Chapter VII: The Race to the Sea

By the middle of October, 1810, Thompson was once more at the foot of the Rockies en route for the Columbia with four canoe loads of supplies. At Rainy River House, he had learned that a vessel chartered by J. J. Astor and loaded with goods in charge of two former North West traders was on her way around Cape Horn, bound for the Columbia; and his orders were to anticipate this ship in reaching the mouth of the river. He was therefore anxious to get through the passes without delay, and at all costs to avoid a conflict with the Piegans.

Since the 24th of September the brigade had been held up in the neighborhood of Rocky Mountain House. The post was thronged by noisy bands of Piegan, Sarcee, Blood, and Fall Indians, who had come ostensibly to trade, but really to head off any movement of the white man toward the mountains. Alexander Henry, the trader in charge, endeavoured to get rid of these unwelcome visitors, but all in vain. In such a crisis, the time-honoured expedient was rum. While some of the Indians were drunk, however, others were sober, and for some weeks it was impossible to get the canoes away without observation, either by day or night. Finally, however, Henry got the frightened voyageurs under way, and by the 13th of October, the brigade was already within twenty miles of the mountains.

Thompson himself with a partner, William Henry, and two Indian hunters had ridden ahead to the gap, scouring the country for game and keeping a sharp watch for possible enemies. The party had killed three red deer, made a scaffold, and placed the meat on it for safety against wild animals. Days passed, and the canoes did not put in an appearance. On the 17th the oldest hunter, rising as usual very early in the morning, looked at the scaffold and remarked, "I have had bad dreams; this meat will never be eaten." So saying, he saddled his horse and rode away.

Thompson could no longer conceal his anxiety. He ordered Henry and the other Indian to proceed down the river in search of the canoes; with positive orders not to fire a shot except in self-defence. At eight in the evening they returned, and he heard their story. Some miles down the river, they had seen a number of Piegans encamped on the bank. A short distance below this camp, they had descended the slope to the river, where they found the marks of canoes and near them in the bottom a rude rampart of stones on which there were traces of blood. Proceeding further down stream, they had fired a shot as a signal to the lost canoemen, but it was not returned.

Thoroughly alarmed by their rashness and folly, Thompson prepared to fly for his life, for he knew that the Piegans would be on them in the morning. At dawn of day, they took horse and made their way east by a wide detour through the forest. Fallen trees and undergrowth interrupted their progress, and their horses' hoofs made their track easy to follow. Fortunately the afternoon brought with it a light fall of snow, giving them some hope of shaking off their pursuers, and late in the evening they ventured to halt and kindle a small fire.

Racked with fear for his own safety and anxiety for the fate of his men, Thompson passed a sleepless night. His first care was to find the brigade. Avoiding Rocky Mountain House, he continued east for sixty miles along the river, and there, on the second afternoon, he came upon his men, safe and sound, encamped in an abandoned trading-post known as Boggy Hall.

All hope was now abandoned of passing in safety by the defiles of the Saskatchewan, and Thompson determined to blaze a new trail across the Rockies by way of the Athabaska river. The route projected lay over an old path of the Assiniboine Indians to a point on the Athabaska not far from the present line of the Canadian National Railways; and from thence along the valley of the river past the mouth of Yellowhead Pass to its headwaters some miles further south. From this point a pass led across the height of land to the Wood river, a small tributary of the Columbia. In later years this pass (known as the Athabaska Pass) was the regular route for traders of the Hudson's Bay Company on their journeys to British Columbia.

Horses and dogs were rapidly collected for the trip over land. The men were detailed to their several duties, four to hunt, two to clear a path through the woods, and the remainder to look after the animals and perform the labour of the camp. By the 28th of October all was in readiness; and the little party set off with Thomas, an Iroquois Indian, to act as guide.

It was a full month before they had crossed the belt that lay between them and the Athabaska. The road ran through a wretched country, over mountains and across muskegs. Here and there the fires of the forest had cut wide swathes through the woods, leaving in their wake a tangled mass of fallen timber, through which they had to hack their way. In the bogs the horses lost their footing, shifting their packs and bruising their knees, until in a short while they were almost useless. To complete the misery of the travellers, there was the difficulty of securing food. Their dried provisions were soon exhausted. Game was scarce; and the hunters often returned empty-handed after a long day's chase.

