Breaking the Wilderness / The Story of the Conquest of the Far West, From the Wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca, to the First Descent of the Colorado by Powell, and the Completion of the Union Pacific Railway, With Particular Account of the Exploits of Trappers and Traders

by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

These journeys proved beyond question that the Straits of Anian, which had prominently figured on maps up to this time, were a myth. Cook, who had been along the north-west coast, had expressed strong doubts of the existence of any waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific. Mackenzie's other journey was of equal, if not greater, importance. It was in 1793 that the start was made, and he followed up Peace River till, by means of the chasm it cleaves in the great chain to free its waters for their descent to the Mackenzie, he passed entirely through the Rocky Mountains, and with admirable determination and perseverance reached the shore of the Pacific just north of Queen Charlotte Sound, completing the first traverse on record of the North American continent above Mexico. One river, that he followed down for some distance, which was called by the natives Tacoutche Tesse, he thought was the head of the Columbia, which had obtained this name the year before. The Tacoutche Tesse, however, was not the Columbia, as was some years later discovered, but the river now called Fraser.

Navigators had been at work minutely examining the Pacific coast of the Wilderness,—La Perouse, Dixon, Meares, and others. Although Meares, for Great Britain, in 1788, searched for the Rio de San Roque as laid down on Spanish charts, according to Heceta's observations, and although he actually entered the bay where it disembogues, he departed without finding it, because the breakers were clearly seen by him to extend entirely across the shore end of the inlet. In consequence he applied to the place the title of Deception Bay, and the prominent headland just north of it he called by the name it still bears, Cape Disappointment. He declared positively that there was no such river as the San Roque, which illustrates the ease with which mistakes are made, even by men of intelligence. It was a fortunate error for the United States, as now neither the Spanish, who were still clinging to the northern coasts, nor the British, who were opposing them, had obtained any right of discovery in this great river. No captain as yet had possessed the insight, or the courage, or the resources, to dash through the formidable line of fierce combers and open the mouth of the Columbia to the world. But its day was soon to arrive. The same year that Meares in disappointment turned his prow away from the entrance, an American merchant captain, Robert Gray, of Boston, in his trading vessel, the Washington, had nearly foundered in trying to force the passage. After this Gray exchanged ships with Kendrick, a captain in the service of the same company, and in the Columbia made a trip to China and then home. Kendrick, meanwhile, with the Washington, put into the Strait of Fuca and pretty well examined this body of water, which Gray before him had entered to the distance of fifty miles.

Mouth of the Columbia from Astoria.

Cape Disappointment Left Distance.

From The Trail of Lewis and Clark. O. D. Wheeler.

After a while, 1792, Gray came back to the north-west coast in the Columbia and met at the Strait of Fuca the great English navigator Vancouver, who had been sent to make charts of the coast, a work which he carried out so admirably that it has been the basis for all charts ever since. Vancouver had already been in Deception Bay before meeting Gray, so that when the latter described the place he had tried to enter with the Washington, and stated his belief in the existence of a large river there, a belief perhaps increased by the statements of Jonathan Carver, he refused to believe. Vancouver had seen the breakers extending "two or three miles into the ocean," and though he noticed that the sea there changed to river water he thought it only from some minor stream, and did not consider the subject of any importance. So, like Meares, he had turned his back upon it, and now he went on to survey Puget Sound. Gray, however, was of a different mind, and he determined to return to the place to explore. It almost seems, indeed, that Fate had appointed this discovery for him. When he arrived there he did not hesitate, but prepared his ship for the passage, and at eight a.m. May 11, 1792, he ran in "east-north-east between the breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water. When we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered." Thus, in spite of everything and with no effort or desire to do it, the United States had acquired by right of discovery a claim on this far-away country. The matter, which at the time was little thought of, proved afterwards of considerable value. When Gray sailed out of the river, which he was able to accomplish only after several attempts, he gave to the river the name of his ship—Columbia. For some years the name of Oregon, by which Carver had described it as he heard the account from the natives, was also applied, as well as the other title—River of the West,—but all at length gave way before the name bestowed by the discoverer, whose action in running the bar was all the more praiseworthy since other skilful navigators had failed to fathom the secret of Deception Bay.

The following year Mackenzie arrived on the coast, just after Vancouver had passed north in pursuing his excellent survey. Thus little by little the white man was permanently closing in on the great central Wilderness. In 1792-93 Todd, a Scotchman with a special grant from Spain, made several journeys from St. Louis up the Missouri, and Fidler, in the employ of the North-west Company, travelled from Fort Buckingham on the Saskatchewan south-west to the foot of the Rocky Mountains and down through regions drained by the Missouri. Dorion, afterwards with Lewis and Clark, had lived with the Sioux since 1784 or earlier, and there were many others like him.

Trading-posts were established here and there on the Missouri; Pawnee House,[60] or Trudeau's House in 1796-97, near the site of Fort Randall, was occupied by that trader, and a year or two earlier Fort Charles was built six miles below Omaha. Trappers and traders were constantly pushing out into the Wilderness. St. Louis was developing from a mere village to a town of importance, and some of the characters intimately identified, a few years later, with the development of the region were already there, notably the famous Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard, shrewd, daring, and intelligent, speaking with difficulty French and English, who made many enemies, and who feared no man. His name is a part of the history of the breaking of the Wilderness. As the eighteenth century drew to a close this Wilderness had been completely circumnavigated. Two and a half centuries had now gone by since Coronado made his celebrated journey. Ships had passed along the western confines; trappers had penetrated here and there across the eastern part; Escalante had made his entrance north almost to Salt Lake; yet the Wilderness remained the Wilderness still.