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Wild North Land, The Story of a Winter Journey with Dogs across Northern North America

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</h2></div> <div class="blockquot inhead medium"> British Columbia.—Boundaries again.—Juan de Fuça.—Carver.—The Shining Mountains.—Jacob Astor.—The monarch of salmon.—Oregon.—Riding and tying.—Nation Lake.—The Pacific. </div> We have been a long time now in that portion of the American continent which is known as British Columbia, and yet we have said but little of its early life, or how it came into the limits of a defined colony. Sometime about that evening when we lay camped (now a long way back) upon the hill where the grim face of Chimeroo looked blankly out upon the darkening wilderness, we entered for the first time the territory which bears the name of British Columbia. Nature, who, whether she forms a flower or a nation, never makes a mistake, had drawn on the northern continent of America her own boundaries. She had put the Rocky Mountains to mark the two great divisions of East and West America. But the theory of natural boundaries appears never to311 have elicited from us much support, and in the instance now under consideration we seem to have gone not a little out of our way to evince our disapprobation of Nature’s doings. It was the business of the Imperial Government a few years ago to define the boundaries of the new province to which they were giving a Constitution. The old North-West Fur Company had rested satisfied with the Rocky Mountain frontier, but in the new document the Eastern line was defined as follows: “And to the east, from the boundary of the United States northwards to the Rocky Mountains, and the one hundred and twentieth meridian of West Longitude.” Unfortunately, although the one hundred and twentieth meridian is situated for a portion of its course in the main range of the mountains, it does not lie altogether within them. The Rocky Mountains do not run north and south, but trend considerably to the west; and the 120th meridian passes out into the prairie country of the Peace River. In looking at this strangely unmeaning frontier, where nature had already given such an excellent “divide,” and one which had always been adopted by the early geographer, it seems only rational to suppose that the framers of the new line lay under the312 impression that mountain and meridian were in one and the same line. Nor supposing such to be the case, would it be, by any means, the first time that such an error had been made by those whose work it was to frame our Colonial destiny. Well, let us disregard this rectification of boundary, and look at British Columbia as Nature had made it. When, some seventy years ago, the Fur Company determined to push their trade into the most remote recesses of the unknown territory lying before them, a few adventurers following this same course which I have lately taken, found themselves suddenly in a labyrinth of mountains. These men named the mountain land “New Caledonia,” for they had been nurtured in far Highland homes, and the grim pine-clad steeps of this wild region, and the blue lakes lying lapped amid the mountains, recalled the Loch’s and Ben’s of boyhood’s hours. ’Twas long before they could make much of this new dominion. Mountains rose on every side; white giants bald with age, wrapt in cloud, and cloaked with pines. Cragged and scarped, and towering above valleys filled with boulders, as though in bygone ages, when the old peaks had been youngsters they had pelted each other with Titanic stones; which, falling short, had filled the deep ravines that lay between them. 313 But if the mountains in their vast irregularity defied the early explorers, the rivers were even still more perplexing. Mountains have a right to behave in an irregular kind of way, but rivers are usually supposed to conduct themselves on more peaceful principles. In New Caledonia they had apparently forgotten this rule; they played all manner of tricks. They turned and twisted behind the backs of hills, and came out just the very way they shouldn’t have come out. They rose often close to the sea, and then ran directly away from it. They pierced through mountain ranges in cañons and chasms; and the mountains threw down stones at them, but that only made them laugh all the louder, as they raced away from cañon to cañon. Sometimes they grew wicked, and, turned viciously and bit, and worried the bases of the hills, and ate trees and rocks and landslips; and then, over all their feuds and bickerings, came Time at last, as he always does, and threw a veil over the conflict; a veil of pine-trees. But in one respect both mountain and river seemed in perfect accord; they would keep the land to themselves and their child, the wild Indian; but the white man, the child of civilization, must be kept out. Nevertheless the white man came in, and he named the rivers after his314 own names, though they still laughed him to scorn, and were useless to his commerce. Gradually this white fur-hunter spread himself through the land; he passed the Frazer, reached the Columbia, and gained its mouth; and here a strange rival presented himself. We must go back a little. Once upon a time a Greek sailor was cast away on the shore, where the northmost