By the first of December they had reached the Athabaska. Four days later they had come to a point on the river a little above Brulé lake, where the guide informed Thompson that owing to the lateness of the season, all thought of crossing the mountains with horses had to be given up. The greater number of the beasts were therefore sent back to Rocky Mountain House; four only were retained to ease the burden of the dogs.

The thermometer now registered 32° below zero; and the party threw themselves into the work of building a rough shelter of logs to serve while they prepared sleds and snow shoes with which to complete their journey. At the end of the month they made a fresh start. Urged by the shouts and lashings of the voyageurs, the dogs with their burdens scurried along the ice of the river. In five days they came to the grassy ponds that marked its headwaters--the last possible pasturage for horses. Here, therefore, the poor animals were turned loose to survive the winter as best they could.

Four days more brought the party to the height of land. The landscape, as far as the eye could reach, was clothed with a heavy mantle of gleaming snow. Round about towered the lofty peaks, their sides scarred by avalanches which had swept the slopes bare of trees and rocks in their descent. To the right lay an enormous glacier, a mass of blue-green ice, the eastern face of which was not less than two thousand feet in height. The night was fine, and the stars shone with such brilliance that one of the men told Thompson that he felt he could almost touch them with his hands.

Early next morning they began the descent to the valley of the Columbia. On the eastern face of the mountains, the approach to the height of land had been a long and steady climb. To the west, the ground fell away in a series of abrupt slopes, so steep in places that it required sure footing to avoid a tumble. A short advance therefore was enough to produce an amazing difference in the climate. The snow which to the east of the mountains was thin and dry, here lay heavy and wet upon the ground; and they entered a forest of clean grown pine of gigantic height and girth. So heavy were the loads and so steep the slope that the dogs were unable to guide the sleds, and from time to time they came against the base of a pine tree with considerable force, dog on one side, sled on the other, so that they were disentangled with difficulty. To relieve the animals, Thompson had a portion of the loads removed from the sleds. The men grumbled as they were forced to lug these packs forward through the heavy snow. Finally after fifteen days' travel they arrived at the banks of the Columbia.

Mutterings of discontent were now openly heard among the French Canadians. They had had enough, and would follow the madman no further. Four of them suited the action to the word and deserted. Two of the others Thompson despatched with letters to William Henry, describing the route he had discovered, and ordering Henry to follow him along it with an additional supply of goods. With the remainder, Thompson set forth on the journey up the Columbia. They had gone but one day when they, too, balked at the restless energy of their leader. Faced with incipient mutiny, Thompson had no choice except to return to the mouth of the Wood river, and there pass the rest of the winter.

The place of his enforced residence was the famous "Boat Encampment" of later days. At this point, the Columbia, after having pursued a north-westerly course for upwards of two hundred miles from its sources, bent sharply around the head of the Selkirk Mountains, and flowed off to the south. At the bend, the stream was joined by two tributaries, the Wood and Canoe rivers, coming in from the north, and forming at their mouths a wide meadow of rich alluvial soil. There in the midst of a forest of giant pine and larch, the party cleared a site, and built themselves a rough cabin. Thompson, never idle, spent his time exploring the neighbourhood, and constructing a boat for the remainder of the journey. As there was no birch bark available, he built it clinker-fashion of cedar boards split thin; and these, in default of nails, he sewed together with the fine roots of the pine.

The snow was not yet off the ground when he was once more on his way. He had counted on reaching the mouth of the Columbia not later than the first of August, and would gladly have made the descent by way of the river itself, which here lay clear before him. Of his canoemen, however, three only had the courage to risk the chances of the voyage. With so few men it would have been madness to venture a long journey on unknown waters and in the midst of possible enemies; so he determined to make his way past his old trading posts to the Salish country. There he knew he could find plenty of free hunters to help him in accomplishing the voyage to the sea.

It was six weeks before he had reached Salish House, where he hoped to find Finan McDonald. But neither McDonald nor Jaco Finlay was at the post, and, as they had left no letter to indicate their whereabouts, Thompson prepared to descend Clark's Fork by himself. The river presented an appearance vastly different from that of the autumn of 1809, when he had passed down it before. The spring floods were now at their height, and the water was rising at the rate of two feet each day, inundating the meadows to the foot of the hills, and dashing along with such violence that every island became a water-fall, with a strong eddy at the lower end. Down this raging torrent they paddled, keeping in midstream, and thankful as they passed each danger spot in safety. The antelopes had retired to the hills, and they lived on the meat of horses which they traded from the Indians.

