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 bad 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 xrses 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}' - 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, 