Mexican coast merged into unknown lands. He remained for years a wanderer; but when finally fate threw him again upon Adriatic coasts, he was the narrator of strange stories, and the projector of far distant enterprises. North of California’s shore, there was, he said, a large island. Between this island and the mainland lay a gulf which led to those other gulfs, which, on the Atlantic verge, Cartier and Hudson had made known to Europe. In these days kings and viceroys gladly listened to a wanderer’s story. The Greek was sent back to the coasts he had discovered, commissioned to fortify the Straits he called Annian, against English ships seeking through this outlet the northern passage to Cathay. Over the rest time has drawn a cloud. It is said that the Greek sailor failed and died. His story became matter of doubt. More than 300315 years passed away; Cook sought in vain for the strait, and the gulf beyond it. Another English sailor was more fortunate; and in 1756 a lonely ship passed between the island and the mainland, and the long, doubtful channel was named “Juan de Fuça,” after the nickname of the forgotten Greek. To fortify the Straits of Annian was deemed the dream of an enthusiast; yet by a strange coincidence, we see to-day its realization, and the Island of San Juan, our latest loss, has now upon its shores a hostile garrison, bent upon closing the Straits of Fuça against the ships of England. North of California, and south of British Columbia, there lies a vast region. Rich in forest, prairie, snow-clad peak, alluvial meadow, hill pasture, and rolling table-land. It has all that nature can give a nation; its climate is that of England; its peaks are as lofty as Mont Blanc; its meadows as rich as the vales of Somerset. The Spaniard knew it by repute, and named it Oregon, after the river which we call the Columbia. Oregon was at that time the entire west of the Rocky Mountains, to the north of California. Oregon had long been a mystic land, a realm of fable. Carver, the indefatigable, had striven to reach the great river of the west, whose source316 lay near that of the Mississipi. The Indians had told him that where the Mississipi had its birth in the shining mountains, another vast river also rose, and flowed west into the shoreless sea. Carver failed to reach the shining mountains; his dream remained to him. “Probably,” he writes, “in future ages they (the mountains) may be found to contain more riches in their bowels than those of Indostan or Malabar, or that are produced on the golden Gulf of Guinea, nor will I except even the Peruvian mines.” To-day that dream comes true, and from the caverns of the shining mountains men draw forth more gold and silver than all these golden realms enumerated by the baffled Carver ever produced. But the road which Carver had pointed out was soon to be followed. In the first years of the new century men penetrated the gorges of the shining mountain, and reached the great river of the west; but they hunted for furs, and not for gold; and fur-hunters keep to themselves the knowledge of their discoveries. Before long the great Republic born upon the Atlantic shores began to stretch its infant arms towards the dim Pacific. In 1792, a Boston ship entered the mouth of the Oregon river. The charts carried by the vessel showed no317 river upon the coast-line, and the captain named the breaker-tossed estuary after his ship “the Columbia.” He thought he had discovered a new river; in reality, he had but found again the older known Oregon. It is more than probable, that this new named river would again have found its ancient designation, had not an enterprising German now appeared upon the scene. One Jacob Astor, a vendor of small furs and hats, in New York, turned his eyes to the west. He wished to plant upon the Pacific the germs of American fur trade. The story of his enterprise has been sketched by a cunning hand; but under the brilliant colouring which a great artist has thrown around his tale of Astoria, the strong bias of the partisan is too plainly apparent. Yet it is easy to detect the imperfect argument by which Washington Irving endeavours to prove the right of the United States to the disputed territory of Oregon. The question is one of “Who was first upon the ground?” Irving claims, that Astor, in 1810, was the first trader who erected a station on the banks of the Columbia. But in order to form his fort, Astor had to induce several of the employées of the North-West Fur Company to desert their service. And Irving innocently tells us, that when the overland318 expedition under Hunt reached the Columbia, they found the Indians well supplied with European articles, which they had obtained from white traders already domiciled west of the Rocky Mountains. He records the fact while he misses its meaning. British fur traders had reached Oregon long before Jacob Astor had planted his people on the estuary of the Columbia. Astor’s factory had but a short life. The war of 1813 broke out. A British ship appeared off the bar of the Columbia River, and the North-West Company moving down the river became the owners of Astoria. But with their usual astuteness the Government of the United States claimed, at the conclusion of the war, the possession of Oregon, on the ground that it had been theirs prior to the struggle. That it had not been so, is evident to any person who will carefully inquire into the history of the discovery of the North-West Coast, and the regions lying west of the mountains. But no one cares to ask about such things, and no one cared to do so, even when the question was one of greater moment than it is at present. So, with the usual supineness which has let drift from us so many fair realms won by the toil and daring of forgotten sons, we parted at last with this magnificent region of Oregon, and signed it over to our voracious cousins. 