ASTORIA; OR, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
BY WASHINGTON IRVING
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
IN THE COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I
became intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners
of the great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in
genial style at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the
stranger. At their hospitable boards I occasionally met with
partners, and clerks, and hardy fur traders from the interior
posts; men who had passed years remote from civilized society,
among distant and savage tribes, and who had wonders to recount
of their wide and wild peregrinations, their hunting exploits,
and their perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes among the
Indians. I was at an age when imagination lends its coloring to
everything, and the stories of these Sinbads of the wilderness
made the life of a trapper and fur trader perfect romance to me.
I even meditated at one time a visit to the remote posts of the
company in the boats which annually ascended the lakes and
rivers, being thereto invited by one of the partners; and I have
ever since regretted that I was prevented by circumstances from
carrying my intention into effect. From those early impressions,
the grand enterprise of the great fur companies, and the
hazardous errantry of their associates in the wild parts of our
vast continent, have always been themes of charmed interest to
me; and I have felt anxious to get at the details of their
adventurous expeditions among the savage tribes that peopled the
depths of the wilderness.
About two years ago, not long after my return from a tour upon
the prairies of the far West, I had a conversation with my
friend, Mr. John Jacob Astor, relative to that portion of our
country, and to the adventurous traders to Santa Fe and the
Columbia. This led him to advert to a great enterprise set on
foot and conducted by him, between twenty and thirty years since,
having for its object to carry the fur trade across the Rocky
Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the Pacific.
Finding that I took an interest in the subject, he expressed a
regret that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its
national character and importance had never been understood, and
a wish that I would undertake to give an account of it. The
suggestion struck upon the chord of early associations already
vibrating in my mind. It occurred to me that a work of this kind
might comprise a variety of those curious details, so interesting
to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its remote and
adventurous enterprises, and of the various people, and tribes,
and castes, and characters, civilized and savage, affected by its
operations. The journals, and letters, also, of the adventurers
by sea and land employed by Mr. Astor in his comprehensive
project, might throw light upon portions of our country quite out
of the track of ordinary travel, and as yet but little known. I
therefore felt disposed to undertake the task, provided documents
of sufficient extent and minuteness could be furnished to me. All
the papers relative to the enterprise were accordingly submitted
to my inspection. Among them were journals and letters narrating
expeditions by sea, and journeys to and fro across the Rocky
Mountains by routes before untravelled, together with documents
illustrative of savage and colonial life on the borders of the
Pacific. With such material in hand, I undertook the work. The
trouble of rummaging among business papers, and of collecting and
collating facts from amidst tedious and commonplace details, was
spared me by my nephew, Pierre M. Irving, who acted as my
pioneer, and to whom I am greatly indebted for smoothing my path
and lightening my labors.
As the journals, on which I chiefly depended, had been kept by
men of business, intent upon the main object of the enterprise,
and but little versed in science, or curious about matters not
immediately bearing upon their interest, and as they were written
often in moments of fatigue or hurry, amid the inconveniences of
wild encampments, they were often meagre in their details,
furnishing hints to provoke rather than narratives to satisfy
inquiry. I have, therefore, availed myself occasionally of
collateral lights supplied by the published journals of other
travellers who have visited the scenes described: such as Messrs.
Lewis and Clarke, Bradbury, Breckenridge, Long, Franchere, and
Ross Cox, and make a general acknowledgment of aid received from
these quarters.
The work I here present to the public is necessarily of a
rambling and somewhat disjointed nature, comprising various
expeditions and adventures by land and sea. The facts, however,
will prove to be linked and banded together by one grand scheme,
devised and conducted by a master spirit; one set of characters,
also, continues throughout, appearing occasionally, though
sometimes at long intervals, and the whole enterprise winds up by
a regular catastrophe; so that the work, without any labored
attempt at artificial construction, actually possesses much of
that unity so much sought after in works of fiction, and
considered so important to the interest of every history.
WASHINGTON IRVING
CHAPTER I.
Objects of American Enterprise. Gold Hunting and Fur Trading.
Their Effect on Colonization. Early French Canadian Settlers.
Ottawa and Huron Hunters. An Indian Trading Camp. Coureurs Des
Bois, or Rangers of the Woods. Their Roaming Life. Their Revels
and Excesses. Licensed Traders. Missionaries. Trading
Posts. Primitive French Canadian Merchant. His Establishment and
Dependents. British Canadian Fur Merchant. Origin of the
Northwest Company. Its Constitution. Its Internal Trade. A
Candidate for the Company. Privations in the
Wilderness. Northwest Clerks. Northwest Partners. Northwest
Nabobs. Feudal Notions in the Forests. The Lords of the
Lakes. Fort William. Its Parliamentary Hall and Banqueting
Room. Wassailing in the Wilderness.
TWO leading objects of commercial gain have given birth to wide
and daring enterprise in the early history of the Americas; the
precious metals of the South, and the rich peltries of the North.
While the fiery and magnificent Spaniard, inflamed with the mania
for gold, has extended his discoveries and conquests over those
brilliant countries scorched by the ardent sun of the tropics,
the adroit and buoyant Frenchman, and the cool and calculating
Briton, have pursued the less splendid, but no less lucrative,
traffic in furs amidst the hyperborean regions of the Canadas,
until they have advanced even within the Arctic Circle.
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