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CHAPTER VI

THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY

Changes on the Columbia. When Mr. Hunt bade farewell to the Columbia (April 2, 1814), he left the British rivals in full control not only of the fort at the mouth of the river, but of all the avenues of trade between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, from California to Alaska. A few days later their first supply ship, the Isaac Todd, entered the river with a cargo containing everything necessary for the trade of the entire department. She also brought additional men, and these added to the list of Astorians already engaged, gave the Northwest Company a force sufficient to occupy the country at least as fully as Astor had done. They, however, made no important change in the trade for several years, till Donald M'Kenzie established the Walla Walla Fort ( 1818), and began to send trapping parties along Snake River. This greatly extended the area covered, and increased the profits in a marked degree.

Union of the British fur companies, 1821. In 1 82 1 a noteworthy change occurred in the fur trade of the British dominions. The Hudson Bay and Northwest companies, whose agents had long been destroying each other in their bitter contest for the

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