Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (38 page)

134
The voyageurs instead planned to hew canoes:
For a hands-out study of the relative merits of dugout canoes hewn from cottonwood trunks, see William W. Bevis, “The Dugout Canoes of Lewis and Clark” at “Discovering Lewis & Clark,” lewis-clark.org, 2014.

135
clear view of the Tetons’ snowy and rocky peaks
: From visit to put-in point as marked by historical marker, near St. Anthony, Idaho, by author, April 2012.

136
fifteen large and heavily loaded canoes
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 275.

“Three bonnie ducks go swimming ’round”:
Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 131, translation of voyageur song “En Roulant Ma Boule.”

CHAPTER TEN

138
They were happy
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 276.

139
“I sent my canoe and one other to the rescue”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for October 20, 1811.

Hunt had split off the first “string” or “leash” of trappers
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 170. The first leash, splitting off east of the Tetons on the Mad River, was Alexander Carson, Louis St. Michel, Pierre Detayé, and Pierre Delauney. The second leash, splitting off at the canoe-building and put-in spot where Andrew Henry had wintered, was Robinson, Hoback, Reznor, Cass, plus Miller. See Irving,
Astoria,
p. 171. Thus nine trappers split off altogether.

An estimated 60–400 million beaver
: Steve Boyle and Stephanie Owens,
North American Beaver (Castor canadensis): A Technical Conservation Assessment,
prepared for USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region, Species Conservation Project, February 6, 2007, http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/projects/scp/assessments/northamericanbeaver.pdf, retrieved October 3, 2013, p. 10. For more details on the beaver’s role in the fur trade and its habits and habitat see also Eric Jay Dolin,
Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
(New York: Norton, 2010), pp. 13–23, and Innis,
The Fur Trade in Canada,
pp. 3–6.

140
Fur trappers exploited this habit
: Kent Klein, “Trapping Techniques of the Mountain Man,” HistoricalTrekking.com, p. 6, retrieved October 3, 2013. Klein assembles excerpts from early explorers’ and trappers’ journals on methods of trapping beaver.

141
that he would not be going to the Pacific Coast
: Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 273–74.

“[He] had been in a gloomy and irritable state of mind”
: Ibid., p. 171.

143
“
[H]is fear of us was so great”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for October 26, 1811.

144
they approached the entrance to a canyon
: Ibid., journal entry for October 28, 1811.

but the steersman didn’t hear him
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 281.

145
the basalt boulder
: Boulder location described in Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series: “Site of Ramsay Crooks 1811 Canoe Disaster.”

146 At the clear running fountain: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 106, translation of “A La Claire Fountaine” (The Clear Running Fountain), one of the most popular voyageur boatsongs.

147
The following day, October 29, their tenth
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for October 29, 1811.

148
The other three canoes snagged among exposed rocks
: Ibid., entries for October 31 and November 1, 1811; Irving,
Astoria,
p. 283.

340 miles upstream
: Ibid., p. 179.

burn 6,000 calories daily
: Auerbach,
Wilderness Medicine,
p. 158.

149
With a pound of bison, elk, deer, or comparable lean game animal
: A 3-ounce piece of roasted elk is 124 calories, 1 ounce of roasted venison 46 calories, and 3 ounces of lean bison is 122 calories, according to http://caloriecount.about.com. A pound of elk would thus provide 657 calories and a pound of deer would provide 736 calories. Even without exertion or cold weather, an adult male needs around 2,000 calories per day, which would require an adult male to consume around 3 pounds minimum per person of deer or elk or bison. The Overland Party included 50 people, each of them requiring 3 pounds of wild game meat per day, or 150 pounds per day for the whole party. A large elk provides around 200–300 pounds of boneless meat, and a bison about 500 pounds, so the Overland Party would need to kill a large game animal every three to four days or possibly every day or two, if the animal were smaller.

elk (200–300 pounds of boneless meat)
: “The Elk Carcass,” University of Wyoming. See table at http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d45/2rocky/Hunting/elkmeatyield.jpg.

bison (400–500 pounds of boneless meat):
Ag Canada La Combe Research Centre, http://www.canadianbison.ca/producer/Resources/documents/ExpectedMeatYieldfromaBisonBullCarcass.pdf.

150
would head in different directions
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for November 1, 1811; Irving,
Astoria,
p. 284.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

153
“[F]or the greater part nothing that walks the earth”
: Robert Stuart,
Robert Stuart’s Narratives,
in
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail,
ed. Philip Ashton Rollins (New York: Scribner’s, 1935), p. 112. Stuart is describing on the return journey the stretch of river from thirty miles below Caldron Linn to Caldron Linn, or the stretch known as the “Devil’s Scuttle Hole.” (Today this is known as Murtaugh Canyon.)

154
“The women fled in such haste”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for November 11, 1811.

156
Yellowstone hot spot
: Joel Achenbach, “When Yellowstone Explodes,”
National Geographic,
August 2009.

Today that melted path is known as the Snake River Plain
: Mark Anders, “Yellowstone Hotspot Track” (map).

