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.