Chapter XXV: Book II (3)

[247] Fort Colville was a Hudson's Bay Company post, built in 1825 to supersede the fort at Spokane, which was too far inland for convenient access. The site was at Kettle Falls on the east bank of the stream (see Alexander Ross, _Fur Hunters_, ii, p. 162), the post being named for the London governor of the company, Eden Colville. The fort became an important station on the route of the Columbia brigade; here accounts for the district were made up, and the dignitaries of the company entertained. Gov. George Simpson had been at Fort Colville in the summer before De Smet's visit, when Archibald Macdonald was the factor in charge. This post was maintained some time after the Americans acquired the Oregon Territory, but about 1857 it was removed north of the international boundary line. In 1859 the United States government built a military post called Fort Colville some miles east of the old fur-trading stockade, near the present town of Colville, Washington. The neighboring Indians having become peaceful, the fort is no longer garrisoned.--ED.

[248] This affluent of the Bitterroot from the west was the one followed by the Lewis and Clark expedition, in their route across the Bitterroot mountain divide. Those explorers named it Traveller's Rest Creek; it is now known as the Lolo Fork of the Bitterroot. An affluent of Missoula River, some distance further down, has now taken the name that De Smet first applied to the Lolo Fork.--ED.

[249] Hell Gate, for which see _ante_, p. 269, note 139.--ED.

[250] The carcajou or wolverine (_Gulo luscus_).--ED.

[251] The route usually taken by the Indians did not follow the main branch of the river, but crossed the divide between the Missoula and Jocko rivers, coming down into the valley of the Flathead, and proceeding along that to its outlet into Clark's Fork. The two streams named for the saints were the main Flathead and Jocko rivers, which unite in the prairie described by De Smet. There were a number of small prairies in the vicinity, known as Camas from the abundance of that root (_Camas esculenta_). The better-known Camas Prairie was twenty miles below the mouth of the Jocko; the one mentioned by De Smet was apparently higher up, near the divide of the two rivers. These should all be distinguished from the Camas Prairie (Quamash Flats) of Lewis and Clark, which lay west of the Bitterroot Mountains.--ED.

[252] The Kalispel are the same tribe as the Pend d'Oreille, see _ante_, p. 141, note 8.--ED.

[253] During the day (as described in Chittenden and Richardson, _De Smet_, i, p. 347), the father had passed Camas Prairie and advanced through Horse Plain at the junction of Flathead and Clark's Fork.--ED.

[254] Doubtless intended for oxide of iron.--ED.

[255] In _Explorations for a Pacific Railway, 1853-53_ (_Senate Ex. Docs._, 35 Cong., 2 sess., vol. xviii, p. 91) the valley is thus described: "The next sixty-five miles along the valley of Clark's Fork is over a difficult trail, there being places where the sharp rocks injured the animals;" again, "The valley is wide, arable, and inviting for settlement, although rather heavily wooded."--ED.

[256] Lake Pend d'Oreille, in Kootenai County, Idaho, is one of the most picturesque bodies of fresh water in the Western states. It is irregular in shape, about sixty miles long, and from three to fifteen in breadth, with a shore line of nearly five hundred miles. It was probably, first of white men, visited by trappers and traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is now crossed by the Northern Pacific Railway, and steamers ply upon its waters.--ED.

[257] This is the Oregon cedar (_Thuya gigantea_), which attains great size and is widely diffused on the trans-Rocky region.--ED.

[258] The original French text of the letter describing this journey will be found in _Voyages aux Montagnes Rocheuses_ (Chittenden and Richardson, _De Smet_, i, pp. 354-358); it gives additional information regarding the remainder of the journey. Having arrived at Lake Pend d'Oreille on November 1, the traveller was three days passing the traverse; November 13 a high mountain was crossed, and by pushing ahead, one more long day's journey brought him to Fort Colville, where he was hospitably entertained by the Hudson's Bay factor. The return journey was without incident.--ED.

[259] Montmartre is the highest point in the city of Paris, three hundred and thirty feet above the Seine, and dominates the entire city. In recent years a large church has been built upon its summit.--ED.

[260] Victor, hereditary chief of the Flatheads, succeeded Paul (or Big Face) in that office, which he retained with dignity and ability until his death in 1870, when he was in turn succeeded by his son Charlot. He was a consistent friend of the whites, many of the early pioneers of Montana testifying to his kindness and integrity. His wife Agnes remembered the coming of Lewis and Clark to their country; see O. D. Wheeler, _On the Trail of Lewis and Clark_ (New York), ii, p. 65.--ED.

