of pilot
1:18:37
Speaker 3: Narvaez had found what are now known as Burrard Inlet,
1:18:41
Speaker 3: Vancouver City, Point Grey, Shaughnessy Heights, and the Fraser River.
1:18:47
Speaker 3: The crew were presently all ill of scurvy, possibly because
1:18:51
Speaker 3: of the unsanitary crowding, and the schooner, almost falling to pieces,
1:18:56
Speaker 3: came crawling back to Nootka. The poor Mexicans were utterly
1:19:00
Speaker 3: unaware that they had discovered a gateway for Northern Empire.
1:19:04
Speaker 3: Narvaez himself lay almost unconscious in his berth. Elisar sent
1:19:09
Speaker 3: them all home to Mexico on furlough, and, on hearing
1:19:13
Speaker 3: their report, the Viceroy of Mexico ordered out two ships,
1:19:17
Speaker 3: the Sutil and the Mexicana, Don Galeano and Don Valdez
1:19:22
Speaker 3: in command, to follow up the charting of the coast
1:19:25
Speaker 3: northward from Vancouver Island to the Russian settlements. Small ringing
1:19:32
Speaker 3: of bells, no blaring of trumpets at all, prayers aplenty,
1:19:36
Speaker 3: but little ammunition and less food, accompanied the deep-sea voyagings
1:19:41
Speaker 3: of these poor Spanish pilots. When Bering set out, he
1:19:44
Speaker 3: had the power of the whole Russian Empire behind him.
1:19:48
Speaker 3: When Cook set out, he had the power of the
1:19:50
Speaker 3: whole British Navy behind him. But when the poor Mexican
1:19:53
Speaker 3: peons set out, they had nothing behind them but the
1:19:56
Speaker 3: branding iron or slavery in the mines, if they failed.
1:20:00
Speaker 3: Yet they sang as they sailed their rickety deathtraps, and
1:20:03
Speaker 3: they laughed as they rowed. And when the tide rip
1:20:06
Speaker 3: caught them, they sank without a cry to any but
1:20:09
Speaker 3: the Virgin. Look at a map of the west coast
1:20:12
Speaker 3: of the Pacific from the Horn to Sitka. First were
1:20:16
Speaker 3: the Spaniards at every harbour gate, and yet today, of
1:20:20
Speaker 3: all their deep-sea findings on that coast, not a rod,
1:20:24
Speaker 3: not a foot does Spain own. It was, of course,
1:20:27
Speaker 3: Spain's insane policy of keeping the Pacific a closed sea
1:20:32
Speaker 3: that concealed the achievements of the Mexican pilots and buried
1:20:35
Speaker 3: them in oblivion. But if actual accomplishments count, these pilots
1:20:41
Speaker 3: with their ragged peon crews, half-bloods of Aztec woman and
1:20:45
Speaker 3: Spanish adventurer, deserve higher rank in the role of Pacific
1:20:49
Speaker 3: coast exploration than history has yet accorded them. England, it
1:20:55
Speaker 3: may be believed, did not calmly submit to seeing the
1:20:58
Speaker 3: ships and forts of her traders seized at Nootka. It
1:21:02
Speaker 3: was not that England cared for the value of three
1:21:05
Speaker 3: vessels engaged in foreign trade, Still less did she care
1:21:08
Speaker 3: for the log huts dignified by the name of a fort.
1:21:11
Speaker 3: But she was mistress of the seas, and had been
1:21:14
Speaker 3: since the destruction of the Armada. And as mistress of
1:21:19
Speaker 3: the seas, she could not tolerate as much as the
1:21:22
Speaker 3: seizure of a fishing smack. For some time there were
1:21:26
Speaker 3: mutterings of war, but at length diplomacy prevailed. England demanded,
1:21:31
Speaker 3: among other things, the restoration of the buildings and the land,
1:21:36
Speaker 3: and full reparation for all losses. Spain decided to submit,
1:21:41
Speaker 3: and accordingly the Nutca Convention was signed by the two
1:21:44
Speaker 3: powers in October 1790. Two ships, the Discovery and the Chatham,
1:21:50
Speaker 3: were then fitted out by the British Admiralty for an
1:21:53
Speaker 3: expedition to the Pacific to receive formal surrender of the
1:21:57
Speaker 3: property from Spain, and also to chart the whole coasts
1:22:00
Speaker 3: of the Pacific from Drake's New Albion to the Russian
1:22:03
Speaker 3: possessions at Sitka. This expedition was commanded by Captain George Vancouver,
1:22:09
Speaker 3: who had been on the Pacific with Cook. It was
1:22:12
Speaker 3: April 1792 when Vancouver came up abreast of Cape Disappointment.
1:22:18
Speaker 3: Was it chance or fate that a guard drove him
1:22:21
Speaker 3: offshore just two weeks before a rival explorer entered the
1:22:24
Speaker 3: mouth of the great unknown river that lay on his
1:22:27
Speaker 3: vessel's starboard bow? But for this mishap, Vancouver might have
1:22:32
Speaker 3: discovered the Columbian, and England might have made good her
1:22:36
Speaker 3: claim to the territory which is now Oregon and Washington
1:22:39
Speaker 3: and Idaho. Vancouver's ships were gliding into the Strait of
1:22:44
Speaker 3: Juan de Fuca when they met a square-hulled trim little
1:22:47
Speaker 3: trader under the flag of the United States. It was
1:22:51
Speaker 3: the Columbia, commanded by Robert Gray. The American told an
1:22:56
Speaker 3: astounding story. He had found Bruno Hecata's River of the West.
1:23:01
Speaker 3: Vancouver refused to credit the news, Yet there was the
1:23:04
Speaker 3: ship's log. There were the details, landmarks, soundings, anchorages for
1:23:10
Speaker 3: 20 miles up the Columbia from its mouth. Gray had, indeed,
1:23:14
Speaker 3: been up the river and had crossed the bar and
1:23:16
Speaker 3: come out on the Pacific again. Vancouver now headed his
1:23:21
Speaker 3: ships inland and proceeded to explore Puget Sound. Never before
1:23:26
Speaker 3: had white men's boats cruised the waters of that spider-shaped sea.
1:23:31
Speaker 3: Every inlet of the tortuous coasts was penetrated and surveyed
1:23:36
Speaker 3: to make certain that no passage to the northeast lay
1:23:39
Speaker 3: through these waters. In June, the explorers passed up the
1:23:43
Speaker 3: Strait of Georgia. A thick fog hid from them what
1:23:47
Speaker 3: would have proved an important discovery, the mouth of the
1:23:50
Speaker 3: Fraser River. Some distance north of Burrard Inlet, the explorers
1:23:55
Speaker 3: met the two Spanish ships which the Viceroy of Mexico
1:23:59
Speaker 3: had sent out, the Siltil and the Mexicana. commanded respectively
1:24:03
Speaker 3: by Don Galeano and Don Valdez. From them, Vancouver learned
1:24:08
Speaker 3: that Don Cuadra, the Spanish representative, was awaiting him at Nootka,
1:24:13
Speaker 3: prepared to restore the forts and property as agreed in
1:24:17
Speaker 3: the Nootka Convention. The vessels continued their journey northward and
1:24:21
Speaker 3: entered Queen Charlotte Sound in August, then steering into the
1:24:25
Speaker 3: open sea Vancouver sailed for Nootka to meet Spain's official messenger.
1:24:31
Speaker 3: He had circumnavigated Vancouver Island. The Nootka controversy had almost
1:24:37
Speaker 3: caused a European war. Now it ended in what has
1:24:41
Speaker 3: a resemblance to a comic opera. Vancouver found the Spaniards
1:24:45
Speaker 3: occupying a fort on an island at the mouth of
1:24:48
Speaker 3: the harbour. On the main shore stood the Indian village
1:24:52
Speaker 3: of Chief Maquina. a Spanish pilot guided the English ship
1:24:56
Speaker 3: to mooring. The Spanish frigates fairly bristled with cannon. An
1:25:01
Speaker 3: English officer dressed in regimentals marched to the Spanish fort
1:25:05
Speaker 3: and presented Captain Vancouver's compliments to Don Quadra. Spanish cannon
1:25:11
Speaker 3: thundered a welcome that shook the hills, and English guns
1:25:14
Speaker 3: made answer. A curious fashion, to waste good powder without
1:25:19
Speaker 3: taking aim at each other, thought Chief Marquina. Don Quadra
1:25:23
Speaker 3: breakfasted Captain Vancouver. Captain Vancouver wined and dined Don Quadra.
1:25:28
Speaker 3: And Marquina, Lord of the Wilds, attended the feast dressed
1:25:32
Speaker 3: Indian fashion. But when the Spanish Don and the English
1:25:36
Speaker 3: officer took breath from flow of compliments and wine, they
1:25:39
Speaker 3: did not seem to arrive anywhere in their negotiations. Vancouver
1:25:44
Speaker 3: held that Spain must relinquish the site of Mears Fort
1:25:47
Speaker 3: and the territory surrounding it and Port Cox. Don Quadra
1:25:51
Speaker 3: held that he had been instructed to relinquish only the
1:25:54
Speaker 3: land on which the fort stood, according to Vancouver, but
1:25:58
Speaker 3: little more than 100 yards in extent anyway. No understanding
1:26:03
Speaker 3: could be arrived at, and Quadra, at the end of September,
1:26:06
Speaker 3: took his departure for Monterey, leaving Vancouver to follow a
1:26:09
Speaker 3: few days later. Vancouver was anxious to be off on
1:26:14
Speaker 3: further exploration. He was eager to verify the existence of
1:26:18
Speaker 3: the river which Gray had reported. He spent most of
1:26:21
Speaker 3: October exploring this river. Explorers in that day, as in this,
1:26:26
Speaker 3: were not fair judges of each other's feats. Vancouver took
1:26:30
Speaker 3: possession of the Columbia River region for England, setting down
1:26:35
Speaker 3: in his narrative that no other civilized nation or state
1:26:39
Speaker 3: had ever entered this river before. It does not appear
1:26:42
Speaker 3: that Mr. Gray either saw or was ever within five
1:26:45
Speaker 3: leagues of the entrance. Vancouver then visited the Presidio at
1:26:51
Speaker 3: San Francisco and thence proceeded to Monterey, where Quadra awaited him.
1:26:56
Speaker 3: His lieutenant, Broughton, who had been in charge of the
1:26:59
Speaker 3: boats that explored the Columbia, here left him and accompanied
1:27:03
Speaker 3: Quadra to San Blas. Whence he went overland to the
1:27:06
Speaker 3: Atlantic and sailed for England, bearing dispatches to the government.
1:27:11
Speaker 3: Vancouver spent yet another year on the North Pacific, corroborating
1:27:15
Speaker 3: his first year's charting and proving that that no northeast
1:27:18
Speaker 3: passage through the continent existed. Portland Canal, Jarvis Inlet, Cook Inlet,
1:27:26
Speaker 3: Prince William Sound, Lynn Canal, all were traced to headwaters
1:27:31
Speaker 3: by Vancouver. The curtain then drops on the exploration of
1:27:36
Speaker 3: the North Pacific, with Spain jealously holding all south of
1:27:40
Speaker 3: the Columbia, Russia jealously holding all north of Sitka, and
1:27:45
Speaker 3: England and the United States advancing counterclaims for all the
1:27:49
Speaker 3: territory between.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: Alexander McKenzie from Canada by Land The movement of the
1:28:11
Speaker 2: fur traders towards the Pacific now became a fevered race
1:28:14
Speaker 2: for the wealth of a new El Dorado. Astor's traders
1:28:18
Speaker 2: in New York, the Scottish and English merchants of the
1:28:20
Speaker 2: Northwest Company in Montreal, the Spanish traders of the Southwest,
1:28:25
Speaker 2: even the directors of the sleepy old Hudson's Bay Company,
1:28:29
Speaker 2: all turned longing eyes to that Pacific Northwest coast whence
1:28:33
Speaker 2: came sea otter skins in trade, each for a few
1:28:36
Speaker 2: pennies' worth of beads, powder, or old irons. RUMORS, TOO,
1:28:43
Speaker 2: WERE RIFE OF THE GREAT WEALTH OF THEIR SEAL ROOKERIES,
1:28:46
Speaker 2: AND THE SEAL PROVED AS POWERFUL A MAGNET TO DRAW
1:28:49
Speaker 2: THE FUR TRADERS AS THE LITTLE BEAVER, THE PURSUIT OF
1:28:52
Speaker 2: WHICH HAD LET THEM INTO FROZEN WILDS. Up in the
1:28:57
Speaker 2: Athabasca country, eating his art out with chagrin because his
1:29:00
Speaker 2: associates in the Northwest Company of Montreal had ignored his
1:29:04
Speaker 2: voyage of discovery down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic
1:29:08
Speaker 2: in 1789, the young trader Alexander Mackenzie heard these rumors
1:29:12
Speaker 2: of new wealth in furs on the Pacific. Who would
1:29:16
Speaker 2: be the first overland to that western sea? If Spaniard
1:29:21
Speaker 2: and Russian had tapped the source of wealth from the
1:29:23
Speaker 2: ocean side, why could not the Nor'westers cross the mountains
1:29:27
Speaker 2: and secure the furs from the land side? Mackenzie had heard, too,
1:29:31
Speaker 2: of the fabled Great River of the West. Could he
1:29:34
Speaker 2: but catch the swish of its upper current, what would
1:29:37
Speaker 2: hinder him floating down it to the sea? Mackenzie thought
1:29:42
Speaker 2: and thought, and paced his quarters up at Fort Chippewa
1:29:46
Speaker 2: on Lake Athabasca. till his mind became so filled with
1:29:49
Speaker 2: the idea of an overland journey to the pacific that
1:29:51
Speaker 2: he could not sleep or rest he had felt himself
1:29:55
Speaker 2: handicapped by lack of knowledge of astronomy and surveying when
1:29:59
Speaker 2: on the voyage to the arctic so he asked leave
1:30:02
Speaker 2: of absence from his company came down by canoe to
1:30:05
Speaker 2: montreal and sailed for england to spend the winter studying
1:30:08
Speaker 2: in london Here, everything was in a ferment over the
1:30:12
Speaker 2: voyages of Cook and Hanna and Mears, over the seizure
1:30:15
Speaker 2: of British trading ships by the Viceroy of Mexico, over
1:30:18
Speaker 2: the Admiralty's plan to send Vancouver out to complete Cook's explorations.
