Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/61

Rh these two men, David Thompson and Finan McDonald, were then the only white men in existence in the entire watershed of the Columbia river, from California to the Fraser river and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific ocean. That seems an historic fact of sufficient importance to call for special mention.

These two men were not ignorant trappers or mere adventurers but intelligent observers of the country and its people and seriously engaged in organized exploration and trade. David Thompson was a trained astronomer and surveyor and carried with him both sextant and chronometer and made observations of the sun and moon. He also carried paper, ink (in powdered form) and pens and wrote regularly in a journal a brief account of the daily journey and events. It is this journal, preserved to us among the archives of the province of Ontario, Canada, which contains a record of some of the earliest incidents in the history of Idaho.

Before quoting some of the summarized writings in this journal it may be well to recall with you that Pend Oreille lake is the largest body of water in Idaho, more than thirty miles long and five in width and of extraordinary depth, a portion of the waters of which may soon be put to use to irrigate a million acres of land in an adjoining state. Its outlet is the river of the same name at its northwest corner where the city of Sand Point is located, and at its northeasterly corner it receives the waters of Clark Fork river coming from the glaciers of the Rocky mountains. The Northern Pacific railroad follows the northern end of the lake between Sand Point and the mouth of the Clark Fork river and a large peninsula extends into the lake from the north, near the town of Hope. David Thompson assigned the name Kullyspell to this lake and to the river flowing from it, a name taken from the Indian tribe residing along the river to the westward, while a contemporaneous writer (in 1810) applied the name Ear Bob