[261] For Horse Prairie (plain) see _ante_, p. 336, note 172. For the Kutenai see Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, in our volume vii, p. 211, note 73. In addition, note that the Kutenai (also called Skalzi) are a distinct linguistic stock, known as Kitunahan. Their habitat was chiefly in British territory; but because of alliance with the Flathead and other Salishan tribes they frequently wandered southward. A few are still on the Flathead reservation in Montana; but about five hundred and fifty frequent the Kutenai agency in British Columbia. They are nearly all Catholics.--ED.

[262] Flathead Lake is a broadening of the river of that name, and lies northeast of the present Flathead reservation. It is about twenty-eight miles long, with an average breadth of ten, and is studded with beautiful islands.--ED.

[263] This hot spring is in the eastern part of the Flathead reservation, and by a small creek discharges into the Little Bitterroot River, an affluent of the Flathead.--ED.

[264] For this lake see our volume vii, p. 211, note 75. Father de Smet crossed the mountains from Missoula Valley by the route now followed by the Northern Pacific Railway along the stream which he had christened St. Regis Borgia, through St. Regis Pass, coming out upon the headwaters of Cœur d'Alène River, which he followed to the lake of that name.--ED.

[265] The mission founded by Father Point in November, 1842, known as the Sacred Heart, was successful. The site was first upon St. Joseph River, a feeder of Cœur d'Alène Lake; but in 1846 it was removed to Cœur d'Alène River, at the present Cataldo. There the first church was built by the neophytes in 1853, after designs by Father Ravalli; it is still a landmark of the region. The tribesmen had been taught agriculture, and lived chiefly in log houses; but the soil being sterile, the mission was again removed to the upper waters of Haugman's Creek, in Idaho, where the Cœur d'Alène still reside upon their reservation.--ED.

[266] Spokane River rises in Cœur d'Alène Lake and flows almost directly to the Falls, thence northwest to its embouchment into the Columbia. It is about two hundred feet wide at the mouth and throughout its entire length is broken by falls and rapids, furnishing water power of great value, its total decline being a hundred and thirty feet. An early fur-trade fort known as Spokane Post stood near the present city of that name, but about 1824 was abandoned for Colville. See Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 277, note 85.--ED.

[267] Father de Smet here refers to the cliffs and rapids on Clark's Fork, about fifteen miles above Lake Pend d'Oreille; they are still known as "The Cabinets." The water rushes through a gorge, between cliffs over a hundred feet high.--ED.

[268] This mission was located at the mouth of Chamokane (Tskimakain) Creek, on what is known as Walker's Prairie about forty miles northwest of Spokane, and the borders of the present Spokane reservation. It was a station of the American Commissioners founded March 20, 1839, by two missionaries who had visited the spot the previous autumn and erected log-huts on the site.

Rev. Elkanah Walker was born in Maine in 1805. Educated at Bangor Theological Seminary he had first intended to go as a missionary to Africa; but recruits being needed for the Oregon mission, he volunteered, and in 1838 came out with his wife, Mary Richardson Walker. They labored among the Spokan with considerable success--in 1841 printing a primer in that language--until the Whitman massacre (1847). Their Indians requested them to stay and promised them protection; but the government sent a military escort to take them to the settlements. There Walker bought land at Forest Grove, in the Willamette Valley, where he died in 1877.

Rev. Cushing Eells was born in Massachusetts in 1810. Graduated at Williams College, he married Myra Fairbank in the spring of 1838, and with her left immediately for the Oregon mission. Living to old age, the pioneer missionary was known throughout the West, his character revered by all. He gave over fifty years of his life to missionary service, in his later years being known as Father Eells. He was instrumental in founding both Pacific University and Whitman College, and travelled extensively in the work of building churches and preaching. He frequently re-visited his Spokan protégés, the larger portion of whom are now members of the Presbyterian church.--ED.