1:30:24
Speaker 2: The rumours were as fuel to the flame that burned
1:30:26
Speaker 2: in Mackenzie. The spring of 1792 saw him hurrying back
1:30:31
Speaker 2: to Fort Chippewan to prepare for the expedition on which
1:30:34
Speaker 2: he had set his heart. When October came, he launched
1:30:38
Speaker 2: his canoes. fully manned and provisioned, on Lake Athabasca, and,
1:30:43
Speaker 2: ascending the Peace River to a point about six miles
1:30:46
Speaker 2: above the forks formed by its junction with the Smoky,
1:30:49
Speaker 2: he built a rude palisaded fur post and spent the
1:30:52
Speaker 2: winter there. Spring came and found Mackenzie ready to go
1:30:58
Speaker 2: forward into the unknown regions of the West, regions as
1:31:01
Speaker 2: yet untrodden by the feet of white men. Alexander Mackay,
1:31:05
Speaker 2: One of the most resolute and capable traders in the
1:31:08
Speaker 2: service of the Northwest Company was to be his companion
1:31:11
Speaker 2: on the journey, and with them were to go six
1:31:13
Speaker 2: picked French-Canadian voyageurs and two Indians as guides. They had
1:31:18
Speaker 2: built a birchbark canoe of exceptional strength and lightness. It
1:31:22
Speaker 2: was 25 feet long, some four feet in beam, 26
1:31:27
Speaker 2: inches deep, and had a carrying capacity of 3,000 pounds.
1:31:31
Speaker 2: Explorers and men stepped into their light craft on the
1:31:34
Speaker 2: evening of May 9, 1793. The fort fired guns and
1:31:40
Speaker 2: waved farewell. The paddlers struck up a voyager's song, and
1:31:44
Speaker 2: the blades dipped in rhythmic time. Mackenzie waved his hat
1:31:49
Speaker 2: back to the group in front of the fort gate,
1:31:51
Speaker 2: and then, with set face, headed his canoe westward for
1:31:54
Speaker 2: the Pacific. RECALL WHAT WAS HAPPENING NOW OUT ON THE PACIFIC.
1:31:59
Speaker 2: ROBERT GRAY WAS HEADING HOME TO BOSTON WITH NEWS OF
1:32:02
Speaker 2: THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT RIVER. VANCOUVER WAS BACK FROM
1:32:05
Speaker 2: SAN FRANCISCO, CAREFULLY CHARTING THE INNER CHANNEL OF THE COAST. BARNOFF,
1:32:10
Speaker 2: THE LITTLE SAR OF THE RUSSIAN TRADERS, WAS COASTING AT
1:32:14
Speaker 2: THE HEAD OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED BIDARKIES BETWEEN THE ILLUSIONS AND SITKA,
1:32:18
Speaker 2: AND SPAIN WAS STILL SENDING OUT RAGGED PILOTS TO CHART
1:32:21
Speaker 2: THE SEAS WHICH HE HAD NOT THE MARINE TO HOLD.
1:32:25
Speaker 2: The big canoe went on, up the Peace River. Spring
1:32:29
Speaker 2: thaw brought the waters down from the mountains in turbulent floods,
1:32:33
Speaker 2: and the precipices narrowed on each side till the current
1:32:36
Speaker 2: became a foaming cascade. It was one thing to float
1:32:39
Speaker 2: downstream with brigades of singing voyagers and cargoes of furs
1:32:43
Speaker 2: in spring. It was a different matter to breast the
1:32:46
Speaker 2: full force of these torrents with only ten men to paddle.
1:32:50
Speaker 2: In the big brigades the men paddled in relays. In
1:32:53
Speaker 2: this canoe, each man was expected to pole and paddle
1:32:56
Speaker 2: continuously and fiercely against a current that was like a
1:32:59
Speaker 2: mill race. Mackenzie listened to the grumblers over the night
1:33:03
Speaker 2: campfire and explained how much safer it was to ascend
1:33:07
Speaker 2: an unknown stream with bad rapids than to run down it.
1:33:11
Speaker 2: The danger could always be seen before running into it.
1:33:15
Speaker 2: He cheered the drooping spirits of his band and inspired
1:33:18
Speaker 2: them with some of his own indomitable courage. By May 16th,
1:33:23
Speaker 2: the river had narrowed to a foaming cataract, and the
1:33:27
Speaker 2: banks were such sheer rock wall that it was almost
1:33:29
Speaker 2: impossible to land. They had arrived at the Rocky Mountain Portage,
1:33:33
Speaker 2: as it was afterwards called. It was clear that the
1:33:36
Speaker 2: current could not be stemmed by pole or paddle. The
1:33:39
Speaker 2: canoe must be towed or carried. When Mackenzie tried to
1:33:42
Speaker 2: get foothold or handhold on the shore, huge boulders and
1:33:46
Speaker 2: landslides of loose earth slithered down, threatening to smash canoe
1:33:50
Speaker 2: and canoement. McKenzie got out a towline eighty feet long.
1:33:55
Speaker 2: This he tied to the port thwart of the canoe.
1:33:58
Speaker 2: With the towline round his shoulders, while the torrent roared
1:34:01
Speaker 2: past and filled the canyon with the voice of many waters,
1:34:04
Speaker 2: McKenzie leaped to the dangerous slope, cut foothold and handhold
1:34:08
Speaker 2: on the face of the cliff with an axe, and
1:34:10
Speaker 2: scrambled up to a table of level rock. Then he
1:34:14
Speaker 2: shouted and signaled for his men to come up. IF
1:34:17
Speaker 2: THE VOYAGEURS HAD NOT BEEN HANDED IN BY A BOILING
1:34:20
Speaker 2: MILLSTROM ON BOTH SIDES, THEY WOULD HAVE DESERTED ON THE SPOT.
1:34:24
Speaker 2: MACKENZIE SAW THEM BEGIN TO STRIP AS IF TO SWIM,
1:34:26
Speaker 2: THEN CLOSE ON BACK AND BEARFOOT, THEY SCRAMBLED UP THE
1:34:30
Speaker 2: TREASURE SHORE. HE REACHED OVER AND ASSISTED THEM TO THE
1:34:33
Speaker 2: LEVEL GROUND ABOVE. THE TOW LINE WAS DRAWN TAUGHT AROUND
1:34:37
Speaker 2: TREES AND THE CANOE TRACKED UP THE RAGING CURRENT, BUT
1:34:40
Speaker 2: THE RAPIDS BECAME WILDER. A GREAT WAVE STRUCK THE BOW
1:34:44
Speaker 2: OF THE CANOE WHEN THE TOW LINE SNAPPED IN MID-AIR.
1:34:47
Speaker 2: The terrified men, looking over the edge of the precipice,
1:34:49
Speaker 2: saw their craft sidle as if to swamp, but on
1:34:53
Speaker 2: the instant another mighty wave flung her ashore, and they
1:34:56
Speaker 2: were able to haul her out of danger. McKay went
1:35:01
Speaker 2: ahead to see how far the rapids extended. He found
1:35:04
Speaker 2: that there were at least nine miles in length. On
1:35:07
Speaker 2: his return, the men were declaring that they would not
1:35:10
Speaker 2: ascend such waters another round. McKenzie, to humor them, left
1:35:15
Speaker 2: them to a regale of rum and pemmican, an axe
1:35:18
Speaker 2: in hand went up the precipitous slope, and began to
1:35:21
Speaker 2: make a rough path through the forest. Up the rude
1:35:24
Speaker 2: incline the men hauled the empty canoe, cutting their way
1:35:27
Speaker 2: as they advanced. Then they carried up the provisions in
1:35:30
Speaker 2: ninety-pound bundles. By nightfall of the first day they had
1:35:33
Speaker 2: advanced but one mile. Next morning the journey was continued.
1:35:37
Speaker 2: The progress was exactly three miles the second day, and
1:35:41
Speaker 2: the men fell in their tracks with exhaustion and slept
1:35:44
Speaker 2: that night where they lay. But at length they had
1:35:47
Speaker 2: passed the rapids, the Toilsome Portage was over, and the
1:35:51
Speaker 2: canoe was again launched on the stream. The air was
1:35:54
Speaker 2: icy from the snows of the mountain peaks, and in
1:35:56
Speaker 2: spite of their severe exercise the men had to wear
1:35:59
Speaker 2: heavy clothing. On May 31st, they arrived at the confluence
1:36:04
Speaker 2: where the rivers now known as the Finley and the Parsnip,
1:36:07
Speaker 2: flowing together, formed the peace. The Indians of this region
1:36:11
Speaker 2: told Mackenzie of a great river beyond the big mountains,
1:36:14
Speaker 2: a river that flowed towards the noonday sun, and of
1:36:18
Speaker 2: carrier Indians.
1:36:20
Speaker 1: Note.
1:36:21
Speaker 2: The Takuli. This tribe cremated the dead, and the widows
1:36:26
Speaker 2: collected the ashes of their dead husbands and carried them
1:36:29
Speaker 2: during a period of three years. hence the name Carriers.
1:36:35
Speaker 2: End of note. Inland, who acted as middlemen and traders
1:36:39
Speaker 2: between the coast and the mountain tribes, they said that
1:36:42
Speaker 2: the Carriers told legends of white men on the coast
1:36:46
Speaker 2: who wore armor from head to heel, undoubtedly the Spanish Dons,
1:36:50
Speaker 2: and of huge canoes with sails like clouds that plied
1:36:54
Speaker 2: up and down the stinking waters, meaning the sea. Mackenzie
1:36:59
Speaker 2: was uncertain which of the two confluence to follow, whether
1:37:02
Speaker 2: to ascend the Finley, flowing from the northwest, or the Parsnip,
1:37:06
Speaker 2: flowing from the southeast. He consulted his Indian guides, one
1:37:10
Speaker 2: of whom advised him to take the southern branch. This
1:37:13
Speaker 2: would lead, the guide said, to a lake from which
1:37:16
Speaker 2: they could portage to another stream, and so reach the
1:37:19
Speaker 2: great river leading to the sea. Mackenzie decided to follow
1:37:23
Speaker 2: this advice, and ordered his men to proceed up the Parsnip.
1:37:27
Speaker 2: Their hearts sank. They had toiled up one terrible river.
1:37:30
Speaker 2: Directly before them was another, equally precipitous and dangerous. Nevertheless,
1:37:36
Speaker 2: they began the ascent. For a week, the rush of
1:37:39
Speaker 2: avalanches from the mountain peaks could be heard like artillery fire.
1:37:43
Speaker 2: Far up above the cloud line, they could see the
1:37:45
Speaker 2: snow tumbling over an upper precipice in powdery, wind-blown cataracts.
1:37:50
Speaker 2: A minute later would come the thunderous rumble of the
1:37:52
Speaker 2: falling masses. With heroic fortitude, the voyagers held their way
1:37:57
Speaker 2: against the fierce current, sometimes paddling, sometimes towing the canoe
1:38:01
Speaker 2: along the riverbank. Once, however, when Mackenzie and McKay had
1:38:05
Speaker 2: gone ahead on foot to reconnoiter, ordering the canoe men
1:38:08
Speaker 2: to paddle along behind, the canoe failed to follow. McKay
1:38:12
Speaker 2: went back and found the voyagers disputing ashore. They pretended
1:38:17
Speaker 2: that a leak had delayed them. From Indians met by
1:38:20
Speaker 2: the way, Mackenzie learned that he was indeed approaching a
1:38:22
Speaker 2: portage over the height of land to the waters that
1:38:25
Speaker 2: flowed towards the Pacific. One of these Indians was induced
1:38:29
Speaker 2: to go with Mackenzie as guide. They tramped ahead through
1:38:32
Speaker 2: a thicket of brush and came suddenly out on a
1:38:35
Speaker 2: blue tarn. This was the source of the parsnip, the
1:38:39
Speaker 2: southern branch of the peace. A whole party arrived on
1:38:42
Speaker 2: June 12th. A portage of 817 paces over a rocky
1:38:47
Speaker 2: ridge brought them to a second mountain lake drained by
1:38:51
Speaker 2: a river that flowed towards the west. Mackenzie had crossed
1:38:54
Speaker 2: the watershed, the Great Divide, and had reached the waters
1:38:58
Speaker 2: which empty into the Pacific. The river which the explorers
1:39:03
Speaker 2: now entered was a small tributary of the Fraser. Some
1:39:06
Speaker 2: years later it was named by Simon Fraser the Bad River,
1:39:10
Speaker 2: and it deserved the name. McKenzie launched his canoe downstream.
1:39:15
Speaker 2: The men's spirits rose. This was working with the current,
1:39:18
Speaker 2: not against it, but the danger of going with an
1:39:21
Speaker 2: unknown current became at once apparent. The banks began to
1:39:25
Speaker 2: skim past, the waters to rise in oily corrugations, and
1:39:29
Speaker 2: before the voyagers realized it, they were caught by a
1:39:32
Speaker 2: current they could not stem and were hurried sidling downstream.