On the 8th of June they arrived at the point where the river entered the Box cañon and became utterly unnavigable. There Thompson found a small camp of Kullyspell Indians, who informed him that Finan McDonald was now at a post which he had built on the banks of the Spokane river further south. Thompson engaged two of these Indians to inform McDonald of his presence; while he himself waited until the latter should join him with horses to carry his goods overland to the new post. Four days later McDonald, with thirteen horses, arrived; and Thompson with all his possessions was transported overland to Spokane House, about ten miles northwest of the present city of Spokane.

The Spokane river, like Clark's Fork, was a tributary of the Columbia, and, like it, unnavigable toward the mouth. Thompson therefore left a small assortment of goods with McDonald, and proceeded northwest along a well-beaten Indian trail to a point on the Columbia, just below Ilthkoyape or Kettle Falls. Here the stream dropped several feet in two magnificent cataracts, the roar of which could be heard for many miles around.

Just below the falls was an Indian village, the first of its kind that Thompson had seen. It was composed of a number of huts, each from thirty to sixty feet in length, roughly built of large cedar logs which had drifted down the river, and roofed with mats of woven fibre stout enough to withstand the rain. The Indians who dwelt here subsisted mainly on fish. Each spring, as the spawning season drew near, they propitiated the manito of the salmon with elaborate dances and ceremonies. Thus purified, they took their stand just beneath the falls and speared or netted the fish, which they smoked in quantities sufficient to last them through the year.

Thompson enquired of these people regarding the course of the river both up and down. From them he learned that the village at Kettle Falls was the highest along the stream that had survived the incursions of the Piegans. Below them there was a journey of ninety miles of rapids, at the end of which stood another village of salmon fishers. Beyond this they could tell him nothing. Meanwhile the canoemen were busy preparing a boat. In this region timber was very scarce. They had to journey seven miles from the river before they found a clump of cedar from which they could hew the planking of a canoe; and it was not until the third day of July that the boat was finished.

With five French Canadians, two Iroquois Indians, and a couple of the natives for interpreters, Thompson now embarked on the last stage of his journey to the sea. He remembered how, following the settlement of the international boundary west of Lake Superior, the traders of the North West Company had been driven from a country which they had made their own. By that settlement, the forty-ninth parallel had been accepted as the line from the Lake of the Woods to the watershed of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Rockies however, all was still debatable land; and in that vast region, with its timbered mountains and rich valleys, the wealth of fish in its rivers and of minerals hidden in its bosom, he claimed the right of a discoverer. At the stern of his little craft, the Union Jack floated proudly in the breeze; and at each halting place, Thompson posted a written notice in the name of the North West Company of merchants from Canada, formally taking possession of the country for His Majesty, King George the Third.

Down the river sped the canoe, the paddlers with long swinging strokes easily keeping abreast of the stream. Most of the rapids they were able to shoot; and before nightfall they had completed the ninety miles to the village of which they had heard above. Tents were pitched and Thompson summoned the chiefs to smoke with him.

In a short while the chief arrived, followed by his men in single file. All sat down in a circle about the tent, and the chief made a brief speech, welcoming the strangers and offering them presents of dried salmon and native herbs. Pipes were then lighted and solemnly passed round. Following this the chief delivered a long harangue, in which he expressed the hope that the white men would provide his people with guns, ammunition, axes, knives, awls, not to mention steels and flints and many other articles of which they stood sadly in need. They were, he said, able and willing to hunt, and would pay for everything they got. At present, however, they had only their hands with which to procure food and clothing.

Thompson explained that his object was to explore the course of the river to the sea. If it proved navigable, very large canoes would come from over the ocean with goods of all kinds, and industrious hunters would be supplied with everything they required.

The colloquy finished, permission was given for the women of the tribe to approach. A dance of welcome followed, at the end of which the weary travellers were left to their repose. In this way Thompson made friends with the natives wherever he found them along the river.

As he advanced, Thompson passed out of the forest country, and entered the arid plain that lies about the confluence of the Snake river with the Columbia. Occasional willows and cottonwoods were to be seen, growing in the neighbourhood of streams; but over the greater part of this region, the only shrub capable of finding a lodging was the hardy sage. The natives he now encountered were of the unhappy Snake family, who had been driven for refuge to this barren country by the relentless pressure of their foes. Some of them fled in terror at his approach. Others, less timid, gazed with admiring eyes upon the guns, kettles, axes, and other paraphernalia of his camp. Their eagerness to obtain such wonders was in proportion to their need; for they did not appear to possess even bows and arrows or the stone axes and knives that were common among the Eskimos of the far north.

