Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/83



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der the Iludsou's Ba^^ Company ownership, and rroni which point all the travel, messengers and olfteers as well as employes of the Hudson 's Bay Company, came over the mountains on their way to Vancouver on the Columbia. Ebberts was an American independent trapper, and Otchin, Baldra, and all the old Hud- son's Bay men of Washington county, Oregon, were perfectly familiar with that route and could give many interesting tales of its surprises and dangers.

Here ilackeuzie put in the winter of 1792-3, and by spring had all things in readiness for the final advance to the Pacific. With one canoe, twenty-five feet long, four and three-quarters feet beam, and twenty-six inches hold, seven white men and two Indian hunters and interpreters with arms, ammunition, provisions and goods for presents weighing in all about three thousand pounds, these explorers started for the Pacific ocean on mountain streams. The canoe was so perfectly made, and so light that two men could carry it over portages for miles at a time without stopping to rest. Where is the white man boat builder that could equal that canoe carved out of a great cedar tree by the un- tutored red men?

On the 9th of May, 1793, the little party left Fort York, pointed their little vessel up stream and was off for the great Pacific. Before them everything was in its native wildness; unpolluted streams, untouched forests, and verdant prairies covered with buffalo, elk, deer and antelope. Nothing could have been more exciting or entrancing to these lovers of the woods and waters of our primeval forests. With paddle and pole they propelled their craft up the swift flowing mountain stream day by day against every manner of obstruction and difficulties. Rocks beset their way on every side, beavers dammed the streams, perpendicular cliffs and impassable cataracts compelled them to take boat, provisions and everything from the stream and carry all around obstruc- tions for miles, to gain calm water on upper levels. Rain and thunder storms were frequent and the men worn out by unexpected and exhaustive toils, openly cursed the expedition with all the anathemas of the whole army in Flan- ders or any other place. But the great soul of Mackenzie was unmoved. He reminded them of the promise to be faithful and remain with him to the end. He patiently painted in glowing colors the glory of their success — and he opened a fresh bottle and all went merry again, merry as wedding bells.

On the 9th of June they were nearing the broad, flat top of the Rocky moun- tains in that latitude. They were short of provisions, and had to eat porcupine steaks and <vild parsnip salads or starve. Here they found a tribe of wild In- dians who had never seen white men before. They were now surely beyond the limits of all previous explorations. Assured at length of the peaceful intentions of the explorers, the Indians ventured near enough to talk to the interpreters. They exhibited scraps of iron, and pointed to the west. Further efforts elic- ited from them the fact that their iron had been purchased from Indians farther west who lived on a great river, and who had obtained the iron from people who lived in houses on the great sea — white men like these — and who got the iron from ships large as islands that come in the sea. And now we see these children of the forest beset by the white men behind and before, and there is no longer any secret the white man does not find out, and the fateful terrors of these white men have followed them to their land-locked mountain retreat. Terror as it was to the Indian, it was a god-send to Mackenzie. He