Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/80



72 F. G. YOUNG

Mountains. These would have held all the country beyond had not the military prowess of the English at Quebec com- pelled a relinquishment to them of all the Canadian approaches. England's great corporate agencies, the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, then display highest energy and efficiency in exploitation of the fur resources of the north- ern zone of the region, and especially of the Pacific Northwest, and get a grip upon that portion so strong that it would seem nothing would ever wrest it from them. However, a new con- testant has appeared upon the scene. American seamen show themselves able to hold their own in the maritime fur trade upon the Pacific shores and a Gray is first to enter the Colum- bia River. This exploit of discovery is followed by the great stroke planned by a far-seeing American executive and car- ried out by Lewis and Clark. Adventurous fur traders, irre- sistible home-building pioneers, gold-seekers and religious zeal- ots do the rest. The land beyond the Mississippi is won for an American nation, which is to front squarely on both oceans.

This integration by Miss Coman of the annals of the three- centuries-long series of struggles for possession, participated in by representatives of half a dozen nations, was sorely needed. As an aid towards an orderly and comprehensive grasp of the historical foundations of this western land, it is most wel- come. It is conducive to the development among the dwellers therein of a real depth of home feeling for and home interest in their environment.

The well-read or well-taught youth living to the east of the Mississippi River has a fairly clear mental picture of the pro- cession of events through which that part of our national do- main became the home of the people and the institutions now established there. His study of American history in the com- mon schools has furnished him with a well-ordered vista that stretches back to the first appearance of the white man upon our eastern shores and which includes the westward movement of the American people in fairly clear outline as they com-