Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/61

Rh around miles and miles of icebergs, under a starless sky, and a never setting summer sun. This expedition was one of the most important in the annals of discovery. MacKenzie had proved the non-existence of the Strait of Anian, and established the fact for all time that no such passage way across the continent existed, and found that the water shed to the north was wholly separate from the water shed to the west. They had suffered no hardships or hairbreadth escapes, and they had found a great waterway to the north in the same month that Captain Robert Gray had sailed through the Straits of Fuca for the first time, two thousand miles to the southwest.

After an absence of one hundred days, MacKenzie returned with his party to his starting point, loaded with fine furs and having found both coal and iron, ore at great Bear lake. MacKenzie was not satisfied with his first venture, regarding as something of a failure that which was in fact a great success. He had penetrated the mystery to the north, and put an end to the quest for the Strait of Anian which the sea captains had believed in and vainly sought to find for nearly three hundred years. It was one more dark corner of the mystery which enshrouded the Oregon country cleared up. And we see how the enlightening agencies of exploration and discovery were gradually creeping in on the core of the mysterious region, "Where rolls the Oregon."

But MacKenzie was not satisfied. Such a man is never satisfied as long as there are other regions to explore and other obstacles to overcome, and other duties to be performed. Three years after this trip to the north we find him again at the old starting point at the mouth of Peace river. But this time instead of floating down with the water, he resolved to go up stream, follow the river to its fountain head and find, if possible a pass through the Rocky mountains, and a stream on the west side that would carry him down to the Pacific ocean as had Peace river and his own MacKenzie carried him to the Arctic ocean. And so on the loth day of October, 1792, five months after Captain Gray had found and entered the Columbia river, MacKenzie starts westward for an exploration to find this river. In ten days MacKenzie had reached the most western post of the Northwest Fur company at the base of the Rocky mountains. Here the natives and trappers received their big chief with great eclat amidst the firing of gims and general rejoicing of the people; and many was the bottle of good old Scotch emptied on that auspicious occasion. There were three hundred natives and sixty professional trappers and hunters congregated here. MacKenzie not only treated them liberally to rum and tobacco, but he preached them a good sermon as to the proper manner they should demean themselves for their own good and that of the white man. From this point MacKenzie kept on west for sixty miles until he reached the point named Fort York, and to which men had been sent the previous spring to prepare the ground and timbers for a new post, which was to be their winter quarters previous to their last plunge into the wilderness, over the mountains and down to the Pacific ocean the next spring. This Fort York came to be called York factory under the Hudson Bay company ownership, and from which point all the travel, messengers and officers as well as employes of the H. B. Co., came over the mountains on their way to Vancouver on the Columbia. And Ebberts, Octchen, Baldra and all the old Hudson Bay men of Oregon were perfectly familiar with that route and could give many interesting tales of its surprises and dangers.

Here MacKenzie put in the winter of 1792-3; and by spring had all things in readiness for the final advance to the Pacific. With one canoe, twenty-five feet long, four and three-quarters feet beam, and twenty-six inches hold, seven white men and two Indian hunters and interpreters with arms, ammunition, provisions and goods for presents weighing in all about three thousand pounds, these explorers started for the Pacific ocean on mountain streams. The canoe was so perfectly made, and so light that two men could carry it over portages for miles at a time without stopping to rest. Where is the white man boat