158
a horse he considered a friend
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for November 27, 1811. “I could eat it only with regret because I had become attached to the poor animal.”

159
one of the voyageurs, Sardepie
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 299. In this account of the meeting between Hunt and Crooks parties in the canyon, I’ve relied on both Hunt’s journals as well as Irving’s account, which fills in many details not found in Hunt. Irving, when writing his account, had access to several of the surviving participants, including Crooks. The details he includes of this incident clearly came from some of these interviews with particpants.

For the first eighteen days
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 300.

160
“It was impossible for men in their condition to get through”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 6, 1811.

161
“I spent the night reflecting on our situation”
: Ibid., journal entry for December 6, 1811.

The physical sight of Crooks that day had come as a shock
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), pp. 299–300.

162
“sepulchral”
: John Franklin, “Franklin’s First Retreat,” in
Ring of Ice: True Tales of Adventure, Exploration, and Arctic Life,
ed. Peter Stark (New York: Lyons Press, 2000).

CHAPTER TWELVE

164
treasured their fine set of “plate”
: “The Will of John Jacob Astor,” in Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 2, pp. 1260–96. Astor made several stipulations about how his “plate” was to be distributed after his death. Other references to his and Sarah’s practices to entertain guests give special importance to their “silver plate.”

revelry and pot-banging raucousness
: Stephen Nissenbaum,
The Battle for Christmas,
Kindle ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), loc. 1108. Nissenbaum also cites a reference for Washington Irving’s role in shaping our modern Christmas and developing the tradition of Santa Claus, quoting an article by Charles Jones. “Without Washington Irving there would be no Santa Claus. . . . Santa Claus was
made
by Washington Irving.” See ibid., loc. 1409, and chapter 2 fn. 20. Nissenbaum quotes from Charles Jones, “Knickerbocker Santa Claus,”
New-York Historical Society Quarterly
38 (1954): 356–83 (see 367–71).

165
details of a contract
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 86.

166
“Since I had the pleasure of speaking with you”
: Astor to Jefferson, March 14, 1812, in Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 508.

“[A]t all events, I think we must be ahead of them”
: Astor to Jefferson, March 12, 1812, in ibid.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

170
“What a prospect!”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 6, 1811.

171
Ramsay Crooks and Le Clerc soon staggered far behind
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 302, and Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 7, 1811.

small groups and lone travelers pushed ahead
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 302.

Crooks and Le Clerc could ferry themselves
: Ibid., p. 303.

“They said that we would all die from starvation”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 8, 1811.

five men remained
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 303.

173
managed to buy (Hunt’s account) or grab (Irving’s account)
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 10, 1811; Irving,
Astoria,
p. 305.

“[H]overing like spectres of famine”
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 305.

clapped his hands in delight
: Ibid., p. 306.

174
“Thus for twenty days
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 16, 1811.

after about ten to twelve weeks
: Peter Stark,
Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), p. 112.

175
“But to remain in this place would be still worse”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 19, 1811.

176
“a gentleman of the mildest disposition”
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 52.

“I ended by telling the Indians”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 19, 1811.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

177 “La maudite riviêre enragée”: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 310.

“[They] told me that since we had left”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 21–23, 1811.

Three of these weakened voyageurs
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 310, and Rollins,
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail,
p. 325, notes 235 and 236, and account on p. lxxxvii. These three voyageurs who opted to stay behind were Jean Baptiste Turcotte, André LaChapelle, and François Landry. In addition Hunt had left behind the weakened Crooks and Day, plus the voyageur Dubreuil.

179
make about fifteen miles per day
: Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 199, says fourteen miles a day. Hunt’s journal indicates 106 miles in about six days, which would be about seventeen miles per day.

Carriere, simply lay down
: Ibid., p. 311.

carry both La Bonté and La Bonté’s twenty-five-pound pack
: Ibid., p. 312.

“They . . . had so often given me erroneous reports”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 30, 1811.

180
“Silence and isolation”
: Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa),
The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), pp. 28–30.

181
“His wife rode horseback with her newly born child in her arms”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for December 31, 1811. The location of the Dorion baby birth site was near today’s North Powder, Baker Valley, Oregon, according to Rollins,
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail,
p. 325 fn. 247.

then the fork of a creek
: Rollins,
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail,
p. 325 fn. 248, for the probable exact route in various stream drainages of the Blue Mountains.

182
“[W]e were at a point as high as the mountains”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for January 4, 1812.

183
They spotted a sprawling Indian encampment
: Ibid., journal entry for January 8, 1812.

“I cannot thank Providence enough”
: Ibid.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

187
the ship had logged 21,852 miles
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 68.

188
McDougall and David Stuart, in the longboat
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 99–101; see also Irving,
Astoria,
p. 88, and Ross,
Adventures,
p. 68.

“[Comcomly] received them with all imaginable hospitality”
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 101.

189
Upstream, they could see
: Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 70–71.