Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/110

 98 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE for the purpose, reached the river, arid in a small boat went some eighty miles inland to about where the Willamette enters the Columbia from the south. Further explorations on the coasts were carried on in the summer of 1793 from about 51 to some- what beyond 54 N. L. No definite carrying out of the terms of the Nootka Con- vention took place before there came the rupture between Great Britain and Spain in 1796, although apparently the Spanish abandoned the disputed area as not worth further contention. However, no other European nation attempted to continue the occupation, consequently Nootka and its con- vention remained to become a bone of contention between Great Britain and the United States many years later. From inland also the furs of the Pacific Northwest at- tracted attention. In 1784 there was formed the North- West Company of Montreal, primarily to protect a group of fur traders from the powerful Hudson's Bay Company. For this company Alexander Mackenzie, in 1789 and 1793, made two expeditions. He discovered and named Mackenzie River, and on the second venture reached the Pacific Ocean at 52 20', having for a distance descended the stream which later was called Fraser's River. From this time on contacts with the re- gion west of the Rocky Mountains by the overland route be- came more and more frequent. The interest of the government of the United States in the region between the Pacific and the Rockies cannot be said to have existed at all until the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803, and then that interest was by no means keen. Louisiana Ter-