166 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Aug. 26, 1905. 
Trappers of Oregon Territory, 
From about the j^ear 1810 until 1845 the question as to 
the sovereignty over Oregon Territory was one of con- 
stantly increasing interest in the United States and Eng- 
land. Though for much of this time without permanent 
white inhabitants, the region was known to be vast, to 
produce some fur-bearing animals, and to have a long 
coast line which would ultimately give access to a country 
that might prove rich. At first the question as to who 
should possess it attracted little attention, but about 1835 
American missionaries who had gone there to work 
among the Indians, began to agitate the question of Eng- 
lish or American supremacy, and from that time until the 
Ashburton-Webster treaty of 1846 great interest was felt 
in the Territory. 
The Americans claimed the country by right of discov- 
ery, because in the year 1792 Capt. Robert Gray, of Bos- 
ton, in the ship Columbia, discovered and ascended the 
river as far as Gray’s Bay, and named the river after his 
vessel. The United States Government claimed also that 
Oregon was included in the sale of the Province of 
Louisiana by France in 1803; but this claim had no basis 
of fact. It claimed it also on the ground of prior ex- 
ploration, since Lewis and Clark, in the years 1804 and 
1805, had explored the Columbia to its mouth and re- 
ported quite fully on the country. Again in 1810 Captain 
Winship, of New England, built the first house in Oregon 
on the Columbia River, and in 1811 Astoria was estab- 
lished by John Jacob Astor. 
The British, on the other hand, claimed Oregon because 
Drake had discovered the northwest coast, in latitude 48 
degrees in 1558. Captain Cooke had entered the Straits 
of Fuca in 1778, and Vancouver had surveyed the coast 
from latitude 30 degrees to latitude 60 degrees in 1792. 
In 1813, during the war, Mr. Astor’s agent sold Astoria 
to the Northwest Fur Company, and in 1821 it passed 
from the Northwest Fur Company into the hands of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company. Each nation, therefore, had a 
number of reasons — satisfactory to itself — for asserting 
ownership in the territory which extended from the crest 
of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and from 
the northern boundary of the Spanish possessions — where 
California endS' — northward to what was then Russian 
America. 
In the year 1840 an effort was made to establish a local 
government for Oregon, although at that time it had only 
about 240 white inhabitants. By this time people in Great 
Britain and at the seat of the United States Government 
were actively interested in the matter, and this _ interest 
was constantly increased by the return of missionaries, 
who had much to say about this distant country, and 
were endeavoring to induce emigrants to settle there. 
One of the active writers on this subject was John 
Dunn, an Englishman, who' for eight years had resided 
in the country as an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany, and who was earnest in his desire that the region 
should be retained by Great Britain, and should by no 
means be given up to the United States. In 1844 there 
was published in London a volume from his^ pen, en- 
titled “History of the Oregon Territory and British North 
American Fur Trade; with An Account of the Habits 
and Customs of the Principal Native Tribes on the 
Northern Continent.” The volume gives an excellent ac- 
count of the fur trade and the people who were engaged 
in it, but. in his preface Dunn expresses with much fervor 
his views on the efforts of the Americans to secure the 
territory known as Oregon, and does not hesitate to- ex- 
press very frankly his opinion of the American character. 
During his residence in Oregon he had formed very posi- 
tive views, and he speaks with much indignation of the 
desire of the Americans to “ ‘sweep the Pacific,’ and 
spread their internal trade through the Canadas, and the 
Polar Circles ; and banish the Britishers as traders, if not 
as residents, from the whole northern continent — a boast- 
ful threat which they have signally failed to execute.” 
The knowledge gained by residence in the country led 
Dunn, on his return to England, to take an active part 
in the discussion of the Oregon question. He says ; ‘‘On 
my return, although I w'as, from my knowledge of those 
Americans that traded on the coast, or had squatted in 
the southwestern part of Oregon, or have lately been em- 
ployed by the company as trappers, prepared to hear any 
monstrous assumptions of right set forth by the American 
populace, through their loco foco organs of the press. I 
did not expect that the respectable portion of the press- 
much less that their functionaries and ministers of State, 
even up to the President — would echo the opinions of the 
rabble that controls the Legislature. But to my surprise 
I found that the subject was viewed by them through the 
democratic spectacles. 
