VOYAGE IN A CANOE FROM FORT OWEN TO VANCOUVER. 291 



G. 



NAVIGABILITY OF THE COLUMBIA. 



23. REPORT OF DR. GEO. SUCKLEY, ASSISTANT SURGEON, u. s. A., OF HIS TRIP IN A CANOE FROM 

 FORT OWEN, DOWN THE BITTER ROOT, CLARK S FORK, AND COLUMBIA RIVERS, TO VANCOUVER. 



OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, 



December 19, 1853. 



SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report concerning my operations while at the 

 Flathead village of St. Mary s, and my subsequent reconnaissance of the Bitter Root, St. Mary s, 

 Flathead or Clark and Columbia rivers, agreeably to instructions received from you dated 

 October 2. 



I had considerable difficulty in making a canoe which would answer the purpose. A skin-boat, 

 made of three bullocks hides, was at length constructed, and on the 15th of the same month I 

 embarked, with two white men and an Indian, to descend the Bitter Root river. The inhabitants 

 at St. Mary s were entirely unacquainted with the nature of the river and its capabilities for canoe 

 navigation, no boats ever having been known to ascend the river higher than the Horse Plain, 

 just below the junction of the St. Mary s and Pend d Oreille rivers. 



My trip being considered so hazardous, I was obliged to proceed with great caution, and it 

 was not until the eleventh day that I reached the latter river. On the 25th day after my departure 

 from St. Mary s I reached the Pend d Oreille mission. My provisions had entirely given out, 

 but, thanks to the kindness and hospitality of the good missionaries at that point, my stock was 

 replenished. Here I found that the skin-canoe had become so rotten that it became necessary, 

 in case I proceeded farther by water, to obtain a new boat. Owing to the miscarriage of some 

 letters of instruction which had been sent to me from you, and from a wrong impression on the 

 minds of the priests to the effect that they had heard of your having sent positive orders to me 

 to relinquish the trip, I was reluctantly compelled to take h &amp;gt;rses and proceed to Fort Colville, 

 on the Columbia river, distant sixty miles by land. The distance by the river may be a little 

 more. It is my opinion, from what I could learn by observation and report, that I could have 

 descended the Clark river to that point, although, of course, I should have been obliged to use 

 great caution, as nothing definite is known by the Indians, or others, concerning this point of the 

 river. I suppose that the river would be navigable by the Indians in their canoes, if there was 

 any inducement for so doing. Their hunting-grounds lie in another direction, and they are 

 too indolent to travel for the sake of exploring or for pastime. 



On the thirteenth of November I arrived at Fort Colville, where I obtained further supplies, 

 two canoes and three Indians. 



On the seventeenth I again embarked, reaching Fort Vancouver on the sixth of December. 

 On the route I stopped at Fort Okinakane, Fort Wallah-Wallah, the Dalles, and the Cascades, 

 and obtained such supplies as I needed. The time occupied in making the whole distance was 

 fifty-three days, or two days less than was occupied by the main train, under Lieut. Donelson, 

 between the same points. The running time, exclusive of stops, was two hundred and eighty- 

 five and a half hours, and the distance, (approximate,) as measured by the course of the rivers, 

 including the greater and lesser bends, was one thousand and forty-nine miles. This will give 

 the average speed of 3.674 miles per hour. There were but three portages on the whole route 

 of any magnitude: one of thirteen hundred paces on the Clark river, above Lake Pend d Oreille; 

 one on the Columbia, at the Dalles, of eight hundred paces ; and, lastly, one at the Cascades of 

 one and a half mile in length. On the latter I made use of the wooden railway to conve} r the 

 canoes and their loads. It should be borne in mind that this passage was made at the lowest stage 

 of water, when the current was proportionately feeble. 



The Bitter Root river was quite shallow in many places, and my canoe, which, when loaded, 