The river now turned to the west; and far ahead on his left Thompson discerned the snow-capped cone of Mount Hood, which marked the line of the Cascade Mountains near the coast. Fifty miles short of this, he came to a village at which, as usual, he put ashore. Here the natives warned him of the treacherous Dalles or rapids just ahead, where the river for a distance of two miles glides noiselessly through a cañon never more than two hundred yards wide, and the ledges of basalt, projecting into the stream, create whirlpools and eddies in which the traveller is sucked to his death. At the same time, the natives informed him that at the mouth of the river, a party of white men who had come in a great canoe from the ocean, were busy erecting a house. Thus he learned that the Astorian party had anticipated him in reaching the mouth of the Columbia.

A guide from the village carried him safely through the Dalles, was paid, and returned to the village. Fifty miles further down stream, Thompson approached "the Cascades," where the river cuts through the deep lava beds of the Cascade mountains and makes a descent of about three hundred feet. Here the cañon was no less than six miles long, and nearly a mile in depth. Trying in vain to secure a guide, Thompson entered the rapids alone. For three miles he "ran" the rapids; a portage of one mile followed, taking him past the worst stretch of the river; he then re-embarked, and emerged in safety to the quiet water below.

There was still one hundred and fifty miles to the mouth of the river; but the magnificent forests of Douglas fir, cedar, and hemlock which now clothed the country told them that they had come within the beneficient influence of the sea. Two days' paddle brought them to Tongue point, beyond which they had a full view of the ocean. To the left, not more than a couple of miles distant, they beheld four low log huts, constructed of timbers newly cut--in the words of Thompson, "the famous Fort Astoria of John Jacob Astor and the United States".

At Fort Astoria, Thompson was welcomed by Duncan McDougall and David Stuart, old colleagues in the service of the North West Company. As their guest, he spent a week at the post taking observations for its position and preparing for the return voyage. Toward the mouth of the river, the natives had been demoralized by their association with wandering traders from the sea; and remembering their surly behaviour and menacing looks, Thompson saw to it that his men had their arms in readiness. On the 22nd of July, he embarked. At the Cascades, he was forced to appeal to the natives for assistance in climbing the rapids. The scoundrels were importunate in their demands. With knives in their hands and poisoned arrows in their bows, they were ready to kill and plunder the travellers. But the courage and resolution of Thompson warded off the crisis; and once above the Cascades he was again among the poor but friendly savages of the interior. Thompson was anxious to avoid the ninety miles of rapids below Kettle Falls. When he came to the mouth of the Snake river, he turned up this stream and ascended it as far as the present Lyon's Ferry. From thence, having borrowed horses of the natives, he journeyed overland across the sterile, sandy plain as far as Spokane House; and from Spokane House, with the assistance of Jaco Finlay, he once more reached the Columbia above Kettle Falls. There, building a fresh canoe, he re-embarked and made his way through the Arrow lakes to the Boat Encampment, thus completing his survey of the Columbia from its source to its mouth.

The following winter Thompson spent inspecting his various posts, and distributing among them additional supplies of goods which he had received from beyond the mountains. From Salish House, he rode east along Clark's Fork to a hill top within the limits of the present city of Missoula; and from thence he was able to trace the route of Lewis and Clark through the Bitter Root Mountains to the banks of Snake river.

In the spring he was once more back at Kettle Falls, where the furs from the winter's hunt were being collected. The results were excellent; six canoes had to be made ready to accommodate the packs. By the 22nd of April, his preparations were complete. The brigade set off by way of the Columbia, Athabaska pass, and Churchill river route to Fort William.

In the summer of 1812, when Thompson arrived at Fort William after his last journey from beyond the Rockies, he was in the forty-third year of his life. It was twenty-eight years since he had landed as an apprentice on the shores of Hudson Bay; and twenty-three years since he had actively embarked on his career as a surveyor. During all this time he had been constantly accumulating materials for his great map of the North West. His work was now complete; so that instead of returning to the interior, he joined the annual brigade of great canoes bound for Montreal. Thus did David Thompson bid adieu forever to the Great North West.