“At the opening of Congress, in 1843, the President, 
without any previous provocation to the declaration — vol- 
unteered the announcement to the whole world that the 
whole territory is American, and that American it will 
be preserved and maintained. But this is not merely the 
averment of the President, but the whole current of a 
most vehement debate runs in support of this fraudulent 
assertion of a claim. Says the President : 
“ ‘The territory of the United States, commonly called 
the Oregon Territory, lying on the Pacific Ocean, north 
of the 42d degree of latitude, to a portion of which Great 
Britain lays claim, begins to attract the attention of our 
fellow-citizens, and the tide of population which has re- 
claimed what was lately an unbroken wilderness in more 
contiguous regions, is preparing to flow over those vast 
districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to^ the 
Pacific Ocean.’ ” 
In 1818 a treaty of joint occupancy of the region had 
been declared between Great Britain and the United 
States, but this treaty, instead of settling the question 
seemed only tO' give rise to fresh disputes. Dunn gives 
what he believes to be a fair and dispassionate view of 
the Oregon Territory, and thinks that his volume will 
convey a fairer and more concentrated impression than 
all the American factious books that have hitherto been 
published on the subject. He regrets that his volume 
‘‘occasionally portrays some dark features in the American 
character,” but declares “that in depicting the American 
character, I quote American authority, and that in show- 
ing the weakness of their pretensions to the country I 
quote historical and diplomatical facts — facts not ques- 
tionable by the Americans themselves.” 
Of course we all know how the matter finally came out, 
and that by the Ashburton-Webster treaty of 1846 the 
Oregon Territory south of the 49th parallel of north 
latitude, became the undisputed property of the United 
States. This was far less than the more enthusiastic 
Americans claimed, for there are still living many men 
who can remember when excitement on this subject ran 
so high that the cry “Fifty-four forty or fight” was a 
political shibboleth. 
At the present day Dunn’s preface has only a certain 
curious interest, and now and then through the volume 
■occur allusions to the question of the control of the Ore- 
gon, which show his strong patriotic feeling, but in the 
main the book is devoted to giving a true picture of early 
life in the fur country. His description of the old-time 
trappers, or beaver hunters, and of the voyageurs, or 
boatmen, is well worth reproducing here : 
“In the old times of the Canadian fur trade, when the 
trade in furs was chiefly - pursued about the lakes and 
rivers, the expeditions were, in a great degree, carried 
on in batteaux and canoes. But a totally different class 
now sprung up — the ‘mountaineers’ — the traders and trap- 
pers that scale the vast mountain chains and pursue their 
hazardous vocation amidst their wild recesses — moving 
from place to place on horseback — exposed not alone to 
the perils of the wilderness but to the perils of attack 
from fierce Indians, to whom it has become as favorite 
an exploit to harass and way-lay a band of trappers with 
their pack horses as it is to the Arabs of the desert to 
plunder a caravan. The equestrian exercises in which 
they are constantly engaged — the nature of the country 
they traverse — vast plains and mountains pure and ex- 
hilarating in their atmospheric qualities, seem to make 
them physically and mentally a more lively, vigorous, 
daring and enduring race than the fur traders and trap- 
pers of former days, who generally had huts or tents to 
shelter them from the inclemency of the seasons, were 
seldom exposed to the hostility of the natives, and gen- 
erally were within reach of supplies from the settlements. 
There is, perhaps, no class of men on the earth who lead 
a life of more continued exertion, danger and excitement, 
and who are more enamoured of their occupation than the 
free trappers of the wild regions of the west. No toil, no 
danger, no privation can turn the trapper aside from his 
pursuit. If his meal is not ready in time he takes his 
rifle — hies to the forest — shoots his game, lights his fire 
and cooks his repast. With his horse and his rifle he is 
independent of the world, and spurns its restraints. In 
vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his 
path, in vain may rocks and precipices and wintry tor- 
rents oppose his progress ; let but a single track of a 
beaver meet his eye and he forgets all danger and defies 
all difficulties. At times he may be seen with his traps 
on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams 
amidst floating blocks of ice; at other times may he be 
seen with his traps slung on his back, clambering the 
most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most 
frightful precipices, searching by routes inaccessible to 
horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs 
and lakes unknown to his comrades, where he may meet 
with his favorite game. 
“This class of hunters are generally Canadians by birth, 
and of French descent, who, after being bound to serve 
the traders for a certain number of years and receive 
wages, or hunt on shares, then continued to hunt and 
trap on their own account, trading with the company like 
the Indians, hence they are called free men. Having 
passed their youth in the v/ilderness in constant inter- 
course with the Indians, and removed from civilized so- 
ciety, they lapse wdth natural facility into the habits of 
savage life. They generally intermarry with the natives, 
and, like them, have often a plurality of wives. Wardens 
of the wilderness, according to the vicissitudes of the sea- 
sons, the migrations of animals, and the plenty or scar- 
city of game they lead a precarious and unsettled exist- 
ence, exposed to- sun and storm, and all kinds of hard- 
ships, until they resemble the Indians in complexion, as 
w^ell as in tastes and habits. From time to time they 
bring their peltries to the trading houses of the company 
and barter them for such articles as they may require. 
When Montreal was the great emporium of the fur trade 
some of them would occasionally return, after an absence 
of many years, to visit his old associates. There they 
would squander the long and hard earned fruits of their 
labors, and after the fit of revelry was over go back to 
their former toils and the freedom of the forest. Some 
few of them, however, retained a little of the thrift and 
forethought of the civilized man and became wealthy 
among their improvident neighbors ; their wealth con- 
sisting chiefly of large bands of horses, scattered over the 
prairies in the vicinity of their abodes. 
