Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/174

134 canoes are no longer made, and only here and there can one of the picturesque survivors be seen.

The bateaux were boats of peculiar shape, being built very high and broad so that in an unloaded condition they seemed to rest on the water almost like a paper shell. Both ends were high and pointed as prows. They were propelled with oars and steered with paddles. One of the usual size was about thirty feet long and five feet wide. Being of light-draft, double-enders, capable of holding large loads and yet easily conveyed around portages, more steady and roomy than canoes, these bateaux were the typical Columbia River medium of commerce during the era of the fur-traders. They, too, have mainly vanished from the scenes of their former glory. Canoes, bateaux, cries and yells of Indians, songs of voyageurs, have gone into the engulfing limbo of the bygone, along with the keen-eyed Scotch factor and the sharp-featured Yankee skipper. Yet the swans and geese and ducks still darken the more placid expanses of the River and the salmon still start the widening circles in almost undiminished numbers, while the glaciated heights of Hood and Adams and St. Helens (we would rather say Wiyeast, Klickitat, and Loowit) still stand guard over the unchanging waters.

This part of our topic has mainly centred upon the British possession of the River. A full history of the fur era on the River would demand a chapter on the later attempts of three remarkable men to reestablish American interests in the disputed territory. These men were Jedediah Smith, Capt. E. L. Bonneville, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth. But though these men belong properly to this era, their efforts in the