1:39:37
Speaker 2: The men sprang out to swim, but the current prevented
1:39:39
Speaker 2: them from reaching land. and they clung in terror to
1:39:42
Speaker 2: the sides of the canoe till an eddy sent them
1:39:44
Speaker 2: on a sandbar in the midst of the rapids. With
1:39:47
Speaker 2: great difficulty the craft was rescued and brought ashore. The
1:39:52
Speaker 2: stern had been torn out of the canoe, half the
1:39:54
Speaker 2: powder and bullets lost, and the entire cargo drenched. The
1:39:59
Speaker 2: men were panic-stricken and on the verge of mutiny, but
1:40:02
Speaker 2: Mackenzie was undaunted and determined to go forward. He spread
1:40:07
Speaker 2: the provisions out to dry and set his crew to
1:40:09
Speaker 2: work patching up the stern of the broken canoe with
1:40:11
Speaker 2: resin and oilcloth and new cedar lining. That night the
1:40:15
Speaker 2: mountain Indian who had acted as guide across the portage
1:40:18
Speaker 2: gave Mackenzie the slip and escaped in the woods. For
1:40:21
Speaker 2: several days after this most of the party trudged on
1:40:24
Speaker 2: foot carrying the cargo. while four of the most experienced
1:40:27
Speaker 2: canoemen brought the empty canoe down the rapids but on
1:40:31
Speaker 2: june seventeenth they found further progress by water impossible owing
1:40:35
Speaker 2: to masses of driftwood in the stream they were now
1:40:39
Speaker 2: however less than a mile from the south fork of
1:40:42
Speaker 2: the fraser The men carried the canoe on their shoulders
1:40:45
Speaker 2: across the intervening neck of swamp, and at last the
1:40:48
Speaker 2: explorers enjoyed the inexpressible satisfaction of finding themselves on the
1:40:52
Speaker 2: banks of a broad, navigable river on the west side
1:40:55
Speaker 2: of the Great Divide. The point where they embarked on
1:40:58
Speaker 2: the morning of June 18th was about 35 miles above
1:41:02
Speaker 2: the Nekaku, or North Fork of the Fraser, just at
1:41:05
Speaker 2: the upper end of the Great Bend where the South Fork,
1:41:07
Speaker 2: flowing to the northwest, sweeps round in a semicircle, joins
1:41:12
Speaker 2: its confluence and pour southward to the sea. This trend
1:41:16
Speaker 2: of the river to the south was not what Mackenzie expected.
1:41:19
Speaker 2: He wanted to follow a stream leading west. Without noticing it,
1:41:23
Speaker 2: he had passed the North Fork, the Nekaku, and was
1:41:26
Speaker 2: sweeping down the mainstream of the Fraser, where towering mountains
1:41:30
Speaker 2: cut off the view ahead, and the powerful rush of
1:41:32
Speaker 2: the waters foreboded hard going, if not more rapids and cataracts.
1:41:37
Speaker 2: Mackenzie must have a new guide. The carrier Indians dwelt
1:41:41
Speaker 2: along this river, but they appeared to be truculently hostile.
1:41:46
Speaker 2: On June 21st, a party of these Indians stood on
1:41:48
Speaker 2: one of the banks and shot arrows at the explorers
1:41:51
Speaker 2: and rolled stones from the precipices. McKenzie landed on the
1:41:55
Speaker 2: opposite bank, after sending a hunter by a wide detour
1:41:58
Speaker 2: through the woods behind the Indians on the other shore,
1:42:01
Speaker 2: with orders to shoot instantly if the savages threatened either
1:42:04
Speaker 2: the canoe or himself. In full sight of the Indians,
1:42:08
Speaker 2: Mackenzie threw trinkets in profusion on the ground, laid down
1:42:12
Speaker 2: his musket and pistol, and held up his arms in
1:42:15
Speaker 2: token of friendship. The savages understood the meaning of his actions.
1:42:20
Speaker 2: Two of them jumped into a dugout and came pulling
1:42:22
Speaker 2: across to him. Suspiciously and very timidly they landed. Mackenzie
1:42:27
Speaker 2: threw himself on the ground and on the sands traced
1:42:30
Speaker 2: his path through the shining mountains. By Indian sign language
1:42:34
Speaker 2: he told them he wanted to go to the sea. and,
1:42:37
Speaker 2: disarmed of all suspicion, the Indians were presently on the
1:42:41
Speaker 2: ground beside him, drawing the trail to the sea. Terrible rapids,
1:42:46
Speaker 2: they imitated the noise of the cataracts, barred his way
1:42:49
Speaker 2: by this river. He must turn back to where another river,
1:42:53
Speaker 2: the Blackwater, came in on the west, and ascend that
1:42:56
Speaker 2: stream to a portage which would lead over to the sea.
1:43:01
Speaker 2: The post of Alexandria on the Caribou Road marks Mackenzie's
1:43:05
Speaker 2: furthest south on the Fraser. At this point, after learning
1:43:09
Speaker 2: all he could of the route from the Indians, he
1:43:12
Speaker 2: turned the prow of his canoe up the river. The
1:43:14
Speaker 2: carrier Indians provided him with a guide. On July 4th,
1:43:18
Speaker 2: nearly two months from the time of leaving the Forth
1:43:20
Speaker 2: on the Peace River, the portage on the Blackwater was reached.
1:43:24
Speaker 2: The canoe was abandoned, some provisions were cashed, and each
1:43:28
Speaker 2: man set off afoot with their ninety-pound pack on his back.
1:43:32
Speaker 2: Heavy mist lay on the thick forest. The Indian trail
1:43:35
Speaker 2: was but a dimly defined track over forest mould. The
1:43:38
Speaker 2: dripping underbrush that skirted the path soaked the men to
1:43:42
Speaker 2: the skin. The guide had shown an inclination to desert,
1:43:45
Speaker 2: and Mackenzie slept beside him, ready to seize and hold
1:43:49
Speaker 2: him on the slightest movement. Totem cedar poles in front
1:43:52
Speaker 2: of the Indian villages told the explorers that they were
1:43:55
Speaker 2: approaching the home of the coastal tribes. The men's clothing
1:43:59
Speaker 2: was by this time torn to shreds. They were barefooted, bareheaded,
1:44:03
Speaker 2: almost naked. For nearly two weeks they journeyed on foot. Then,
1:44:08
Speaker 2: having forded the Dean River, they embarked for the sea
1:44:11
Speaker 2: on the Bella Coola and cedar dugouts which they procured
1:44:15
Speaker 2: from Indians of one of the coastal tribes. Daily now
1:44:18
Speaker 2: Mackenzie saw signs of white traders. The Indians possessed beads
1:44:23
Speaker 2: and trinkets. One Indian had a Spanish or Russian lance.
1:44:28
Speaker 2: Fishing weirs were passed. There was a whiff of salt
1:44:31
Speaker 2: water in the air. Then far out between the hills
1:44:34
Speaker 2: lay a gap of illimitable blue. At eight o'clock in
1:44:38
Speaker 2: the morning of Saturday, July 20th, 1793, Mackenzie reached the
1:44:43
Speaker 2: mouth of the river and found himself on the sea.
1:44:46
Speaker 2: The next day he went down North Bentick Arm, and,
1:44:50
Speaker 2: passing the entrance to the South Arm, landed at the
1:44:53
Speaker 2: Cape on the opposite shore. He then proceeded down Burke Channel.
1:44:58
Speaker 2: It was near the mouth of this inlet that he inscribed,
1:45:01
Speaker 2: in red letters on a large rock, the memorable words,
1:45:05
Speaker 2: Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the 22nd of July, 1793,
1:45:08
Speaker 2: latitude 52 degrees, 20 minutes, 40 seconds north. Barely two
1:45:11
Speaker 2: months previously, Vancouver had explored and named these very waters
1:45:13
Speaker 2: and headlands. A hostile old Indian explained bellicosely that the
1:45:30
Speaker 2: white sailors had fired upon him. For this outrage he
1:45:34
Speaker 2: demanded satisfaction in gifts from Mackenzie. Few gifts had Mackenzie
1:45:39
Speaker 2: for the aggressive old chief. There were exactly twenty pounds
1:45:43
Speaker 2: of pemmican, two pounds a man for a three-month trip back.
1:45:47
Speaker 2: There remained also fifteen pounds of rice, the mainstay of
1:45:51
Speaker 2: the voyagers, and six pounds of moldy flour. The Indians
1:45:55
Speaker 2: proved so vociferously hostile that two voyagers had to stand
1:46:00
Speaker 2: guard while the others slept on the bare rocks. On
1:46:03
Speaker 2: one occasion, savages in dugouts began hurling spears, but no
1:46:08
Speaker 2: harm resulted from these unfriendly demonstrations, and the party of
1:46:12
Speaker 2: explorers presently set out on their homeward journey. Mackenzie had
1:46:16
Speaker 2: accomplished his object. In the race to the Pacific overland,
1:46:20
Speaker 2: he was the first of the explorers of North America
1:46:22
Speaker 2: to to cross the continent and reach the ocean. Late
1:46:26
Speaker 2: in August, the Voyageurs were back at the Little Forth
1:46:29
Speaker 2: on the Peace River. Mackenzie shortly afterwards quitted the fur
1:46:33
Speaker 2: country and retired to Scotland, where he wrote the story
1:46:37
Speaker 2: of his explorations. His book appeared in 1801, and in
1:46:41
Speaker 2: the following year he was knighted by the King for
1:46:44
Speaker 2: his great achievements.
1:46:47
Speaker 3: Recording by Son of the Exiles Pioneers of the Pacific Coast.
1:46:54
Speaker 3: A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters by Agnes C.
1:46:58
Speaker 1: Lout.
1:47:00
Speaker 3: The Descent of the Fraser River. American traders were not
1:47:06
Speaker 3: slow to follow up the discovery of Robert Gray on
1:47:09
Speaker 3: the Pacific. Spain, the principal pathfinder, had ceded Louisiana to France,
1:47:15
Speaker 3: and France, by way of checkmating British advance in North America...
1:47:20
Speaker 3: had sold Louisiana to the United States for $ 15 million.
1:47:25
Speaker 3: What did Louisiana include? Certainly from New Orleans to the Missouri.
1:47:31
Speaker 3: Did it also include from the Missouri to Grays River,
1:47:34
Speaker 3: the Columbia? The United States had sent Meriwether Lewis and
1:47:38
Speaker 3: William Clark overland from the Missouri to the Columbia, ostensibly
1:47:43
Speaker 3: on a scientific expedition, but in reality to lay claim
1:47:46
Speaker 3: to the new territory for the United States. This brings
1:47:50
Speaker 3: the exploration of the Pacific down to 1806. Take a
1:47:56
Speaker 3: look at the map. Mackenzie had crossed overland from the
1:48:00
Speaker 3: Peace River to Bella Coola. Who was to own the
1:48:03
Speaker 3: Great Belt of Empire, a third larger than Germany, between
1:48:07
Speaker 3: Mackenzie's trail westward and Lewis and Clark's trail to the
1:48:11
Speaker 3: mouth of the Columbia? In 1805, Simon Fraser, who as
1:48:16
Speaker 3: a child had come from the United States to Canada
1:48:19
Speaker 3: with his widow, mother in the loyalist migration and now
1:48:23
Speaker 3: in his 30th year was a partner in the northwest
1:48:25
Speaker 3: company of montreal had crossed the rockies by way of
1:48:29
Speaker 3: the peace river he had followed mackenzie's trail over the
1:48:33
Speaker 3: terrible nine mile carrying place and had built there a
1:48:36
Speaker 3: fur post rocky mountain portage he had ascended that same
1:48:41
Speaker 3: Parsnip River, which Mackenzie had found so appalling, to a
1:48:45
Speaker 3: little emerald lake set like a jewel in the mountains.
1:48:50
Speaker 3: There he had built another fur trading post and named
1:48:53
Speaker 3: it after his friend Archibald Norman MacLeod. This was the
1:48:58
Speaker 3: first fur post known to have been erected in the
1:49:01
Speaker 3: interior of New Caledonia, now British Columbia. The new fort
1:49:06
Speaker 3: had been left in charge of James MacDougall, During the
1:49:09
Speaker 3: winter of 1806, MacDougall had crossed the heavily drifted Carrowing
1:49:13
Speaker 3: Place and descended the Bad River as far as the
1:49:16
Speaker 3: south fork of the Fraser, which all traders at that
1:49:20
Speaker 3: time mistook for the upper reaches of Grey's Columbia. Instead
1:49:24
Speaker 3: of going down the main stream of the Fraser, MacDougall
1:49:27
Speaker 3: ascended both the Nicharco and the Stewart Isles. and if
1:49:30
Speaker 3: he did not actually behold the beautiful Alpine tarns since
1:49:34
Speaker 3: known as Fraser Lake and Stuart Lake, he was at
1:49:37
Speaker 3: least the first white man to hear of them. In
1:49:42
Speaker 3: May of 1806, after sending the year's furs from Rocky
1:49:46
Speaker 3: Mountain Portage east to Fort Chippewyan, Simon Fraser set out
1:49:51
Speaker 3: to explore this inland empire concerning which MacDougall had reported.
1:49:56
Speaker 3: John Stuart accompanied Fraser as lieutenant. They crossed from the
1:50:01
Speaker 3: headwaters of the Parsnip to the south fork of the Fraser,
1:50:05
Speaker 3: and on June 10th camped at the mouth of the Nicharco.
1:50:09
Speaker 3: Towards the end of July, the carriers camped on Stewart
1:50:12
Speaker 3: Lake were amazed to see advancing across the waters, with
1:50:16
Speaker 3: the rhythmic gallop of paddles, two enormous birch canoes. When
1:50:21
Speaker 3: the canoes reached the land, Fraser and Stewart stepped ashore
1:50:25
Speaker 3: and a volley was fired to celebrate the formal taking
1:50:28
Speaker 3: possession of a new inland empire. What to do with
1:50:32
Speaker 3: the white men's offerings of tobacco, the carriers did not know.