319 It was the old story so frequently repeated. The country was useless; a pine-forest, a wilderness, a hopeless blank upon the face of nature. To-day, Oregon is to my mind the fairest State in the American Union. There is a story widely told throughout British Columbia, which aptly illustrates the past policy of Great Britain, in relation to her vast Wild Lands. Stories widely told are not necessarily true ones; but this story has about it the ring of probability. It is said that once upon a time a certain British nobleman anchored his ship-of-war in the deep waters of Puget Sound. It was at a time when discussion was ripe upon the question of disputed ownership in Oregon, and this ship was sent out for the protection of British interests on the shores of the North Pacific. She bore an ill-fated name for British diplomacy. She was called the “America.” The commander of the “America” was fond of salmon fishing; the waters of the Oregon were said to be stocked with salmon: the fishing would be excellent. The mighty “Ekewan,” monarch of salmon, would fall a victim to flies, long famous on waters of Tweed or Tay. Alas! for the perverseness of Pacific salmon. No cunningly320 twisted hackle, no deftly turned wing of mallard, summer duck, or jungle cock, would tempt the blue and silver monsters of the Columbia or the Cowlitz Rivers. In despair, his lordship reeled up his line, took to pieces his rod, and wrote in disgust to his brother (a prominent statesman of the day) that the whole country was a huge mistake; that even the salmon in its waters was a fish of no principle, refusing to bite, to nibble, or to rise. In fine, that the territory of Oregon, was not worthy of a second thought. So the story runs. If it be not true, it has its birth in that too true insularity which would be sublime, if it did not cost us something like a kingdom every decade of years. Such has been the past of Oregon. It still retains a few associations of its former owners. From its mass of forest, from its long-reaching rivers, and above its ever green prairies, immense spire-shaped single peaks rise up 14,000 feet above the Pacific level. Far over the blue waters they greet the sailor’s eye, while yet the lower shore lies deep sunken beneath the ocean sky-line. They are literally the “shining mountains” of Carver, and seamen say that at night, far out at sea, the Pacific waves glow brightly ’neath the reflected lustre of their eternal snows. These solitary peaks bear English titles, and321 early fur-hunter, or sailor-discoverer, have written their now forgotten names in snow-white letters upon the blue skies of Oregon. But perhaps one of these days our cousins will change all that. Meantime, I have wandered far south from my lofty standpoint on the snowy ridges of the Bald Mountains in Northern New Caledonia. Descending with rapid strides the mountain trail, we heard a faint signal-call from the valley before us. It was from the party sent on the previous evening, to await our arrival at the spot where Rufus had left his worn-out horses a week before. A few miles more brought us within sight of the blue smoke which promised breakfast—a welcome prospect after six hours forced marching over the steep ridges of the Bald Mountains. Two Indians, two miners, two thin horses, and one fat dog now formed the camp before the fire, at which we rested with feelings of keen delight. Tom, the “carrier” Indian, and Kalder, my trusty henchman, had breakfast ready; and beans and bacon, to say nothing of jam and white bread, were still sufficient novelties to a winter traveller, long nourished upon the sole luxury of moose pemmican, to make eighteen miles of mountain exercise a needless prelude to a hearty breakfast. The meal over we made preparations for our322 march to the south. In round numbers I was 300 miles from Quesnelle. Mountain, forest, swamp, river, and lake, lay between me and that valley where the first vestige of civilized travel would greet me on the rapid waters of the Frazer River. Through all this land of wilderness a narrow trail held its way; now, under the shadow of lofty pine forest; now, skirting the shores of lonely lakes; now, climbing the mountain ranges of the Nation River, where yet the snow lay deep amid those valleys whose waters seek upon one side the Pacific, upon the other the Arctic Ocean. Between me and the frontier “city” of Quesnelle lay the Hudson’s Bay Fort of St. James, on the south-east shore of the lake called Stuart’s. Here my companion Rufus counted upon obtaining fresh horses; but until we could reach this half-way house, our own good legs must carry us, for the steeds now gathered into the camp were as poor and weak as the fast travel and long fasting of the previous journey could make