Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark Page A
Authors: Peter Stark
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had received a “liberal” education as a youth in Scotland, but, as the embodiment of a man of action, he hated to sit still to write or keep a journal, except for the briefest of directional notes scrawled in charcoal on beaver skins.
“To travel a day’s journey on snowshoes was his delight,” wrote Ross, who knew Mackenzie well. “When not asleep, he was always on foot, strolling backwards and forwards, full of plans and projects; so peculiar was his pedestrian habit, that he went by the name of ‘Perpetual Motion.’ ”
Mackenzie’s presence on the Overland Party was a major reason Astor felt comfortable allowing Hunt, a neophyte in the woods, to co-lead it. But now the first difference in philosophy arose between the two, and the argument grew fierce before they could reach a compromise. Finally, they agreed to hire twelve voyageurs at Montreal to paddle them up the Great Lakes to Mackinac Island. The remainder they’d hire en route when they passed through two major fur trading centers in the continent’s interior—Mackinac Island and St. Louis.
H UNT O VERLAND P ARTY , J ULY –N OVEMBER 1810
Before heading into the wilderness, the voyageurs accompanying Hunt and Mackenzie underwent their ritual leave-taking from their village near Montreal—farewells with family and friends, carousals with drink and women, a confession at the Chapel of St. Anne, the patroness of voyageurs. Their big freight canoe, called a Montreal canoe or a canot du maître, was close to forty feet long and about six feet wide, able to carry about four tons. Once the voyageurs were ready, and with Hunt and Mackenzie aboard, they paddled their canoe briskly from Montreal on the regular route up a network of rivers toward the head of the Great Lakes, about five hundred miles away.
A voyageur canoe, for several centuries, was by far the fastest mode of transportation into the wild heart of the North American continent. Propelled by the powerful arms of the voyageurs, commanded by the steersman, and paddling in exact unison at forty to sixty strokes per minute, these canoes surged through the water at four to six miles per hour, a remarkable speed. Paddling twelve to fifteen hours per day, with short breaks while afloat for a pipe of tobacco (they measured distances in terms of “pipes”) or a stop ashore for a mug of tea, they could cover fifty to ninety miles per day, unless they faced strong headwinds or waves that forced them to the shelter of shore, a state called degradé . During that single day each voyageur would make more than thirty thousand paddle strokes. On the upper Great Lakes, the canoes traversed hundreds of miles of empty, forested shorelines and vast stretches of clear water without ports or settlements or sails, except for the scattered Indian encampment. They camped along shore wherever convenient, kindling a fire and wrapping themselves in blankets or furs beneath the shelter of their overturned canoes. During portages, each voyageur hauled two 90-pound packets of pelts on his back—a staggering 180 pounds, one packet suspended from a tumpline around his forehead, the other resting atop it on his back—a half mile at a time between designated rest stops, then returned for additional loads. Some of the portages went on for ten miles, and a notorious one lasted for forty.
A Great Lakes traveler in the early 1800s timed the voyageurs with whom he rode during a shore break. They landed their canoe, climbed out, unloaded its cargo, kindled a fire, melted spruce pitch, repaired a tear in the overturned birch-bark hull, reloaded the canoe, cooked breakfast, shaved, washed, climbed back in the canoe, and paddled off, in fifty-seven minutes.
“I can liken them to nothing but their own ponies,” he wrote. “They are short, thick set, and active, and never tire.”
Wrote another: “[T]hey haven’t lost an iota of French gaiety, which differs so strikingly from the glacial sang-froid of Americans.”
Unlike
“To travel a day’s journey on snowshoes was his delight,” wrote Ross, who knew Mackenzie well. “When not asleep, he was always on foot, strolling backwards and forwards, full of plans and projects; so peculiar was his pedestrian habit, that he went by the name of ‘Perpetual Motion.’ ”
Mackenzie’s presence on the Overland Party was a major reason Astor felt comfortable allowing Hunt, a neophyte in the woods, to co-lead it. But now the first difference in philosophy arose between the two, and the argument grew fierce before they could reach a compromise. Finally, they agreed to hire twelve voyageurs at Montreal to paddle them up the Great Lakes to Mackinac Island. The remainder they’d hire en route when they passed through two major fur trading centers in the continent’s interior—Mackinac Island and St. Louis.
H UNT O VERLAND P ARTY , J ULY –N OVEMBER 1810
Before heading into the wilderness, the voyageurs accompanying Hunt and Mackenzie underwent their ritual leave-taking from their village near Montreal—farewells with family and friends, carousals with drink and women, a confession at the Chapel of St. Anne, the patroness of voyageurs. Their big freight canoe, called a Montreal canoe or a canot du maître, was close to forty feet long and about six feet wide, able to carry about four tons. Once the voyageurs were ready, and with Hunt and Mackenzie aboard, they paddled their canoe briskly from Montreal on the regular route up a network of rivers toward the head of the Great Lakes, about five hundred miles away.
A voyageur canoe, for several centuries, was by far the fastest mode of transportation into the wild heart of the North American continent. Propelled by the powerful arms of the voyageurs, commanded by the steersman, and paddling in exact unison at forty to sixty strokes per minute, these canoes surged through the water at four to six miles per hour, a remarkable speed. Paddling twelve to fifteen hours per day, with short breaks while afloat for a pipe of tobacco (they measured distances in terms of “pipes”) or a stop ashore for a mug of tea, they could cover fifty to ninety miles per day, unless they faced strong headwinds or waves that forced them to the shelter of shore, a state called degradé . During that single day each voyageur would make more than thirty thousand paddle strokes. On the upper Great Lakes, the canoes traversed hundreds of miles of empty, forested shorelines and vast stretches of clear water without ports or settlements or sails, except for the scattered Indian encampment. They camped along shore wherever convenient, kindling a fire and wrapping themselves in blankets or furs beneath the shelter of their overturned canoes. During portages, each voyageur hauled two 90-pound packets of pelts on his back—a staggering 180 pounds, one packet suspended from a tumpline around his forehead, the other resting atop it on his back—a half mile at a time between designated rest stops, then returned for additional loads. Some of the portages went on for ten miles, and a notorious one lasted for forty.
A Great Lakes traveler in the early 1800s timed the voyageurs with whom he rode during a shore break. They landed their canoe, climbed out, unloaded its cargo, kindled a fire, melted spruce pitch, repaired a tear in the overturned birch-bark hull, reloaded the canoe, cooked breakfast, shaved, washed, climbed back in the canoe, and paddled off, in fifty-seven minutes.
“I can liken them to nothing but their own ponies,” he wrote. “They are short, thick set, and active, and never tire.”
Wrote another: “[T]hey haven’t lost an iota of French gaiety, which differs so strikingly from the glacial sang-froid of Americans.”
Unlike
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