Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/95

Rh described that I deem it unnecessary to attempt any description myself.

When we arrived at the Methodist mission, located at the foot of the dalles, I saw at once that there must some day grow up a town there, as that was the head of safe steam navigation. From there to the Cascades, a distance of about fifty miles, the river is entirely smooth and without a rapid. At the Cascades there is a portage to be made, but once below them and there is nothing but smooth water to the ocean. I determined at once to settle at The Dalles; and, after consultation with Mr. Perkins, the minister in charge I left my family there and proceeded to Vancouver, where I arrived about the 7th of November, 1843.

At Fort Vancouver I found Governor Fremont, then Lieutenant Fremont, who had been there" a few days. He had left his men and animals at The Dalles, and had descended the river to the fort for the purpose of purchasing supplies, to enable him to make the trip overland to California during that winter. The preceding year he had made an exploring trip to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, but this was his first journey to Oregon and California.

The Hudson's Bay Company furnished him, on the credit of the United States, all the supplies he required, and sent them up the river in one of their boats, such as I have already described, and three Chinook canoes. These canoes are substantially of the same model as the clipper-ship, and most probably suggested the idea of such a form of marine architecture. They are made out of a solid piece of white-cedar timber, which is usually one-quarter of the first cut of a large tree. It is a soft wood, but very tough. This timber grows upon the banks of the Columbia, below Vancouver, to a very large size. It is easily split with wedges. The Indians manage to cut and burn down the trees, and then cut and burn off a part of the trunk, and split it into quarters. Then they hollow out the inside of the canoe, mostly by burning. For this purpose they kindle small fires along the whole length of the canoe, which they keep steadily burning, and, by careful and constant watching, they cause the fires to burn when and how they please. The outside they shape with their tomahawks, and, before these were introduced, they used sharp flint-stones for axes. These canoes are usually about thirty feet long, three feet wide, and two feet deep, and are sharp at both ends, with a gradual taper from near the center. No craft could have a more handsome model, or run more swiftly. They are light, strong, elastic, and durable, and are propelled by paddles. The boat was navigated by Canadian French, and the canoes by Indians.

Doctor McLoughlin and Mr. Douglas then chief factors at the fort, advised me to go for my family, and settle in the lower portion of