them. They were literally but skin and bone, and it was still a matter of doubt whether they would be able to carry our small stock of food and blankets, in addition to their own bodies, over the long trail before us. Packing our goods upon the backs of the skeleton steeds, we set out for the south. Before323 proceeding far a third horse was captured. He proved to be in better condition than his comrades. A saddle was therefore placed on his back, and he was handed over to me by Rufus in order that we should “ride and tie” during the remainder of the day. In theory this arrangement was admirable; in practice it was painfully defective. The horse seemed to enter fully into the “tying” part of it, but the “riding” was altogether another matter. I think nothing but the direst starvation would have induced that “cayoose” to deviate in any way from his part of the tying. No amount of stick or whip or spur would make him a party to the riding. At last he rolled heavily against a prostrate tree, bruising me not a little by the performance. He appeared to have serious ideas of fancying himself “tied” when in this reclining position, and it was no easy matter to disentangle oneself from his ruins. After this I dissolved partnership with Rufus, and found that walking was a much less fatiguing, and less hazardous performance, if a little less exciting. We held our way through a wild land of hill and vale and swamp for some fifteen or sixteen miles, and camped on the edge of a little meadow, where the old grass of the previous year promised the tired horses a scanty meal. It was but a poor pasturage, and next morning one horse proved so324 weak that we left him to his fate, and held on with two horses towards the Nation River. Between us and this Nation River lay a steep mountain, still deep in snow. We began its ascent while the morning was yet young. Since daylight it had snowed incessantly; and in a dense driving snow-storm we made the passage of the mountain. The winter’s snow lay four feet deep upon the trail, and our horses sunk to their girths at every step. Slowly we plodded on, each horse stepping in the old footprints of the last journey, and pausing often to take breath in the toilsome ascent. At length the summit was reached; but a thick cloud hung over peak and valley. Then the trail wound slowly downwards, and by noon we reached the shore of a dim lake, across whose bosom the snow-storm swept as though the time had been mid-November instead of the end of May. We passed the outlet of the Nation Lake (a sheet of water some thirty-five miles in length, lying nearly east and west), and held our way for some miles along its southern shore. In the evening we had reached a green meadow, on the banks of a swollen stream. While Rufus and I were taking the packs off the tired horses, preparatory to making them swim the stream; a huge grizzly bear came out upon325 the opposite bank and looked at us for a moment. The Indians who were behind saw him approach us, but they were too far from us to make their voices audible. A tree crossed the stream, and the opposite bank rose steeply from the water to the level meadow above. Bruin was not twenty paces from us, but the bank hid him from our view; and when I became aware of his proximity he had already made up his mind to retire. Grizzlies are seldom met under such favourable circumstances. A high bank in front, a level meadow beyond, I long regretted the chance, lost so unwittingly, and our cheerless bivouac that night in the driving sleet would have been but little heeded, had my now rusty double-barrel spoken its mind to our shaggy visitor. But one cannot always be in luck. All night long it rained and sleeted and snowed, and daylight broke upon a white landscape. We got away from camp at four o’clock, and held on with rapid pace until ten. By this hour we had reached the summit of the table-land “divide” between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. It is almost imperceptible, its only indication being the flow of water south, instead of north-east. The day had cleared, but a violent storm swept the forest, crashing many a tall tree prostrate to the earth; and when we camped for dinner, it was no326 easy matter to select a spot safe from the dangers of falling pine-trees. As I quitted this Arctic water-shed, and stood on the height of land between the two oceans, memory could not help running back, over the many scenes which had passed, since on that evening after leaving the Long Portage, I had first entered the river systems of the North. Full 1300 miles away lay the camping-place of that evening; and as the many long hours of varied travel rose up again before me, snow-swept, toil-laden, full at times of wreck and peril and disaster; it was not without reason that, turning away from the cold northern landscape, I saluted with joy the blue pine-tops, through which rolled the broad rivers of the Pacific. <div id="i_327" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 40em;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_327.jpg" width-obs="2545" height-obs="1604" alt="" /> <div class="caption">“THE LOOK-OUT MOUNTAIN.”</div> </div> <hr /> <div id="toclink_327" class="chapter"> 327 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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