The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce

by William Denison Lyman

CHAPTER IV

The First Steps across the Wilderness in Search of the River

Jefferson and Ledyard—Verendrye—Montcachabe, the Indian—The Indians—The Canadians—Results of the Louisiana Purchase—Fitting out the Lewis and Clark Expedition—The Winter with the Mandans—Crossing of the Great Divide—Meeting of Sacajawea and Cameahwait—Descent from the Mountains to the Clearwater and Kimooenim—Canoe Journey Down the Snake and Columbia—First Sight of Mt. Hood—Clark in the Rôle of a Magician—The Timm or Great Falls—The Sunken Forests—First Appearances of the Tide—The Winter of 1805-06 at Fort Clatsop—The Beginning of the Return Trip—Faithfulness of the Indians—Reception of Lewis and Clark in the States—The Hunt Expedition—The Voyageurs and Trappers—Slow Progress to the Snake River—Disasters and Distress along the “Accursed Mad River”—Starvation—New Year’s Day of 1812—A Respite from Suffering in the Umatilla—First Sight of the Columbia and the Mid-winter Descent to Astoria—Melancholy Lot of Crooks and Day—Results of the Hunt Expedition.

The Pacific North-west was discovered both by land and by sea. To Thomas Jefferson, the great apostle of Democracy, is due the gathering of American interests in the far West, and the opening of the road by which American sovereignty was to reach the Pacific. His great mind outran that of the ordinary statesman of his time, and, with what seems at first sight the strangest inconsistency in our political history, he was the State-rights theorist and at the same time the creator of nationality beyond any other one of our early statesmen. Away back in 1786, Jefferson met John Ledyard, one of Cook’s associates in his great voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and grasped from the eager and energetic Yankee sailor, the idea of American destiny on the Pacific Coast. The fertile mind of Jefferson may justly be considered as the fountain of American exploration up the Missouri, across the crest of the Shining Mountains, as they then called the Rockies, and down the Columbia to the Pacific. Although Jefferson never himself took any steps beyond the Alleghanies, he was the inspiration of all the Americans who did take those steps.

Since we are speaking of first steps across the wilderness we should not forget that those of other nationalities than ours first crossed the American continent. The honour of the pioneer expedition to the crest of the Rocky Mountains belongs to the Frenchman, Verendrye. In 1773 he set forth from Montreal for the Rocky Mountains, and made many important explorations. His party is said to have reached the vicinity of the site of Helena, but never saw the sunset side of the Great Divide.

We are told by the interesting French writer, La Page, that the first man to proceed across the continent to the shores of the Pacific was a Yazoo Indian, Montcachabe or Montcacht Ape by name. According to the story, his two-year journey across the great wilderness through every species of peril and hardship, savage beasts and forbidding mountains and deserts, hostile Indians often barring his progress for many days, was one of the most remarkable explorations ever made by man. This Yazoo Indian with the long name was a veritable Columbus in the nature of his achievements. But results for the world could hardly follow his enterprise.

The first traveller to lead a party of civilised men through the Shining, or the Stony Mountains, finally known as Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific Ocean, was Alexander Mackenzie, a canny Scotchman, leading a party of Scotch and French Canadian explorers. In 1793 he reached the Pacific Coast at the point of 52 degrees 24 minutes 48 seconds north latitude. His inscription upon a rock with letters of vermilion and grease, were read many years afterwards: “Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, July 22, 1793.”

But the explorations of Canadians were too far north to come within the scope of the Pacific North-west of our day. We must therefore take up the American expeditions which proceeded from the master mind of Jefferson. The first of these was the expedition of Lewis and Clark. This expedition did more to broaden the American mind and to fix our national destiny than any similar event in our whole history.

As soon as Jefferson was inaugurated president, he had urged upon Congress the fitting out of an expedition “to explore the Missouri River and such principal streams of it as, by its course of communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct and practical water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce.”

But before anything had actually been accomplished in the way of exploration, that vast and important event, the Louisiana Purchase, had been effected. The significance of this event was but little understood at the time, even by statesmen, but Jefferson realised that a great thing had been accomplished towards the development of the nation. His enthusiasm and hopefulness spread to Congress and to the leaders of opinion throughout the land. A like enthusiasm soon possessed the mass of population, and emigration westward began. Already the older West was teeming with that race of pioneers which has made up the life and the grandeur of the nineteenth century. The American hive began to swarm. “Out West” began to mean something more than Ohio and Kentucky. The distant sources of the Missouri and the heights of the Shining Mountains, with all the fantastic tales that had been told of them, were drawing our grandfathers farther and farther from the old colonial America of the eastern coast, and were beginning to modify the whole course of American history. The atmosphere of boundless expectation gathered over farm and town in the older States and the proposed expedition of Lewis and Clark fascinated the people as much as the voyage of Columbus fascinated the Spain of his day.