“There was another class, the native Indians of Can- 
ada, who had partially conformed to the habits of civili- 
zation and received the doctrines of Christianity, under 
the influence of the French colonists and the Roman 
Catholic priests, who certainly diffused more of the 
knowledge and principles of the Christian religion among 
the North American Indians than the Protestant mission- 
aries have. These half-civilized Indians retained some 
of the good, and of the evil qualities of their original 
stock. Though they generally professed the Roman 
Catholic religion, it was mixed with some of their ancient 
superstitions, especially their belief in omens and charms. 
These men were often employed for a stated time by the 
company as trappers and canoemen, though on lower 
terms than were allowed to the white men, but generally 
in the end they became free trappers. 
“The voyageurs may be said to have sprung up out of 
the fur trade, having been originally employed by the 
early French merchants in their trading expeditions 
through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes of the bound- 
less interior. They were coeval with the coureurs des ■ 
bois, or rangers of the woods, already noticed, and like 
them, in the intervals of their long and laborious expedi- 
tions, were prone to pass their time in idleness and revelry 
about the trading posts or settlements squandering their 
hard earnings in heedless conviviality, and rivalling their 
neighbors, the Indians, in indolent indulgence and an im- 
provident disregard of to-morrow. Their dress is gen- 
erally half-civilized, half-savage. They wear a capot, or 
outside coat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, 
cloth trowsers, or leather leggins, moccasins, or deerskin 
shoes, without a sole, and ornamented on the upper, and 
a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended 
a knife, tobacco pouch and other implements. Their lan- 
guage is of the same piebald character, being a French 
patois, embroidered with Indian and English words and 
phrases. Their lives are passed in wild and extensive 
rovings in the service of individuals, but more especially 
of the fur traders. They are generally of French descent, 
and inherit much of the gaiety and light-heartedness of 
t'ceir ancestors, being full of anecdote and song, and ever 
ready for the dance. They inherit, too, a fund of civility 
and complaisance, and instead of that hardness and gross- 
ness which men in laborious life are apt to indulge to- 
ward each other, they are naturally obliging and accom- 
modating, interchanging kind offices, yielding each other 
assistance and comfort in every emergency, and using the 
familiar and affectionate appellations of ‘cousin’ and 
‘brother’ when there is, in fact, no relationship. Their 
natural good will is probably heightened by a com- 
munity of adventure and hardship in their precarious and 
vandering life. No men are more submissive to their 
leaders and employers, more capable of enduring hardship, 
or more good humored under privations. Never are they 
so happy as when on long and rough expeditions, toiling 
up rivers, or coasting lakes on the borders of which they 
encamp at night, gossip round their fires and bivouac in 
the open air. They are dexterous boatmen, vigorous and 
adroit with the oar and paddle, and will row from morn- 
ing till night without a murmur. The steersman often 
sings an old traditionary French song with some regular 
chorus, in which they all join, keeping time with their 
oars ; and if at any time they flag in spirits or relax in 
exertion it is but necessary to strike up a song of the kind 
to put them all in fresh spirits and activity. The Cana- 
dian waters are, vocal with these songs, that have been 
echoed from mouth to mouth and transmitted from father 
to son, from the earliest days of the colony, and it has a 
pleasing effect to see in a still, golden summer evening 
a batteaux gliding across the bosom of the lake, dipping 
its oars to the cadence of these quaint old ditties, or 
sweeping along in full chorus on a bright sunny morning 
down the transparent current of one of the Canadian 
rivers.” 
The food of these out-door people was drawn exclusive- 
ly from the country which they inhabited, and was exclu- 
sively animal. They had neither bread nor vegetables, 
but lived on the mammals, birds and fishes that could be 
captured. Dunn quotes Mr. Simpson as follows : “ ‘On 
Christmas and New Year’s days we entertained our as- 
sembled people with a dance, followed by a supper con- 
sisting of the best fare we could command. By this time 
we had, through our indefatigable exertions, accumulated 
two or three weeks’ provisions in advance, and no scar- 
city was experienced during the remainder of the season. : 
The daily rations served out to each man was increased ; 
from eight to ten, and to some individuals twelve pounds 
of venison, or, when they could be got, four or five white- i 
fish weighing froin fifteen to twenty pounds. This quan- 
tity of solid food, immoderate as it may appear, does not 
exceed the average standard of the country, and ought ' 
certainly to satisfy the inordinate appetite of a French- 
Canadian; yet, there was one of them who complained he 
had not enough, and did not scruple to help himself to an i 
additional supply whenever the opportunity offered — it ■ 
would have taken twenty pounds of animal food daily to ■ 
satisfy him.’ ” j 
Writing of the life at Red River, our author presents ■ 
a brief but spirited picture of buffalo hunting by the Red ■ 
River half-breeds. He says : 
“At Red River the buffaloes are now seldom taken in 
pounds. Here it may be observed that to a stranger the ■ 