1:50:36
Speaker 3: They thought the white men in smoking were emitting spirits
1:50:40
Speaker 3: with each breath. When the traders offered soap to the squaws,
1:50:44
Speaker 3: the women at once began to devour it. The result
1:50:47
Speaker 3: was a frothing at the mouth as amazing to them
1:50:50
Speaker 3: as the smoke from the men. History does not record
1:50:54
Speaker 3: whether the women became as addicted to soap as the
1:50:57
Speaker 3: men to the fragrant weed. Active trading with the Indians
1:51:02
Speaker 3: began at once. The lake was named Stuart in honour
1:51:06
Speaker 3: of Fraser's companion, and the ground was cleared for a
1:51:09
Speaker 3: palisaded fort, which, when erected, they named Fort St James.
1:51:15
Speaker 3: The scene was enchanting. the lake wound for a distance
1:51:19
Speaker 3: of 50 miles amid the foothills of the mighty forested mountains.
1:51:24
Speaker 3: It was four or five miles wide and was gemmed
1:51:26
Speaker 3: with green islets, and all round, appearing through the clouds
1:51:31
Speaker 3: in jagged outline, were the opal summits of the snowy peaks.
1:51:35
Speaker 3: No wonder the two Scotsmen named the new inland empire
1:51:39
Speaker 3: New Caledonia after their native land. It will be remembered
1:51:45
Speaker 3: that that MacDougall had heard of another mountain tarn. This
1:51:49
Speaker 3: was forty miles south of Stewart Lake, at the headwaters
1:51:53
Speaker 3: of the Nachako, the north fork of the Fraser. Stewart
1:51:56
Speaker 3: went overland south to spy out the southern lake, and
1:52:00
Speaker 3: his report was of such an entrancing region, heavily forested
1:52:04
Speaker 3: with an abundance of game and fish, that Fraser glided
1:52:07
Speaker 3: down the Stewart River and poled up the Nachako to
1:52:11
Speaker 3: the lake which Stewart had already named after his chief. Again,
1:52:15
Speaker 3: a fort was erected and named Fort Fraser, making three
1:52:19
Speaker 3: forts in the interior of New Caledonia. Fraser had sent
1:52:25
Speaker 3: a request to the directors of the Northwest Company to
1:52:28
Speaker 3: be permitted to fit out an expedition down the Great River,
1:52:32
Speaker 3: which he thought was the Columbia, and in the spring
1:52:36
Speaker 3: of 1807, two canoes under Jules Quenelle were sent out
1:52:42
Speaker 3: with goods. Quaynell arrived at Fort St. James in the autumn,
1:52:46
Speaker 3: bringing from the east the alarming word that Lewis and
1:52:49
Speaker 3: Clark had gone overland and taken possession of all the
1:52:53
Speaker 3: territory between the Missouri and the mouth of the Columbia.
1:52:58
Speaker 3: No time was to be lost by Fraser in establishing
1:53:01
Speaker 3: a claim to the region to the west of the
1:53:03
Speaker 3: Rockies between the Peace and the Columbia. Fraser went down
1:53:08
Speaker 3: the river and strengthened British possession by building a fourth fort,
1:53:12
Speaker 3: Fort George at the mouth of the Nachaco. This was
1:53:16
Speaker 3: to be the starting point of the expedition to the Pacific. Then,
1:53:20
Speaker 3: towards the end of May 1808, he set out down
1:53:24
Speaker 3: the Great River with four canoes, 19 voyageurs, and Stuart
1:53:29
Speaker 3: and Quenelle as first assistants. Fifteen miles below the fort,
1:53:36
Speaker 3: the river walls narrowed and the canoes swept into the
1:53:39
Speaker 3: roaring cataract of Fort George Canyon, The next day they
1:53:43
Speaker 3: shot through the Cottonwood Canyon and paused at the point
1:53:47
Speaker 3: thenceforth to be known as Quenelle. On the third day
1:53:51
Speaker 3: they passed Mackenzie's farthest south, the site of the present Alexandria.
1:53:57
Speaker 3: Below this the river was unexplored and unknown. Suddenly the
1:54:02
Speaker 3: enormous floodwaters, swollen by melting mountain snows, contracted to a
1:54:06
Speaker 3: width of only 40 yards, and with a fearful roar
1:54:10
Speaker 3: swept into a rock-walled gorge. In sublime unconsciousness of heroism,
1:54:16
Speaker 3: Fraser records, As it was impossible to carry the canoes
1:54:21
Speaker 3: across the land owing to the height of the steep hills,
1:54:24
Speaker 3: we resolved to venture down. I ordered the five best
1:54:28
Speaker 3: men of the cruise into a canoe lightly loaded, and
1:54:31
Speaker 3: in a moment it was underway. After passing the first cascade,
1:54:36
Speaker 3: she lost her head and was drawn into an eddy,
1:54:40
Speaker 3: where she was whirled about in suspense whether to sink
1:54:43
Speaker 3: or swim. However, she took a turn from this vortex,
1:54:47
Speaker 3: flying from one danger to another, and in spite of
1:54:50
Speaker 3: every effort, the whirlpool forced her against a low rock.
1:54:54
Speaker 3: Upon this, the men scrambled out, saving their lives, but
1:54:58
Speaker 3: the greatest difficulty was still ahead. To continue by water
1:55:02
Speaker 3: would be certain destruction. During this distressing scene, We were
1:55:07
Speaker 3: on shore, looking on, but the situation rendered our approach perilous.
1:55:12
Speaker 3: The bank was high and steep. We had to plunge
1:55:15
Speaker 3: our daggers into the ground to avoid sliding into the river.
1:55:19
Speaker 3: We cut steps, fastened a line to the front of
1:55:22
Speaker 3: the canoe, and hauled it up. Our lives hung upon
1:55:25
Speaker 3: a thread as one false step might have hurled us
1:55:28
Speaker 3: into eternity. However, we cleared the bank before dark. the
1:55:33
Speaker 3: men had to ascend the immense hills with heavy loads
1:55:36
Speaker 3: on their backs. Indians warned the white men to desist
1:55:42
Speaker 3: from their undertaking. Better, they advised, go overland eastward to
1:55:46
Speaker 3: a great peaceful river and descend that to the sea. Fraser,
1:55:51
Speaker 3: of course, did not know that the peaceful river they
1:55:54
Speaker 3: spoke of was really the Columbia. He thought the river
1:55:57
Speaker 3: he was following was the Columbia. With the help of Indians,
1:56:02
Speaker 3: the canoes were pulled uphill, and horses were hired from
1:56:05
Speaker 3: them to carry the provisions overland. Below this portage, as
1:56:11
Speaker 3: they continued the descent, an enormous crag spread across the river,
1:56:15
Speaker 3: appearing at first to bar the passage ahead. This was
1:56:19
Speaker 3: Bar Rock. Beyond it, several minor rapids were passed without difficulty,
1:56:25
Speaker 3: and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools
1:56:28
Speaker 3: which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and,
1:56:33
Speaker 3: a desperate undertaking, ran them down the rapids with light ballast.
1:56:38
Speaker 3: They then came back overland for the packs. This task,
1:56:43
Speaker 3: says Fraser, was as dangerous as going by water. The
1:56:47
Speaker 3: men passed and repassed a declivity on loose stones and
1:56:50
Speaker 3: gravel which constantly gave way underfoot. One man who lost
1:56:55
Speaker 3: the path got in a most intricate and perilous position.
1:56:59
Speaker 3: With a large package on his back, he got so
1:57:02
Speaker 3: wedged amid the rocks that he could move neither forward
1:57:05
Speaker 3: nor backward, nor yet unload himself. I crawled, not without
1:57:10
Speaker 3: great risk, to his assistance, and saved his life by
1:57:14
Speaker 3: cutting his pack so that it dropped back in the river.
1:57:17
Speaker 3: On this carrying place, which was two miles long, our
1:57:20
Speaker 3: shoes became shattered. For several days after this, the advance
1:57:26
Speaker 3: was by a succession of rapids and portages. On June
1:57:31
Speaker 3: the 9th, the stream again narrowed to 40 yards and
1:57:34
Speaker 3: swept violently between two overhanging precipices. The water, which rolls
1:57:41
Speaker 3: down this passage in tumultuous waves and with great velocity,
1:57:45
Speaker 3: had a frightful appearance. However, it being absolutely impossible to
1:57:50
Speaker 3: carry canoes by land, all hands without hesitation embarked on
1:57:54
Speaker 3: the mercy of the awful tide. Once on the water,
1:57:58
Speaker 3: the die was cast. and the difficulty consisted in keeping
1:58:02
Speaker 3: the canoes clear of the precipice on one side and
1:58:05
Speaker 3: clear of the gulfs formed by the waves on the other.
1:58:08
Speaker 3: Thus skimming along as fast as lightning, the crews, cool
1:58:12
Speaker 3: and determined, followed each other in awful silence. And when
1:58:16
Speaker 3: we arrived at the end, we stood gazing at each
1:58:19
Speaker 3: other in silent congratulation on our narrow escape from total destruction.
1:58:25
Speaker 3: After breathing a little, we continued our course to the
1:58:28
Speaker 3: point where the Indians camped. The natives here warned Fraser
1:58:33
Speaker 3: that it would be madness to go forward. At the
1:58:36
Speaker 3: same time, they furnished him with a guide. The same evening,
1:58:40
Speaker 3: the party reached the place described by Fraser as a
1:58:44
Speaker 3: continual series of cascades cut by rocks and bounded by
1:58:48
Speaker 3: precipices that seemed to have no end. Never had he
1:58:52
Speaker 3: seen anything so dreary and dangerous. Towering above were mountains
1:58:58
Speaker 3: upon mountains whose summits are covered with eternal snow. An
1:59:02
Speaker 3: examination of the river for some distance below convinced Fraser
1:59:06
Speaker 3: that it was impossible of navigation, and he decided to
1:59:09
Speaker 3: make the remainder of the journey on foot. After building
1:59:13
Speaker 3: a scaffold on which the canoes and some provisions were
1:59:16
Speaker 3: placed and covered with underbrush and moss, the party, on
1:59:20
Speaker 3: June 11th, began their tramp down the riverbank. Each man
1:59:26
Speaker 3: carried on his back a 90-pound pack, supported by a
1:59:29
Speaker 3: strap across the forehead. Again and again on the journey,
1:59:33
Speaker 3: Indians confronted Fraser with hostile show of weapons, but the
1:59:37
Speaker 3: intrepid trader disarmed hostility by gifts. The Indians declared that
1:59:44
Speaker 3: the sea lay only ten sleeps distant. One of the
1:59:48
Speaker 3: chiefs said that he had himself seen white men, who
1:59:52
Speaker 3: were great Thais, because they were well-dressed and very proud
1:59:56
Speaker 3: and went about this way, clapping his hands to his
2:00:00
Speaker 3: hips and and strutting about with an air of vast importance.
2:00:04
Speaker 3: The Indians told Fraser of another great river that came
2:00:07
Speaker 3: in from the east and joined this one some distance below.
2:00:11
Speaker 3: He had passed the site of the present Lillooet and
2:00:15
Speaker 3: was approaching the confluence of the Thompson with the Fraser.
2:00:19
Speaker 3: Farther down, European articles were seen among the Indians. It
2:00:24
Speaker 3: was the fishing season and the tribes had assembled in
2:00:26
Speaker 3: great hordes. Here the river was navigable, and three wooden
2:00:31
Speaker 3: dugouts were obtained from the natives for the descent to
2:00:34
Speaker 3: the sea. The voyageurs again embarked and swept down the
2:00:39
Speaker 3: narrow bends of the turbulent floods at what are now Lytton,
2:00:43
Speaker 3: Yale and Hope. There were passes where the river was
2:00:47
Speaker 3: such a raging torrent that the dugouts had to be
2:00:50
Speaker 3: carried overland. There were places where Fraser's voyageurs had to
2:00:56
Speaker 3: climb precipices by means of frail ladders made of poles
2:01:00
Speaker 3: and withes that swayed to their tread and threatened to
2:01:03
Speaker 3: precipitate them into the torrent beneath. When the river turned
2:01:08
Speaker 3: sharply west, Fraser could not help noticing that the Indians
2:01:12
Speaker 3: became more violently hostile. Far south could be seen the
2:01:17
Speaker 3: opal dome of Mount Baker, named by Vancouver after one
2:01:21
Speaker 3: of his lieutenants. As they advanced, the banks lowered to
2:01:24
Speaker 3: reedy swamps and mosquitoes appeared in clouds. What troubled Fraser
2:01:30
Speaker 3: most was the fact that the river lay many miles
2:01:33
Speaker 3: north of the known latitude of the Columbia. It daily
2:01:37
Speaker 3: grew on him that this could not possibly be the Columbia.
2:01:40
Speaker 3: The tide rose and fell in the river. The Indian
2:01:43
Speaker 3: guide begged the white men not to go on. He
2:01:46
Speaker 3: was afraid, he said, of the Indians of the sea coast.
2:01:51
Speaker 3: The river channel divided. Natives along the shore began singing
2:01:55
Speaker 3: war songs and beating the war drum. Then they circled
2:01:59
Speaker 3: out threateningly round the white men's boats. Signs were seen
2:02:03
Speaker 3: of the sea ahead, but the Indians were howling like
2:02:07
Speaker 3: wolves and brandishing war clubs, and Fraser concluded that it
2:02:11
Speaker 3: would be unwise to delay longer amid such dangers. To
2:02:16
Speaker 3: his intense disappointment, he had established the latitude as 49 degrees,
2:02:22
Speaker 3: whereas the Columbia was in latitude 46 degrees 20 minutes.
