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In the course of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I became
intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners of the great
North-West 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 hairbreadth escapes
among the Indians. I was at an age when the imagination lends its
colouring to every thing, 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 enterprises 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 materials 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 labours.
As the journals, on which I chiefly depended, bad 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 interests, 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 dis-jointed 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 laboured attempt at artificial construe Ion, actually
possesses much of that unity always sought after in works of fiction,
and considered so important to the interest of every history.
Washington Irving.
Sept. 1836.
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