Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/284

 262 Leslie M. Scott tree is very large & pretty difficult to work. Several Indians visited us & corroborate what we have before heard respecting beaver being in the upper part of the river, & that the navigation is practicable, tho' difficult. Traded 2 beaver. One of the men taken ill with fever. The [213] hunters were out but without success. One of the Willamet freemen, Louis, paid us a visit. He has killed 7 beaver within a few days between the settlement & this, and from his account upward of 80 beaver have been in the river from this downwards since the spring, the most of which must have come from above during the high water. June 26. Fine. The people still busy with the canoes. Hunters killed nothing. 27. Lowering weather, thunder & light rain. The canoes were brought out of the woods to the water side, but they are not finished yet. 1 deer killed. 28. Heavy rain. People busy finishing their canoes. F. Champaign still continues very ill. 29. Foggy with rain, The canoes 3 in number being ready, I sent off 6 men accompanied by 3 Indians to ascend to the head of this fork to trap beaver. They are allowed 2 months to be back here if they find wherewith to employ themselves so long. They will have some dif- ficulty in [214] getting up but from the accounts the Comments June 29. McKenzie's Fork was the later McKenzie River, named for Donald McKenzie. This river enters the Willamette some ten miles below, but the distance to the river from camp was not more than four miles. Donald McKenzie was described by Ross in Fur Hunters, II, pp. 264-65, as "Perpetual Motion McKenzie." He was a Northwester but came overland with the Hunt party and returned in the employ of the North West Company in 1816. He was a notable figure in the early Snake River fur trade expeditions. After coalition of the North