2:02:27
Speaker 3: This river is therefore not the Columbia, he declared. If
2:02:31
Speaker 3: I had been convinced of this when I left my canoes,
2:02:34
Speaker 3: I would certainly have returned. The return journey was fraught
2:02:39
Speaker 3: with danger. Always one man stood guard while the others slept,
2:02:44
Speaker 3: and again and again the little party was surrounded by
2:02:47
Speaker 3: ferociously hostile bands. Between apprehension of the dangers of the
2:02:52
Speaker 3: wild trail of the Fraser Canyons and fear of hostile natives,
2:02:56
Speaker 3: the men became so panic-stricken that they threw down their
2:03:00
Speaker 3: paddles and declared their intention of trying to escape overland
2:03:03
Speaker 3: through the mountains. Fraser reasoned and remonstrated and finally threatened.
2:03:09
Speaker 3: After so much heroism, he would not permit cowardly desertion.
2:03:14
Speaker 3: Then he forced each voyageur to swear on the cross.
2:03:18
Speaker 3: I do solemnly swear that I will sooner perish than
2:03:22
Speaker 3: forsake in distress any of our crew during the present voyage.
2:03:27
Speaker 3: With renewed self-respect, they then paddled off, singing Voyageurs' songs
2:03:32
Speaker 3: to keep up their courage. Imagine for a moment the scene.
2:03:36
Speaker 3: The turbid, mad waters of the Fraser hemmed in between
2:03:39
Speaker 3: rock walls, carving a living way through the adamant, banks
2:03:43
Speaker 3: from which red savages threw down rocks, wherever the wild
2:03:47
Speaker 3: current drove the dugout inshore, and, tossed by the waves,
2:03:52
Speaker 3: a chip-like craft containing 19 ragged men singing like schoolboys.
2:03:58
Speaker 3: Once away from the coastal tribes, however, the white men
2:04:02
Speaker 3: were aided by the inland carriers. They found the canoes
2:04:05
Speaker 3: and supplies in perfect condition and unmolested, though hundreds of
2:04:10
Speaker 3: carrier Indians must have passed where lay the belongings of
2:04:13
Speaker 3: the white strangers. On August 5, to the inexpressible relief
2:04:18
Speaker 3: of Port George, the little band once more were at
2:04:21
Speaker 3: their headquarters in New Caledonia.
2:04:41
Speaker 2: While Fraser was working down the wild canyons of the
2:04:44
Speaker 2: Great River, which now bears his name, other fur traders
2:04:48
Speaker 2: were looking towards the Pacific Ocean. In 1810, John Jacob Astor,
2:04:53
Speaker 2: a New York merchant who bought furs from the Nor'westers
2:04:56
Speaker 2: in Montreal for shipment to Germany, formed the Pacific Fur
2:05:00
Speaker 2: Company and took into its service a number of the
2:05:03
Speaker 2: partners and servants of the Northwest Company. Some of these
2:05:07
Speaker 2: men were dispatched round the Horn in the Tonquin to
2:05:10
Speaker 2: the mouth of the Columbia, while another party went overland
2:05:14
Speaker 2: from Mackinac in St. Louis, following the trail of Lewis
2:05:17
Speaker 2: and Clark. One of the Nor'westers who entered Astor's service
2:05:21
Speaker 2: was Alexander McKay, McKenzie's companion on the journey to the coast.
2:05:26
Speaker 2: Another was a brother of the Stuart who had accompanied
2:05:28
Speaker 2: Fraser through New Caledonia, and a third was a brother
2:05:32
Speaker 2: of the MacDougall who commanded for MacLeod. the first fort
2:05:36
Speaker 2: built by the Northwesters in New Caledonia. In the light
2:05:40
Speaker 2: of subsequent developments, it is a matter for speculation whether
2:05:44
Speaker 2: these Norwesters joined Astor purposely to overthrow his scheme in
2:05:48
Speaker 2: the interest of their old company, or were later bribed
2:05:51
Speaker 2: to desert him, or, as is most likely, simply grew
2:05:55
Speaker 2: dissatisfied with the inexperienced, blundering mismanagement of Astor's company, and
2:06:00
Speaker 2: reverted gladly to their old service. However that may have been,
2:06:05
Speaker 2: it is certain that the Northwest Company did not fail
2:06:08
Speaker 2: to take notice of the plans that Astra had set
2:06:11
Speaker 2: afoot for the Pacific for trade, for in a secret
2:06:14
Speaker 2: session of the partners at Fort William on Lake Superior,
2:06:18
Speaker 2: it was decided in council that the company should send
2:06:22
Speaker 2: to Columbia River, where the Americans had established Astoria, and
2:06:26
Speaker 2: that a party should proceed overland to the coast. puzzled
2:06:31
Speaker 2: the nor'westers to learn that the river fraser had explored
2:06:34
Speaker 2: in eighteen o eight was not the columbia where then
2:06:38
Speaker 2: were the upper reaches of the great river of the
2:06:40
Speaker 2: west which gray in vancouver had reported the company issued
2:06:45
Speaker 2: urgent instructions to its traders in the far west to
2:06:48
Speaker 2: keep pushing up the north and south Saskatchewan, up the
2:06:52
Speaker 2: Red Deer, up the Bow, up the Athabasca, up the Smoky,
2:06:57
Speaker 2: up the Pembina, and to press over the mountains wherever
2:07:00
Speaker 2: any river led oceanwards through the passes. This duty of
2:07:04
Speaker 2: finding new passable ways to the sea was especially incumbent
2:07:08
Speaker 2: on the company's surveyor and astronomer, David Thomson, He was
2:07:12
Speaker 2: formerly of the Hudson's Bay Company, but had come over
2:07:15
Speaker 2: to the Nor'westers and in their service had surveyed from
2:07:18
Speaker 2: the Assiniboine to the Missouri and from Lake Superior to
2:07:21
Speaker 2: the Saskatchewan. Towards the spring of 1799, Thompson had been
2:07:27
Speaker 2: on the North Saskatchewan and had moved around the region
2:07:30
Speaker 2: of Lesser Slave Lake. That year, at Grand Portage, at
2:07:34
Speaker 2: the annual meeting of the traders of the Northwest Company,
2:07:37
Speaker 2: he was ordered to begin a thorough exploration of the
2:07:40
Speaker 2: mountains and and the spring of 1800 saw him at
2:07:44
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain.
2:07:46
Speaker 1: Note.
2:07:48
Speaker 2: To explain what may appear like a confusion of names,
2:07:51
Speaker 2: it may be stated that in the history of the
2:07:53
Speaker 2: fur trade from 1800 to 1850 there were at various
2:07:55
Speaker 2: stages as many as 16 differently situated fur posts under
2:08:03
Speaker 2: the name of Rocky Mountain House. End of note. On
2:08:10
Speaker 2: the upper reaches of the North Saskatchewan, above the junction
2:08:13
Speaker 2: of the Clearwater, hitherto the Nor'westers had crossed the mountains
2:08:18
Speaker 2: by way of the Peace River, but Thompson was to
2:08:21
Speaker 2: explore a dozen new trails across the Great Divide. While
2:08:25
Speaker 2: four of his men crossed over to the Red Deer
2:08:27
Speaker 2: River and rafted or canoed down the South Saskatchewan, Thompson himself,
2:08:32
Speaker 2: with five French Canadians and two Indian guides, crossed the
2:08:36
Speaker 2: mountains to the Kootenai country. The Kootenai Indians were encamped
2:08:40
Speaker 2: on the Kootenai plains preparatory to their winter's hunt. and
2:08:44
Speaker 2: Thompson persuaded some of them to accompany him back over
2:08:47
Speaker 2: the mountains to Rocky Mountain House on the North Saskatchewan.
2:08:51
Speaker 2: This was the beginning of the trade between the Kootenays
2:08:54
Speaker 2: and the white men. Probably from these Indians, Thompson learned
2:08:58
Speaker 2: of the entrance to the Rockies by the beautiful, clear
2:09:01
Speaker 2: mountain stream now named the Bow, and Duncan McGillivray, a
2:09:05
Speaker 2: leading partner, accompanied him south from Rocky Mountain House to
2:09:09
Speaker 2: the spot on the Bow where today the city of
2:09:12
Speaker 2: Calgary stands. It was on this trip that Northwesters first
2:09:17
Speaker 2: met the Pigeon overland to the Missouri. Snow was falling
2:09:21
Speaker 2: when the traders entered the Rockies at what is now
2:09:24
Speaker 2: the Gap on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Inside the gateway
2:09:28
Speaker 2: to the rugged defile of forest and mountain, the traders
2:09:31
Speaker 2: reveled in the sublime scenery of the Banff Valley. At Banff,
2:09:36
Speaker 2: eastward of Cascade Mountain, on the sheltered plain where Kootenays
2:09:40
Speaker 2: and Stonies used to camp, one can still find the
2:09:43
Speaker 2: circular mounds that mark a trading station of this era.
2:09:47
Speaker 2: Whether the white men discovered the beautiful blue tarn now
2:09:50
Speaker 2: known as Devil's Lake, or saw the bow River Falls,
2:09:53
Speaker 2: where tourists today fish away long summer afternoons, or dipped
2:09:58
Speaker 2: in the famous hot springs on the slope of Sulphur Mountain,
2:10:01
Speaker 2: we do not know. They could hardly have met and
2:10:04
Speaker 2: conversed with the Kootenays and Stonies without hearing about these attractions.
2:10:08
Speaker 2: which yearly drew Indian families to camp in the encircling mountains,
2:10:12
Speaker 2: while the men ranged the field to hunt. Thompson and
2:10:16
Speaker 2: McGilvery were back at Rocky Mountain House on the Saskatchewan
2:10:20
Speaker 2: for Christmas. Sometime during 1800, their French-Canadian voyageurs are known
2:10:25
Speaker 2: to have crossed Howes Pass, the source of the North Saskatchewan,
2:10:29
Speaker 2: which was discovered by Duncan McGilvery and named after Joseph
2:10:33
Speaker 2: Howes of the Northwest Company. for several years after this
2:10:38
Speaker 2: Thompson was engaged in making surveys for the Northwest Company
2:10:42
Speaker 2: in the valley of the Peace River and between the
2:10:44
Speaker 2: Saskatchewan and the Churchill. In 1806, we find him in
2:10:48
Speaker 2: the country south of the Peace, which was then in
2:10:50
Speaker 2: charge of that Jules Kinnell who was to accompany Fraser
2:10:54
Speaker 2: in 1808. Fraser, as we have seen, was already busy
2:10:58
Speaker 2: exploring the region between McLeod Lake and Stewart Lake, and
2:11:01
Speaker 2: had laid his plans to descend the great river which
2:11:04
Speaker 2: he thought was Grace Columbia. Now, while Thompson spent the
2:11:08
Speaker 2: winter of 1806-07 between the Peace and the North Saskatchewan
2:11:13
Speaker 2: trading and exploring, he doubtless learned of Fraser's explorations west
2:11:18
Speaker 2: of the Rockies and of the vast extent of New Caledonia.
2:11:23
Speaker 2: And June 1807 saw him over the mountains on the
2:11:27
Speaker 2: Kootenai Plains, where to his infinite delight he came upon
2:11:30
Speaker 2: a turbulent river whose swollen current flowed towards the Pacific.
2:11:35
Speaker 2: May God give me to see where its waters flow
2:11:37
Speaker 2: into the ocean, he ejaculated. This was, however, but a
2:11:41
Speaker 2: tributary of the long-sought Columbia. It was the river now
2:11:45
Speaker 2: called the Blayberry. Thompson followed down the banks of this
2:11:48
Speaker 2: stream by a well-known Indian trail, and on June 30th
2:11:52
Speaker 2: he came to the Columbia itself. Although the river here
2:11:56
Speaker 2: flowed to the north, he must have known, from the
2:11:59
Speaker 2: deposits of blue silt and the turgidity of the current,
2:12:02
Speaker 2: that he had found at least an upper reach of
2:12:04
Speaker 2: the river of the west, but he could hardly guess
2:12:07
Speaker 2: that its winding course would lead him a dance of
2:12:10
Speaker 2: eleven hundred miles before he could reach the sea. The
2:12:14
Speaker 2: party camped and built the boats they needed, and a
2:12:17
Speaker 2: fortnight later they were pulling upstream to the lake we
2:12:20
Speaker 2: today know as Windermere, where Thompson built a fort which
2:12:24
Speaker 2: he called Kootenay. Here he spent the winter trading, and
2:12:28
Speaker 2: when the warm Chinook winds cleared away the snows in
2:12:31
Speaker 2: April 1808, about the time Fraser was preparing to descend
2:12:35
Speaker 2: the Fraser River, he paddled upstream to where the Columbia
2:12:38
Speaker 2: River had its source in Upper Columbia Lake. A portage
2:12:42
Speaker 2: of about a mile and a half brought him to
2:12:44
Speaker 2: another large river, which flowed southward. This stream, the Kootenay,
2:12:49
Speaker 2: led him south into the country of the Flatheads, then
2:12:52
Speaker 2: made a great bend and swept to the north. This
2:12:55
Speaker 2: was disappointing. Thompson returned to his fort on Windermere Lake,
2:13:00
Speaker 2: packed the furs his men had gathered, and retraced his
2:13:04
Speaker 2: trail of the previous year to Rocky Mountain House. He
2:13:07
Speaker 2: had undoubtedly found the River of the West, but he
2:13:10
Speaker 2: had learned nothing of its course to the sea. During
2:13:15
Speaker 2: nearly all of 1809, Thompson was exploring the Kootenai River
2:13:19
Speaker 2: and its branches through Idaho and Montana. Still, no path
2:13:23
Speaker 2: had he found to the sea. In 1810, he seems
2:13:27
Speaker 2: to have gone east for instructions from his company. What
2:13:30
Speaker 2: the instructions were we may conjecture from subsequent developments. Astor
2:13:35
Speaker 2: of New York, as we have seen, was busy launching
2:13:37
Speaker 2: his fur traders for operations on the Pacific. Pagan warriors
2:13:42
Speaker 2: blocked the passage into the Rockies by the North Saskatchewan,
2:13:46
Speaker 2: so Thompson in the autumn of this year ascended the Athabasca.
