Having provided fresh animals for Mr. Lander, given him his written instructions, and in conversation urged upon him the entire feasibility of the survey intrusted to him, the governor, with Mr. Stanley, on November 8 started down the Columbia in a canoe managed by voyageurs, and reached the Dalles on the 12th. Says the governor:—
“We took with us two days’ provisions, and were four days in reaching the Dalles, having been detained nearly two days in camp by a high wind which blew up the river, but we eked out our scanty stores by the salmon generously furnished us by the Indian bands near us. At the principal rapids I got out and observed the movements of the canoe through them, and, from the best examination which I was able to make, I became at once convinced that the river was probably navigable for steamers. I remained at the Dalles on the 13th to make arrangements for the moving forward of the parties and for herding the animals, looking to a resumption of the survey, where I was the guest of Major Rains, and had a most pleasant time, meeting old acquaintances and making new ones with the gentlemen of the post. On the 14th I reached the Cascades, where I passed the night. Here I met several gentlemen—men who had crossed the plains, and who had made farms in several States and in Oregon or Washington—who had carefully examined the Yakima country for new locations, and who impressed me with the importance of it as an agricultural and grazing country. November 15 we went down the river in a canoe, and on the 16th reached Vancouver, where I remained the 17th, 18th, and 19th as the guest of Colonel Bonneville, and where I also became acquainted with the officers of the Hudson Bay Company.
“Leaving Vancouver on the 20th, I reached Olympia on the 25th, where for the first time I saw the waters of Puget Sound. No special incident worthy of remark occurred on the journey, except that I was four days going up the Cowlitz in drenching rains, and two nights had the pleasure of camping out. I will now advise voyageurs in the interior, when they get suddenly into the rains west of the Cascades, to take off their buckskin underclothing. I neglected to do this, and among the many agreeabilities of this trip up the Cowlitz was to have the underclothing of buckskin wet entirely through. I was enabled to examine the country pretty carefully all the way to Olympia, and had with me a very intelligent man, who could point out localities and inform me about the country not in view of the road; and I saw that not only was it entirely practicable for a railroad line to the Sound, but that the work was light, and the material for construction of all kinds entirely inexhaustible.
“After considerable delays at Vancouver, the gentlemen of the parties under Captain McClellan and Lieutenant Donelson arrived at Olympia for office duty, being preceded a few days by Mr. Lander, who for reasons not conclusive to my mind did not persevere in the examination of the Nahchess Pass. One of his reasons for not continuing his examination was that it was not on the railroad line, which did not apply, because that fact was well known to him previously, having been announced to him positively in my written instructions. I did not censure Mr. Lander for not continuing on this duty, as I know the perplexity of mind in which one is placed by the contradictory character of the information gained; but I resolved to get my line to the Sound, and accordingly dispatched an express to the Walla Walla, directing Mr. Tinkham on his arrival at that point to cross to Puget Sound by the Snoqualmie Pass, my object being twofold,—to get at some facts which would decisively settle the question of the depth of snow, in regard to which Captain McClellan and myself differed, as well as really to connect our work with the Sound itself.”
Thus Lander purposely balked the task intrusted to him, and threw away another fine opportunity of achieving credit for himself.
Upon McClellan’s arrival at Olympia, Governor Stevens directed him to take up from the Sound the reconnoissance for a railroad line to the Snoqualmie Pass, connecting with his examination on the eastern side, which had extended three miles across the summit. But again McClellan failed to accomplish the task, deterred as usual by the reports of Indians, and magnified difficulties. Leaving Olympia December 23, with Mr Minter, civil engineer, and four men, he spent five days at Steilacoom in a vain attempt to procure horses and guides for the Snoqualmie Falls, intending to proceed thence on snowshoes. Then he went by canoe down the Sound and up the Snohomish River to the falls, and pushed forward on foot four miles to the prairie just above the falls.
“I found,” he reports, “the prairie to be about as represented,—in places bare, but in others with three or four inches of snow. Leaving my companions at the Indian bivouac to make the best preparations they could for passing the night (for we had neither tent, blanket, nor overcoat), I went forward on the trail with two Indians.
“As soon as we left the prairie the ground became entirely covered with snow; it soon became a foot deep in the shallowest spots, and was constantly increasing. All signs of a trail were obliterated,—the underbrush very thick and loaded with snow,—the snow unfit for snowshoes, according to the Indians. I now turned back to our bivouac, and there awaited the arrival of an Indian who was out hunting, and who was said to possess much information about the country. He soon arrived, and proved to be a very intelligent Yakima, whom I had seen on the other side of the mountains in the summer. He had been hunting in the direction I wished to go, and stated that the snow soon increased to ‘waist-deep’ long before reaching the Nooksai-Nooksai, and that it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes. He also said that the Indians did not pretend to cross over the mountains at this season, but waited till about the end of March, and then took their horses over.
“Next morning, after again questioning the Indian, I reluctantly determined to return, being forced to the conclusion that, if the attempt to reach the pass was not wholly impracticable, it was at least inexpedient under all the circumstances in which I was placed.”[7]
Could any man but McClellan have seriously asserted that “it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes” on snow, and that, too, on the authority of Indians, who were notoriously unreliable, and who, in their jealousy of white exploration, habitually exaggerated the difficulties of the country? This seems the very acme of imaginary obstacles. It was January 10 that McClellan turned back. Had he manfully taken to his snowshoes, he could have reached the summit in three or four days, and connected with his reconnoissance on the eastern side, and this was soon demonstrated to his deep disgust.