Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/73

 OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 65 the Pacific, are shipped to Boston and immediately reshipped in American vessels, for the benefit of drawback. These ves- sels are sometimes employed to make a voyage for them from the mouth of Columbia to Canton. To illustrate more fully the increasing value of this trade, it is only necessary to ob- serve, that from Quebec in 1803, there were exported the skins of six hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred and twenty- nine quadrupeds, ninety-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight of which were beaver. Since that time they have extended their trade beyond the Rocky Mountains, and have, as has already been observed, established themselves at the mouth of the Columbia. The amount of their export from that port cannot be ascertained, but it is thought to be of great value. The Hudson's Bay Company is believed to be consid- erable, and, from a state of former depression, is fast becom- ing the rival of the other, but for several years past have withdrawn their traders from the west side of the Rocky Mountains; they have fewer difficulties to overcome in arriv- ing at the highest point of navigation, than the Northwest Company. Their route is through Hudson's Bay, the Nelson river, to Lake Winnipie ; thence, by passing other lakes, they ascend the Red River to their establishment, which is within ninety miles of the Missouri river, at a point called the Mandan villages. This river takes its rise in the Rocky mountains in about the forty-third degree of latitude, and observes a course north and north-east towards Hudson's Bay until it arrives at the Mandan villages, a distance of nearly 1200 miles, when it turns short to the south, without any apparent cause, and joins the Mississippi; the water running to the Hudson's Bay at that point, approaching within one mile, and no hill or high ground to separate them of any magnitude. Yet, notwith- standing the many advantages which the Hudson's Bay Com- pany possessed over the Northwest Company, the Earl of Selkirk, the patron of the former, and a man of uncommon enterprise, was exceedingly desirous to obtain the privilege of supplying his establishments upon the Red River by ascend- ing the Mississippi to the St. Peter's, thence to its source in