[269] For Rev. Samuel Parker see Townsend's _Narrative_, in our volume xxi, p. 335, note 112. Parker thus describes this incident in his _Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains_ (Ithaca, N. Y., 1838), pp. 275, 276: "One grave in the same village had a cross standing over it, which was the only relic of the kind I saw, together with this just named, during my travels in this country. But as I viewed the cross of wood made by men's hands of no avail, to benefit either the dead or the living, and far more likely to operate as a salvo to a guilty conscience, or a stepping-stone to idolatry, than to be understood in its spiritual sense to refer to a crucifixion of our sins, I took this, which the Indians had prepared, and broke it to pieces. I then told them we place a stone at the head and foot of the grave only to mark the place; and without a murmur they cheerfully acquiesced, and adopted our custom."--ED.

[270] Modeste Demers was born near Quebec in 1808; educated at Quebec Seminary he was ordained in 1836, and the same year started for Red River. Thence he went overland with the Hudson's Bay brigade in 1838, arriving in Vancouver in the autumn of that year with Father Blanchet. In 1839 he visited New Caledonia, and in 1842 was detailed to found missions among the tribesmen, and to instruct the half-breeds at the forts. He labored chiefly in New Caledonia until 1847, then being consecrated bishop of Vancouver. He continued in this field of labor until his death at Victoria in 1871.--ED.

[271] The Okinagan Indians are of the Salishan family, although some authorities class them with the Shushwaps of British Columbia. They formed a considerable confederacy of allied tribes, extending along the river valley of their name, and including the bands of the Similkameen River. A trading post was early erected among them, for which see Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 260, note 71. Alexander Ross, who married an Okinagan woman, and lived among them for many years, is the chief authority upon their manners and customs. See Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, in our volume vii, chapters xviii to xxi. The Okinagan are now tributary to Colville agency, and number about five hundred and fifty, most of whom are Catholics.--ED.

[272] The country between Fort Colville and Okanagan has been but imperfectly charted. It is about sixty miles in a direct line through the Colville Indian reservation.--ED.

[273] A small lake called Karamip is found on modern maps near the head of Sanpoil River.--ED.

[274] Lake Okanagan in British Columbia is about sixty miles in length and the source of the river of that name. It would be a long and difficult journey to return thence to Fort Colville in three days; so that De Smet's rendezvous with the Indians was possibly at some smaller interior lake, entitled by him Lake Okanagan because he met that tribe upon its shores.--ED.

[275] The Cœur d'Alène.--ED.

[276] See Thomas W. Symons, "Report of an Examination of the Upper Columbia River," _Senate Ex. Docs._, 47 Cong., 1 sess., No. 186.--ED.

[277] See brief biographical sketch of Ogden in Townsend's _Narrative_, our volume xxi, p. 314, note 99.--ED.

[278] For detailed descriptions of the Great Dalles of the Columbia, see _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 151-159; Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 337; and Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, our volume vii, pp. 130, 131--ED.

[279] What are technically known as the Little Dalles of the Columbia lie above Fort Colville. The description would appear to apply to the present Whirlpool Rapids, just below Kalichen Falls, about twenty miles above Okanagan River. The entire stretch from the Nespelin River west, is a long series of difficult rapids and riffles. See "Report" cited _ante_, p. 373, note 195.--ED.

[280] For Fort Walla Walla, a Hudson's Bay post, see Townsend's _Narrative_, in our volume xxi, p. 278, note 73.--ED.

[281] Of these Indian tribes the Chaudière, Okinagan, Sanpoil (Cingpoils), have been described _ante_, in notes 162, 190, 161; for the Walla Walla and Cayuse see our volume vii, p. 137, note 37; for the Nez Percés (Pierced Noses), volume vi, p. 340, note 145; for the Indians of the Dalles, volume vii, p. 129, note 31; the Chinook (Schinooks), volume vi, p. 240, note 40; for Clatsop (Classops), volume vi, p. 239, note 39. The Attayes were probably the Yakima, an important Shahaptian tribe in the valley of that river; one branch of the tribe was called Atanum, and a Catholic mission by that name was in later years established among them.--ED.

[282] Part of the Great Plain of the Columbia, broken by many fantastic shapes of the volcanic underlying rock. Most notable of these is the Grand Coulée, which, however, De Smet did not cross, for it lies north of Spokane River. He probably took the trail afterwards developed into a part of the Mullan road, from Great Falls of Missouri to Walla Walla. From the land of the Cœur d'Alène he returned along the route by which he had come out--the St. Regis Pass and river St. Regis Borgia.--ED.

[283] This was the route followed by Clark on his return journey in 1806--through Gibbon's Pass, and down the upper waters of Big Hole (or Wisdom) River, an affluent of the Jefferson.--ED.