University of Virginia Library

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 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 coloring 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 Fé and the Columbia. This led him to advert to a
great enterprize 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 common-place 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 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 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.