2:13:50
Speaker 2: Winter came early. The passes were filled with snow and
2:13:53
Speaker 2: beset by warriors. He failed to get provisions down from
2:13:57
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain House, and his men, cut off by hostile
2:14:00
Speaker 2: savages from all help from outside posts, had literally to
2:14:04
Speaker 2: cut and shovel their way through Atabasca Pass while subsisting
2:14:08
Speaker 2: on short rations. The men built huts in the pass,
2:14:12
Speaker 2: some hunted, while others made snowshoes and sleighs. They were
2:14:16
Speaker 2: down to rations of dog meat and moccasins, and hardly
2:14:19
Speaker 2: knew whether to expect death at the hands of raiding
2:14:22
Speaker 2: Pagans or from starvation. On New Year's Day of 1811,
2:14:27
Speaker 2: when the thermometer dropped to 24 below zero with a
2:14:31
Speaker 2: biting wind, Thompson was packing four broken-down horses and two
2:14:35
Speaker 2: dogs over the pass to the west side. The mountains
2:14:39
Speaker 2: rose precipitously on each side, but when the trail began
2:14:43
Speaker 2: dropping down westward, the weather moderated, though the snow grew deeper,
2:14:48
Speaker 2: and in the third week of January, Thompson came on
2:14:51
Speaker 2: the baffling current of the Columbia. He camped there for
2:14:55
Speaker 2: the remainder of the winter, near the entrance of the
2:14:57
Speaker 2: Canoe River. Why he went up to Columbia in the spring,
2:15:01
Speaker 2: tracing it back to its source and then south again
2:15:05
Speaker 2: into Idaho, instead of rounding the bend and going down
2:15:08
Speaker 2: the river, we do not know. He was evidently puzzled
2:15:12
Speaker 2: by the contrary directions in which the great river seemed
2:15:14
Speaker 2: to flow. At all events, by a route which is
2:15:18
Speaker 2: not clearly known, Thompson struck the Spokane River in June
2:15:22
Speaker 2: 1811 near the site of the present city of Spokane,
2:15:27
Speaker 2: and following down the Spokane, he again found the elusive Columbia,
2:15:31
Speaker 2: and embarked on its waters. At the mouth of the
2:15:35
Speaker 2: Snake River, on July 9th, he erected a pole, on
2:15:38
Speaker 2: which he hoisted a flag, and attached a sheet of
2:15:41
Speaker 2: paper claiming possession of the country for Great Britain and
2:15:44
Speaker 2: the Northwest Company. A month later, when Astor's traders came
2:15:49
Speaker 2: upstream from the mouth of the Columbia, they were amazed
2:15:52
Speaker 2: to find a British flag waving triumphantly at this spot. Unfortunately,
2:15:58
Speaker 2: Thompson's claim ignored the fact that both Lewis and Clark,
2:16:02
Speaker 2: and the Astorians, had already passed this way on their
2:16:05
Speaker 2: overland route to the Pacific. From this point, Thompson evidently
2:16:11
Speaker 2: raced for the Pacific. Within a week, he had passed
2:16:14
Speaker 2: the Dalles. past the mouth of the Willamette, past what
2:16:18
Speaker 2: was to become the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's
2:16:21
Speaker 2: post of Fort Vancouver, and at midday of Monday, July 15th,
2:16:25
Speaker 2: he swept around a bend of the mighty stream and
2:16:27
Speaker 2: came within sight of the sea. Crouched between the dank,
2:16:31
Speaker 2: heavy forest and the heaving river floods stood a little
2:16:35
Speaker 2: palisaded and fresh-hooned log fur post, Astoria. Thompson was two
2:16:41
Speaker 2: months too late to claim the region of the Lower
2:16:43
Speaker 2: Columbia for the Nor'westers. One can imagine the wild hello
2:16:48
Speaker 2: with which the tired voyagers greeted Astoria when their comrades
2:16:52
Speaker 2: of old from Athabasca came tumbling hilariously from the fort gates.
2:16:57
Speaker 2: MacDougall of Rocky Mountain House, Stuart of Chippywine, and John Clark,
2:17:02
Speaker 2: whom Thompson had known at Ile-à-la-Crosse. But where was Alexander Mackay,
2:17:08
Speaker 2: who had gone overland with Mackenzie in 1793? The men
2:17:13
Speaker 2: fell into one another's arms with gruff, profane embraces. Thompson
2:17:18
Speaker 2: was hailed in to a sumptuous midday dinner of river salmon,
2:17:22
Speaker 2: duck and partridge, and wines brought round the world. The
2:17:26
Speaker 2: absence of McKay was the only thing that took from
2:17:28
Speaker 2: the pleasure of the occasion. A party of the historians,
2:17:33
Speaker 2: as we have seen, had sailed round the horn on
2:17:35
Speaker 2: the Tonquin. Another party had gone overland from Mackinac and St.
2:17:39
Speaker 3: Louis.
2:17:40
Speaker 2: On the Tonkin were 20 sailors, 4 partners, 12 clerks,
2:17:44
Speaker 2: and 13 voyageurs. She sailed from New York in September 1810.
2:17:49
Speaker 2: Jonathan Thorne, the captain, was a retired naval officer who
2:17:53
Speaker 2: resented the easy familiarity of the fur traders with their
2:17:57
Speaker 2: servants and ridiculed the seasickness of the freshwater voyageurs. The
2:18:02
Speaker 2: Tonquin had barely rounded the horn before the partners and
2:18:05
Speaker 2: the commander were at sixes and sevens. A landing was
2:18:09
Speaker 2: made at the mouth of the Columbia in March 1811,
2:18:12
Speaker 2: and eight lives were lost in an attempt to head
2:18:14
Speaker 2: small boats up against the tide-rip of river and sea.
2:18:18
Speaker 2: After endless jangling about where to land, where to build,
2:18:22
Speaker 2: how to build, the rude fort which Thompson saw had
2:18:25
Speaker 2: been knocked together, the Tonkin sailed up the coast of
2:18:28
Speaker 2: Vancouver Island to trade. On the vessel went Alexander Mackay
2:18:33
Speaker 2: to help in the trade with the coastal Indians, whom
2:18:36
Speaker 2: he was supposed to know. In spite of McKay's warning
2:18:40
Speaker 2: that the Nootka tribes were notoriously treacherous and resentful towards
2:18:45
Speaker 2: white traders, Captain Thorn, with lordly indifference, permitted them to
2:18:50
Speaker 2: swarm aboard his vessel. Once, when McKay had gone ashore
2:18:54
Speaker 2: at Cleoquot, where Gray had wintered twenty years before, Thorn,
2:18:59
Speaker 2: forgetting that his ship was not a training school, struck
2:19:02
Speaker 2: an old chief across the face and threw him over
2:19:05
Speaker 2: the rail. When McKay heard what had happened, Instead of
2:19:09
Speaker 2: applauding the captain's valour, he showed the utmost alarm and
2:19:13
Speaker 2: begged Thorne to put out for the open sea. The
2:19:16
Speaker 2: captain smiled in scorn. Twenty Indians were welcomed on the
2:19:20
Speaker 2: deck the very next day. More came. At the same time,
2:19:24
Speaker 2: the vessel was completely surrounded by a fleet of canoes.
2:19:28
Speaker 2: As if to throw white men off all suspicion, the
2:19:31
Speaker 2: squaws came paddling out, laughing and chatting. McKay, in horror,
2:19:36
Speaker 2: noticed that in the barter all the Indians were taking
2:19:39
Speaker 2: knives for their furs, and that groups were casually stationing
2:19:43
Speaker 2: themselves at points of vantage on the deck, at the hatches,
2:19:47
Speaker 2: at the cabin door, along the taff rail. McKay hurried
2:19:52
Speaker 2: to the captain. Thorn affected to ignore any danger, but
2:19:56
Speaker 2: he nevertheless ordered the anchors up. Seeing so many Indians
2:20:00
Speaker 2: still on board, the sailors hesitated. Thorne lost his head
2:20:05
Speaker 2: and uttered a shout. This served as a signal for
2:20:08
Speaker 2: the savages, who shrieked with derisive glee and fell upon
2:20:12
Speaker 2: the crew with knives, hatchets, and clubs. Down the companionway
2:20:16
Speaker 2: tumbled the ship's clerk, Lewis, stabbed in the back. Over
2:20:20
Speaker 2: the taffrail headlong fell McKay, clubbed by the Indians aboard,
2:20:24
Speaker 2: caught on the knives of the squaws below. The captain
2:20:27
Speaker 2: was so unprepared for the attack that he had no
2:20:30
Speaker 2: weapon but his pocket-knife. He was stunned by a club,
2:20:34
Speaker 2: pitched overboard, and literally cut to pieces by the squaws.
2:20:39
Speaker 2: In a moment the Tonkin was a shambles. All on
2:20:42
Speaker 2: deck were slaughtered but four, who gained the main cabin,
2:20:45
Speaker 2: and with muskets aimed through windows scattered the yelling horde.
2:20:51
Speaker 2: The Indians sprang from the ship and drew off, while
2:20:54
Speaker 2: the four white survivors escaped in a boat, and the
2:20:58
Speaker 2: Tonkin's sails flapped idly in the wind. Next morning, the
2:21:02
Speaker 2: Indians paddled out to plunder what seemed to be a
2:21:04
Speaker 2: deserted ship. A wounded white man appeared above the hatches
2:21:08
Speaker 2: and waved them to come on board and trade. They
2:21:11
Speaker 2: came in hosts, in hordes, in flocks, like carrion birds
2:21:15
Speaker 2: or ants overrunning a half-dead thing. Suddenly, earth and air
2:21:20
Speaker 2: at Tlequat Harbor were rent with a terrific explosion, and
2:21:24
Speaker 2: the sea was drenched with the blood of the slaughtered savages.
2:21:27
Speaker 2: The only remaining white man, the wounded Lewis, had blown
2:21:31
Speaker 2: up the powder magazine. He perished himself in order to
2:21:35
Speaker 2: punish the marauders. Had this story been known at Astoria
2:21:40
Speaker 2: when Thompson arrived, he would have found the Astorians in
2:21:43
Speaker 2: a thoroughly dejected condition. As it was, murmurs of discontent
2:21:49
Speaker 2: were heard. Here they had been marooned on the Columbia
2:21:52
Speaker 2: for three months, without a ship, waiting for the contingent
2:21:56
Speaker 2: of the Astorians who were toiling across the continent. Note,
2:22:00
Speaker 2: the Overland Party suffered the greatest hardship and some loss
2:22:05
Speaker 2: of life, and did not arrive at Astoria till January 1812.
2:22:08
Speaker 2: End of note. Not thus did Norwesters conduct expeditions. What
2:22:16
Speaker 2: Thompson thought of the situation we do not know. All
2:22:20
Speaker 2: we do know is that he remained only a week.
2:22:23
Speaker 2: On July 22nd, fully provisioned by MacDougall, he went back
2:22:27
Speaker 2: up the Columbia post haste. One year later, we find
2:22:31
Speaker 2: Thompson at Fort William, reporting the results of his expedition
2:22:35
Speaker 2: to the assembled directors of the Northwest Company. He had
2:22:39
Speaker 2: surveyed every part of the Columbia from its source to
2:22:42
Speaker 2: its mouth, and he was the first white man on
2:22:45
Speaker 2: its upper waters. The War of 1812 had begun, and
2:22:49
Speaker 2: a British warship was on its way to capture Astoria.
2:22:53
Speaker 2: At the same time, the Nor'westers dispatched an overland expedition
2:22:56
Speaker 2: to the Columbia. Among their emissaries went the men of
2:23:00
Speaker 2: New Caledonia, Alexander Henry the Younger of Rocky Mountain House,
2:23:05
Speaker 2: Donald McTavish, and a dozen others who were former comrades
2:23:09
Speaker 2: of the leading Astorians. They succeeded in their mission, and
2:23:14
Speaker 2: in the month of October 1813, Astor's fort was sold
2:23:18
Speaker 2: to the Northwest Company and renamed Fort George. the methods
2:23:24
Speaker 2: of fur-traders have been the same the world over to
2:23:28
Speaker 2: frighten a rival off the ground if possible if not
2:23:31
Speaker 2: then to buy him off it is not all surmised
2:23:34
Speaker 2: to suppose that when thompson went to the pacific there
2:23:38
Speaker 2: was in view some other purpose than merely to survey
2:23:41
Speaker 2: an unknown river but exploration and the fur trade went
2:23:45
Speaker 2: hand in hand, and whatever the motives may have been,
2:23:49
Speaker 2: the result was that, after more than four years of
2:23:52
Speaker 2: arduous toil, Thompson had given to commerce a great waterway.
2:23:58
Speaker 2: His exploration of the Columbia closes the period of discovery
2:24:02
Speaker 2: on the Pacific Coast.
2:24:03
Speaker 1: Recording by Phil Schempf Pioneers of the Pacific Coast A
2:24:08
Speaker 1: Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters by Agnes C.
2:24:11
Speaker 1: Lout Chapter 9 THE PASSING OF THE FURLORDS. When Astoria
2:24:17
Speaker 1: passed to the Nor'westers, with it came, as we shall see,
2:24:20
Speaker 1: an opportunity of acquiring for Great Britain the whole of
2:24:24
Speaker 1: the vast region west of the Rockies, including California and Alaska.
2:24:29
Speaker 1: Gray's feat in finding the mouth of the Columbia, and
2:24:32
Speaker 1: the explorations of Lewis and Clark Overland to the same river,
2:24:36
Speaker 1: gave the United States possession of a part of this
2:24:38
Speaker 1: territory by right of discovery. but this possession was practically
2:24:42
Speaker 1: superseded by the transfer of Astor's fort to the British
2:24:45
Speaker 1: Canadian Company. Yet today we find Britain not in possession
2:24:49
Speaker 1: of California, not in possession of the region round the
2:24:53
Speaker 1: mouth of the Columbia, not in possession of Alaska. The
2:24:57
Speaker 1: reason for this will appear presently. The Treaty of Ghent,
2:25:00
Speaker 1: which closed the War of 1812, made no mention of
2:25:03
Speaker 1: the boundaries of Oregon. but it provided that any territory
2:25:07
Speaker 1: captured by either nation in the course of the war
2:25:10
Speaker 1: should be restored to the original owner. The question then arose,
2:25:14
Speaker 1: did this clause in the treaty apply to Astoria? Was
2:25:18
Speaker 1: the taking over of the fur post by the British
2:25:20
Speaker 1: Company in reality an act of war? The United States
2:25:24
Speaker 1: said yes, Great Britain said no, and both nations claimed
2:25:28
Speaker 1: sovereignty over Oregon. in eighteen eighteen a provisional agreement was
2:25:33
Speaker 1: reached under which either nation might trade and establish settlements
2:25:37
Speaker 1: in the disputed territory but it was now utterly impossible
2:25:41
Speaker 1: for astor to prosecute the fur trade on the pacific
2:25:44
Speaker 1: the boston eyes had lost prestige with the indians when
2:25:47
Speaker 1: the tonkin sank off of clauquot and the more experienced
2:25:51
Speaker 1: british and canadian traders were in control of the field
2:25:54
Speaker 1: At this time, the Hudson's Bay Company and Norwesters were
2:25:58
Speaker 1: waging the trade war that terminated in their union in 1820-1821,
2:26:01
Speaker 1: and when the United Companies came to assign officers to
2:26:06
Speaker 1: the different districts, John Maloflan, who had been a partner
2:26:10
Speaker 1: in the Norwest Company, was sent overland to rule Oregon.
2:26:14
Speaker 1: What did Oregon comprise? at that time no man knew
2:26:18
Speaker 1: but within ten years after his arrival in eighteen twenty
2:26:20
Speaker 1: four m'laughlin sent out hunting brigades consisting of two or
2:26:24
Speaker 1: three hundred horsemen in all directions east under alexander ross
2:26:29
Speaker 1: as far as montana and idaho south under peter skeen
2:26:33
Speaker 1: ogden as far as utah and nevada and california along
2:26:37
Speaker 1: the coast south as far as Monterey, under Tom McKay,
2:26:40
Speaker 1: whose father had been murdered on the Tonquin, and whose
2:26:44
Speaker 1: widowed mother had married Muloughlin, north through New Caledonia under
2:26:48
Speaker 1: James Douglas, Black Douglas, they called the dignified, swarthy young
2:26:52
Speaker 1: Scotsman who later held supreme rule on the North Pacific
2:26:56
Speaker 1: as Sir James Douglas, the first governor of British Columbia.
2:27:00
Speaker 1: If one were to take a map of Muloughlin's Transmontane
2:27:03
Speaker 1: Empire and lay it across the face of a map
2:27:06
Speaker 1: of Europe, it would cover the continent from st petersburg
2:27:09
Speaker 1: to madrid the ruler of this vast domain was one
2:27:13
Speaker 1: of the noblest men in the annals of the fur
2:27:15
Speaker 1: trade john m'laughlin was a canadian born at riviere du
2:27:18
Speaker 1: loup and he had studied medicine in edinburgh the indians
2:27:22
Speaker 1: called him white eagle from his long snow-white hair and
2:27:25
Speaker 1: aquiline features when m'laughlin reached oregon by canoe two thousand
2:27:30
Speaker 1: miles to the rockies by pack-horse and canoe another seven
2:27:33
Speaker 1: hundred miles south to the columbia Two of the first
2:27:37
Speaker 1: things he saw were that Astoria, or Fort George, was
2:27:41
Speaker 1: too near the rum of trading schooners for the well-being
2:27:44
Speaker 1: of the Indians, and that it would be quite possible
2:27:46
Speaker 1: to raise food for his men on the spot, instead
2:27:49
Speaker 1: of transporting it over two watersheds and across the width
2:27:52
Speaker 1: of a continent. He at once moved the headquarters of
2:27:55
Speaker 1: the company from Astoria to a point on the north
2:27:57
Speaker 1: bank of the Columbia near the Willamette where he erected
2:28:00
Speaker 1: Fort Vancouver. Then he sent his men overland to the
2:28:03
Speaker 1: Spaniards of Lower California to purchase seed wheat and stock
2:28:06
Speaker 1: to begin farming in Oregon in order to provision the
2:28:09
Speaker 1: company's posts and brigades. It was about the time that
2:28:13
Speaker 1: his wheat fields and orchards began to yield that some
2:28:16
Speaker 1: passing ocean traveler asked him, Do you think this country
2:28:19
Speaker 1: will ever be settled? sir answered m'laughlin emphasizing his words
2:28:24
Speaker 1: by thumping his gold-headed cane on the floor wherever wheat
2:28:27
Speaker 1: grows men will go and colonies will grow afterwards when
2:28:32
Speaker 1: he had to choose between loyalty to his company and
2:28:34
Speaker 1: saving the lives of thousands of american settlers who had
2:28:37
Speaker 1: come over the mountains destitute these words of his were
2:28:40
Speaker 1: quoted against him he had according to the directors of
2:28:43
Speaker 1: the company favored settlement rather than the fur trade MEANWHILE,
2:28:48
Speaker 1: MOLOFLIN RULED IN SORT OF A RUDE BARONIAL SPLENDOR ON
2:28:51
Speaker 1: THE BANKS OF THE COLUMBIA. THE BIG HOUSE, AS THE
2:28:54
Speaker 1: INDIANS ALWAYS CALLED THE GOVERNOR'S MANSION, STOOD IN THE CENTER
2:28:57
Speaker 1: OF A SPACIOUS COURTYARD SURROUNDED BY PALISADES TWENTY FEET HIGH,
2:29:01
Speaker 1: WITH HUGE BRASS PADLOCKS ON THE ENTRANCE GATES. DIRECTLY IN
2:29:05
Speaker 1: FRONT OF THE HOUSE, TWO CANNON WERE STATIONED, AND PILED
2:29:08
Speaker 1: UP BEHIND THEM, READY FOR INSTANT USE, WERE TWO PYRAMIDS
2:29:11
Speaker 1: OF BALLS. ONLY OFFICERS OF SOME RANK DINED IN THE HALL.
2:29:15
Speaker 1: and if visitors were present from coastal ships that ascended
2:29:18
Speaker 1: the river, Highland Kilties stood behind the governor's chair playing
2:29:22
Speaker 1: the bagpipes. Towards autumn, the Southern and Eastern Brigades set
2:29:26
Speaker 1: out on their annual hunt in California, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho.
2:29:31
Speaker 1: Towards spring, when the upper rivers had cleared of ice,
2:29:34
Speaker 1: the Northern Brigades set out for the interior of New Caledonia.
2:29:38
Speaker 1: Nothing more picturesque was ever seen in the fur trade
2:29:41
Speaker 1: than these Oregon brigades. French-Canadian hunters with their Indian wives
2:29:45
Speaker 1: would be gathered to the number of two hundred. Indian
2:29:48
Speaker 1: ponies fattened during the summer on the deep pasturage of
2:29:51
Speaker 1: the Willamette or the plains of Walla Walla would be
2:29:54
Speaker 1: brought into the fort and furbished forth in gayest of trappings.
2:29:58
Speaker 1: Provisions would then be packed on their backs. An eager
2:30:01
Speaker 1: crowd of wives and sweethearts and children would dash out
2:30:04
Speaker 1: for a last good-bye. The governor would personally shake hands
2:30:08
Speaker 1: with every departing hunter. Then, to bugle call, the riders
2:30:11
Speaker 1: mounted their rest of ponies, and the captain, Tom McKay
2:30:15
Speaker 1: or Ogden or Ross, would lead the winding cavalcade into
2:30:18
Speaker 1: the defiles of mountain and forest, whence perhaps they would
2:30:22
Speaker 1: not emerge for a year and a half. Though the
2:30:25
Speaker 1: brigades numbered as many as two hundred men, they had
2:30:28
Speaker 1: to depend for food on the rifles of the hunters,
2:30:31
Speaker 1: except for flour and tobacco and bacon supplied at the fort.
2:30:36
Speaker 1: Once the brigade passed out of sight of the fort,
2:30:38
Speaker 1: the hunters usually dashed ahead to anticipate the stampeding of
2:30:41
Speaker 1: game by the long, noisy, slow-moving line. Next to the
2:30:46
Speaker 1: hunters would come the old bell mare, her bell tinkling
2:30:49
Speaker 1: through the lonely silences. Far in the rear came the
2:30:52
Speaker 1: squaws and trappers. Going south, the aim was to reach
2:30:55
Speaker 1: the traverse of the deserts during winter, so that snow
2:30:58
Speaker 1: would be available for water. Going east, the aim was
2:31:02
Speaker 1: to cross the mountain passes before snowfall. Going north, the
2:31:06
Speaker 1: canoes must ascend the upper rivers before ice formed. But
2:31:10
Speaker 1: times without number, trappers and hunters were caught in the
2:31:12
Speaker 1: desert without snow for water, or were blocked in the
2:31:15
Speaker 1: mountain passes by blizzards, or were wrecked by the ice
2:31:18
Speaker 1: cutting their canoes on the upper rivers. Innumerable place names
2:31:22
Speaker 1: commemorate the presence of humble trapper and hunter coursing the
2:31:26
Speaker 1: wilderness in the Oregon brigades. For example, Sublette's River, Payette's River,
2:31:32
Speaker 1: John Day's River, the Deschutes, and many others. Indeed, many
2:31:37
Speaker 1: of the place names commemorate the deaths of lonely hunters
2:31:39
Speaker 1: in the desert. Crow and Blackfoot and Sioux Indians often
2:31:43
Speaker 1: raided the brigades when on the trip home loaded with peltry.
2:31:47
Speaker 1: One can readily believe that rival traders from the Missouri
2:31:50
Speaker 1: instigated some of these raids. There were years when, of
2:31:53
Speaker 1: 200 hunters sent out, only 40 or 50 returned. There
2:31:57
Speaker 1: were years when the Hudson's Bay brigades found snowbound, stormbound,
2:32:01
Speaker 1: starving American hunters. and as a price for food extracted
2:32:05
Speaker 1: every peltry in their packs. And there were years when
2:32:08
Speaker 1: rival American traders bribed every man in Ogden's brigade to desert.
2:32:13
Speaker 1: The New Caledonia brigades set out by canoe, huge, long,
2:32:17
Speaker 1: cedar-lined craft, manned by fifty or even ninety men. These
2:32:21
Speaker 1: brigades were decked out gayest of all. Flags flew at
2:32:24
Speaker 1: the prow of each craft. Voyageurs adorned themselves with colored
2:32:28
Speaker 1: sashes and headbands, with tinkling bells attached to the buckskin
2:32:32
Speaker 1: fringe of trouser leg, where the rivers narrowed to dark
2:32:36
Speaker 1: shadowy canyons, the bagpipes would squirrel out some highland air,
2:32:40
Speaker 1: or the French voyageurs would strike up some song of
2:32:43
Speaker 1: the Hobbiton, paddling and chanting in perfect rhythm, and sometimes
2:32:48
Speaker 1: beating time with their paddles on the gunwales. Leaders of
2:32:51
Speaker 1: the canoe brigades understood well the art of never permitting
2:32:55
Speaker 1: fear to enter the souls of their voyageurs. When the
2:32:58
Speaker 1: route might be exposed to Indian raid, a regale of
2:33:01
Speaker 1: rum would be dealt out, and the captain would keep
2:33:03
Speaker 1: the men paddling so hard there was no time for
2:33:06
Speaker 1: thought of danger. In the course of time, the northern
2:33:09
Speaker 1: brigades no longer attempted to ascend the entire way to
2:33:12
Speaker 1: the interior of New Caledonia by boat. BOATS AND CANOES
2:33:16
Speaker 1: WOULD BE LEFT ON THE COLUMBIA AT FORT COLVILLE OR
2:33:19
Speaker 1: AT FORT OAKENAUGAN, BOTH SOUTH OF THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY,
2:33:23
Speaker 1: AND THE REST OF THE TRAIL WOULD BE PURSUED BY
2:33:26
Speaker 1: PACK HORSE. CAMLOOPS BECAME THE GREAT HALFWAY HOUSE OF THESE
2:33:30
Speaker 1: NORTHERN BOUND BRIGADES, AND HORSES WERE LEFT THERE TO PASTURE
2:33:33
Speaker 1: ON THE HIGH DRY PLAINS, WHILE FRESH HORSES WERE TAKEN
2:33:36
Speaker 1: TO ASCEND THE MOUNTAIN TRAILS. FORT ST. JAMES ON STEWART
2:33:40
Speaker 1: LAKE BECAME THE CHIEF POST OF NEW CALIDONIA, Here ruled
2:33:43
Speaker 1: young James Douglas, who had married the daughter of the
2:33:46
Speaker 1: chief factor, William Connolly. Ordinarily, the fort on the Blue
2:33:50
Speaker 1: Alpine Lake lay asleep like an August day, but on
2:33:54
Speaker 1: the occasion of a visit by the governor or the
2:33:56
Speaker 1: approach of a brigade, the drowsy post became a thing
2:34:00
Speaker 1: of life. Boom of cannon, firing of rifles, and the
2:34:03
Speaker 1: skirling of bagpipes welcomed the long cavalcade. Captain of the brigade,
2:34:08
Speaker 1: as he entered the fort, usually wore a high and
2:34:10
Speaker 1: pompous beaver hat. a velvet cloak lined with red silk,
2:34:14
Speaker 1: and knee-breeches with elaborate Spanish embossed leather leggings. All this
2:34:19
Speaker 1: show was, of course, for the purpose of impressing the Indians.
2:34:22
Speaker 1: Whether impressed or not, the Indians always counted the days
2:34:25
Speaker 1: to the wild riot of feasting and boat races and
2:34:28
Speaker 1: dog races and horse races that marked the arrival or
2:34:31
Speaker 1: departure of a brigade. New Caledonia, as we know, is
2:34:35
Speaker 1: now a part of Canada, but why does not the
2:34:38
Speaker 1: Union Jack float over the great region beyond the Rockies
2:34:40
Speaker 1: to the south and south of the Strait of Juan
2:34:43
Speaker 1: de Fuca and the 49th parallel. Over all this territory,
2:34:47
Speaker 1: British furlords once held sway. California was in the limp
2:34:51
Speaker 1: fingers of Mexico, but the British traders were operating there,
2:34:55
Speaker 1: and had ample opportunity to secure it by purchase long
2:34:59
Speaker 1: before it passed to the United States in 1848. Sir
2:35:03
Speaker 1: George Simpson, the resident governor of the Hudson's Bay Company,
2:35:07
Speaker 1: advised the company to purchase it. but the directors in
2:35:10
Speaker 1: London could not see furs in the suggestion. Simpson would
2:35:14
Speaker 1: have gone further, and reached out the company's long arm
2:35:17
Speaker 1: to the islands of the Pacific, and negotiated with the
2:35:19
Speaker 1: natives for permission to build a fort in Hawaii. James
2:35:23
Speaker 1: Douglas was for buying all Alaska from the Russians, but
2:35:27
Speaker 1: to the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company, Alaska seemed
2:35:30
Speaker 1: as remote and as worthless as Siberia. so they contented
2:35:34
Speaker 1: themselves with leasing a narrow strip along the shore. Thus California, Alaska,
2:35:39
Speaker 1: and Hawaii might easily have become British territory, but the
2:35:43
Speaker 1: opportunity was lost, and they went to the United States.
2:35:47
Speaker 1: So too did the fine territory of Oregon, out of
2:35:50
Speaker 1: which three states were afterwards added to the American Union.
2:35:54
Speaker 1: But the history of Oregon is confused in a maze
2:35:56
Speaker 1: of politics into which we cannot enter here. As we
2:36:00
Speaker 1: have seen, Bruno Hecate, acting for Spain, was the first
2:36:03
Speaker 1: mariner to sight the Columbia, and the American, Robert Gray,
2:36:07
Speaker 1: was the first to enter its mouth, thus proving Hecate's
2:36:10
Speaker 1: conjecture of a great river. Then for Great Britain came
2:36:13
Speaker 1: Vancouver and Broughton, then the Americans, Lewis and Clark, and
2:36:18
Speaker 1: the Astorians, and finally Thompson, the British nor'wester, and the
2:36:22
Speaker 1: first man to explore the great river from its source
2:36:25
Speaker 1: to the sea. Then, during the War of 1812, the
2:36:28
Speaker 1: American post on the Columbia passed to the Northwest Company
2:36:31
Speaker 1: of Montreal, and if it had not been for the
2:36:34
Speaker 1: joint occupancy agreement between Great Britain and the United States
2:36:38
Speaker 1: in 1818, Oregon would undoubtedly have remained British. But with
2:36:43
Speaker 1: the joint occupancy arrangement leaving sovereignty in dispute, Laughlin of
2:36:47
Speaker 1: Oregon knew well that in the end sovereignty would be established,
2:36:51
Speaker 1: as always, by settlement. First came Jedediah Smith, the American
2:36:55
Speaker 1: fur trader overland. He was robbed to the shirt on
2:36:58
Speaker 1: his back by the Indians of the Umpqua River. There
2:37:01
Speaker 1: and then came the great choice to Maloflan. Should he
2:37:04
Speaker 1: save the life of rivals, or leave them to be
2:37:06
Speaker 1: murdered by Indians? He sent Tom McKay to the Umpqua,
2:37:10
Speaker 1: punished the robber Indians, secured the pilfered furs, and paid
2:37:14
Speaker 1: the American for them. Then came American missionaries overland, the
2:37:18
Speaker 1: Lees and Whitman. Then came Wyeth, the trader and colonizer
2:37:22
Speaker 1: from Boston. The company fought Wyeth's trade and bought him out,
2:37:26
Speaker 1: but when the turbulent Indians crowded round the White Eagle,
2:37:29
Speaker 1: chief of Fort vancouver asking shall we kill shall we
2:37:33
Speaker 1: kill the boston eyes m'laughlin struck the chief plotter down
2:37:37
Speaker 1: drove the others from the fort and had it noised
2:37:39
Speaker 1: about among the tribes that if any one struck the
2:37:41
Speaker 1: white boston eyes m'laughlin would strike him At the same time,
2:37:46
Speaker 1: Mulholland earnestly desired that the territory should remain British. In 1838,
2:37:51
Speaker 1: at a council of the directors in London, he personally
2:37:55
Speaker 1: urged the sending of a garrison of British soldiers, and
2:37:58
Speaker 1: that the government should take control of Oregon in order
2:38:00
Speaker 1: to establish British rights. His suggestions received little consideration. Had
2:38:06
Speaker 1: not the company, single-handed, held all Rupert's land for almost
2:38:09
Speaker 1: 200 years, had they not triumphed over all rivals, they
2:38:13
Speaker 1: would do so here. But by 1843, immigrants were pouring
2:38:18
Speaker 1: over the mountains by the thousands. Washington Irvings, Astoria, and
2:38:22
Speaker 1: Captain Bonneville, and the political cry of 54-40 or fight,
2:38:26
Speaker 1: which meant American possession of all south of Alaska, had
2:38:30
Speaker 1: roused the attention of the people of the United States
2:38:33
Speaker 1: to the merits of Oregon, and caused them to make
2:38:35
Speaker 1: extravagant claims. Long before the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which
2:38:41
Speaker 1: established the 49th parallel as the boundary, Malaflan had foreseen
2:38:45
Speaker 1: what was coming. The movement from the east had become
2:38:48
Speaker 1: a tide. The immigrants who came over the Oregon Trail
2:38:51
Speaker 1: in 1843 were starving, almost naked and without a roof.
2:38:55
Speaker 1: Again the Indians cried around Malaflan. Shall we kill? Shall
2:38:59
Speaker 1: we kill? they asked. Malaflan took the rough American overlanders
2:39:03
Speaker 1: into his fort, fed them, advanced them provisions on credit,
2:39:07
Speaker 1: and sent them to settle the Willamette. Some of them
2:39:10
Speaker 1: showed their ingratitude later by denouncing Maloflan as an aristocrat
2:39:13
Speaker 1: and a tyrant. The settlers established a provisional government in 1844,
2:39:19
Speaker 1: and joined in the rallying cry of 54-40 or fight. This,
2:39:23
Speaker 1: as Maloflan well knew, was the beginning of the end.
2:39:26
Speaker 1: His friends among the colonists begged him to subscribe to
2:39:29
Speaker 1: the provisional government in order that they might protect his
2:39:32
Speaker 1: fort from some of their number, who threatened to burn
2:39:34
Speaker 1: it or bowed his ears. He had appealed to the
2:39:38
Speaker 1: British government for protection, but no answer had come, and
2:39:41
Speaker 1: at length, after a hard struggle and many misgivings, he
2:39:44
Speaker 1: cast his lot with the Americans. Two years later, in 1846,
2:39:49
Speaker 1: he retired from the service of the company and went
2:39:52
Speaker 1: to live among the settlers. He died at Oregon City
2:39:55
Speaker 1: on the Willamette in 1857. As early as June 1842,
2:40:00
Speaker 1: McLaughlin had sent Douglas prospecting in Vancouver Island, which was
2:40:04
Speaker 1: north of the immediate zone of dispute. for a site
2:40:07
Speaker 1: on which to erect a new post. The Indian village
2:40:11
Speaker 1: of Camason, the Cordoba of old Spanish charts, stood on
2:40:14
Speaker 1: the site of the present city of Victoria. Here was
2:40:18
Speaker 1: fresh water, here was a good harbor, here was shelter
2:40:21
Speaker 1: from outside gales. Across the sea lay islands evergreen in
2:40:25
Speaker 1: a climate always mild and salubrious. Fifteen men left old
2:40:29
Speaker 1: Fort Vancouver with Douglas in March 1843 in the company ship,
2:40:33
Speaker 1: the Beaver, and anchored at Vancouver Island. just outside Camason Bay.
2:40:38
Speaker 1: With Douglas went the Jesuit missionary, Father Bolduc, who, on
2:40:42
Speaker 1: March 19th, celebrated the first Mass ever set on Vancouver Island,
2:40:47
Speaker 1: and afterwards baptized Indians till he was fairly exhausted. In
2:40:51
Speaker 1: three days, Douglas had a well dug and timber squared.
2:40:55
Speaker 1: For every forty pickets erected by the Indians, he gave
2:40:58
Speaker 1: them a blanket. By September, stockades and houses had been completed,
2:41:03
Speaker 1: and as many as fifty men had come to live
2:41:05
Speaker 1: at the new fort. to which the name Victoria was
2:41:07
Speaker 1: finally given. Victoria became the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay
2:41:11
Speaker 1: Company on the Pacific. It was unique as a fortified post,
2:41:16
Speaker 1: in that it was built without the driving of a
2:41:18
Speaker 1: single nail, wooden pegs being used instead. By 1849, the
2:41:23
Speaker 1: discovery of gold in California was bringing a rush of overlanders.
2:41:28
Speaker 1: There had been rumors of the discovery of precious metals
2:41:30
Speaker 1: on the Fraser and in East Kootenay. The company became alarmed,
2:41:34
Speaker 1: and Sir John Pelley, THE GOVERNOR IN ENGLAND AND SIR
2:41:37
Speaker 1: GEORGE SIMPSON, THE GOVERNOR IN AMERICA, WENT TO THE BRITISH
2:41:41
Speaker 1: GOVERNMENT WITH A DISQUIETING QUESTION, WHAT IS TO HINDER AMERICAN
2:41:44
Speaker 1: COLONISTS ROLLING NORTH OF THE BOUNDARY AND ESTABLISHING RIGHT OF
2:41:48
Speaker 1: POSSESSION THERE, AS THEY DID ON THE COLUMBIA? BY NO
2:41:51
Speaker 1: STRETCH OF ITS CHARTER COULD THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY CLAIM
2:41:54
Speaker 1: FUTILE RIGHTS WEST OF THE ROCKIES. WHAT, MY LORD, GREY ASKS,
2:41:58
Speaker 1: WOULD THE COMPANY ADVISE THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO DO TO
2:42:00
Speaker 1: AVERT THIS DANGER FROM A TIDE OF DEMOCRACY ROLLING NORTH? Why,
2:42:04
Speaker 1: of course, answers Sir John Pelly, proclaim Vancouver Island a
2:42:08
Speaker 1: British colony, and give the company a grant of the territory,
2:42:12
Speaker 1: and the company will colonize it with British subjects. The
2:42:16
Speaker 1: proposal was laid before Parliament. It would be of no
2:42:19
Speaker 1: profit to follow the debate that ensued in the House
2:42:21
Speaker 1: of Commons, which was chiefly words without knowledge darkening counsel.
2:42:27
Speaker 1: The request was officially granted in January 1849, and Richard Blanchard,
2:42:31
Speaker 1: a barrister of London, was dispatched as governor of the
2:42:34
Speaker 1: new colony, but as he had neither salary nor subjects,
2:42:38
Speaker 1: he went back to England in disgust in 1851, and
2:42:41
Speaker 1: James Douglas, of the Hudson's Bay Company, reigned in his stead.
2:42:46
Speaker 1: But fate again played the unexpected part, and rang down
2:42:49
Speaker 1: the curtain on the furlords of the Pacific coast. A
2:42:52
Speaker 1: few years previously, Douglas had seen Maloflan compelled to choose
2:42:56
Speaker 1: between loyalty to his company and loyalty to humanity. A
2:43:01
Speaker 1: choice between his country and his company was now unexpectedly
2:43:04
Speaker 1: thrust on the reticent, careful, masterful Douglas. In 1856, gold
2:43:10
Speaker 1: was discovered in the form of large nuggets on the
2:43:12
Speaker 1: Fraser and the Thompson, and adventurers poured into the country, 20,000
2:43:16
Speaker 1: in a single year. Douglas foresaw that this meant British
2:43:20
Speaker 1: empire on the Pacific, and that the supremacy of the
2:43:23
Speaker 1: fur traders was about to pass away. The British government
2:43:27
Speaker 1: bought back Vancouver Island and proclaimed the new colony of
2:43:30
Speaker 1: British Columbia on the mainland. Douglas retired from the company's
2:43:34
Speaker 1: service and was appointed governor of both colonies. In 1866,
2:43:38
Speaker 1: they were united under one government. The stampede of treasure-seekers
2:43:43
Speaker 1: up the Fraser is another story. When the new colony
2:43:46
Speaker 1: on the mainland came into being, the Hudson's Bay Company
2:43:49
Speaker 1: fell from the rank of a feudal overlord to that
2:43:52
Speaker 1: of a private trader. The pioneer days of the Pacific
2:43:55
Speaker 1: became a thing of the past.