So im going to tell some stories, and you oregonians may know some of the stories, and you may not know others. But ill start with how i came to this story. And, actually, whats surprising about it is how this story was very well known in its day. In 1836 when Washington Irving was commissioned by John Jacob Astor to write the story of these events 20 years after they occurred, irvings book, also called astoria, was a best seller of 1836. And those events have been largely forgotten in the american consciousness. I think you in oregon know a little bit more about them or im sure some of you know a lot more about them. But in the national consciousness, theyre largely forgotten, except among historians and people who really follow western history. So it is a really important story. Its historically significant, and its a great adventure story. And thats partly what attracted me to it. And its also a story that i feel needs to be told because those events have had a big impact on the shape of the north American Continent, and on the course of american empire. These events that happened over these three years from 1810 to 1813. So i stumbled across this story just kind of randomly. And there are many things about being a freelance writer which i have been for almost 30 years now, that are a struggle. You know, uncertain income, uncertainty of all sorts. But one of the delightful things about being a freelance writer is how one story, one idea can lead to another. And thats what happened in this case. And so in, what was it, seven or eight years ago i was working on my last book doing research, a book called the last empty profiled fourch i really unpopulated areas of the country. And, of course, one of them, of those unpopulated areas of the country had to be Eastern Oregon as im sure some of you can guess. And one evening, i was going down an empty highway in oregon and it was getting dark and it was starting to think that would that i would have to sleep on the side of the road. But i did come across a hotel. And i spent the night there. And i had some gratitude for that place to spend the night there. And when i woke up, i thought my how did the town get the name of john day . I know you all heard of that town and the river, many things in oregon are named john day. But im not sure Everybody Knows how they got their name. So i did a little bit of research in john day. Historicalnearby society. And it turned out that john day was one of these original historians that was part of this huge overland expedition sent by John Jacob Astor from new york, in 1810, to found the First American colony on the west coast, and what they hoped would be a transit pacific transpacific trade empire. John day, i did not know the story at that point, i just knew that he was this guy that had i am trying to think where his trauma started. He was a kentucky hunter. , nearlynded up being starving to death, poisoning himself with root that he byught was edible, survived shooting a wolf and eating the skin, which he was helped by a number of indians and he was left behind by his main party. Through thered winter, trying to find the tracks of his party. And indians he thought would help him, stripped him of all his clothes and sent him into the wilderness with nothing. And after that, john day was just about done with the wilderness. He was traumatized and it turned out that he eventually had to go back the same way that he had came and he pretty curly ready curly that clearly had symptoms of ptsd and he tried to shoot himself. He did not succeed, he survived. And then he was sent back. And ive read the story of john day and i thought, that is one incredible story. To have a town named after that. And the more i look into that story, i realized that this was just one little tiny part of this huge undertaking that John Jacob Astor had sent to the Pacific Coast. So that got me intrigued. The more i looked into it, the more i started to look at it like, this is a story that should be told in a book. I am an adventure writer and these are the stories i love, so i took it on as a book project. And fortunately i found a very willing publisher with harpercollins. In the introduction you heard about what the exhibition was. Had a vision of a global trade empire on the pacific rim, this was five years after lewis and clarke came out here. And Thomas Jefferson had the same vision. And John Jacob Astor came up with the idea and approached jefferson with it. They met in the white house and jefferson gave his endorsement. And it was John Jacob Astors idea to capture all of the furs in the western part of the continent. He wanted to follow them through a settlement at the mouth of the clubby river and sell them to china. Would china, these furs fetch extremely high prices, because the chinese mandarins used sea otter furs, extremely luxurious, Something Like 100 million hairs per square inch to make the finest codes of any codes coats in the world. John jacob astor, he was not the first on the west coast, but he was one of the earlier ones and he came up with the idea of sending trade goods from new york around cape horn by ship to the mouth of the columbia, trading them to the coastal indians that were here for first. Furs. ,nd then taking them to china trading them to the chinese for a criminal markups four incredible markups, and then taking the luxury goods of china like porcelain and soaks si lks, back to london and new york. So he wanted a fleet of ships circling the globe continuously and trading goods all along the way, each with an incredible markup. And Thomas Jefferson had a vision of, he was hoping that astors settlement would be the first seeds of an american, or of a democracy, he was not even saying it was an american democracy. He thought it would be the first seeds of a democracy on the west coast. And Something Like a sister democracy to the United States. Spread toacy would the east and the two of them would join in the middle and make a whole country of democracy. So that is the background. So what i will do is, i will about ile bit will be reading a snippet about the characters. That is what attracted me to the story. There are some really distinctly different leaders, different personalities and they react in very different ways in these circumstances and their personalities and reactions in these, in the course of these expeditions going across the country, determined and a lot of what happened in the years to follow and actually the decades that followed. So in some ways, you can trace history back to the pivotal moments, but in some ways these personalities shaped our destiny as a western empire on the continent. One i will read is a woman that some of you in oregon may know, named marie dorian. She was the wife of peter pierre dorian, and he was a translator. There were two expeditions, one another. And and he was the interpreter for lewis and clarke about five years earlier. Waspeter dorian junior married to marie dorian who was a native American Woman from the iowa tribe. And dorian insisted that his wife come along, even though she was not enthusiastic about the idea. She had two small toddlers, two boys, and she also learned that she was pregnant and route. She ended up, her story is like sacagawea several times over, she has the most incredible survival story you can imagine. Missoula, where i am from, a historian, Sally Thompson has studied a lot about lewis and clarke and pointed out to me as i was researching the story that sacagawea and marie dorian probably meant, almost surely met, and that got me interested in doing the research to see if they did. And they certainly did, they were in the same camp. This is when sacagawea was going back up river to, i think to the villages, and marie dorian was with a party that was going up the river for the first time. So sally said, well, i have boys wondered what sacagawea said to marie dorian, and wouldnt that be an interesting conversation to overhear . So i have tried to speculate a little bit. Is, i am, this speculating. This is a nonfiction book. Whatever happened, happened club that i say that this is one likes to think what they might have said to each other. It is likely marie dorian and the sacagawea knew each other, two women and a small settlement. Both interpreters in the firstrate. What would sacagawea have told marie dorian . It will be very long, and very difficult to reach the ocean. You and your children will suffer. By then, five years after the journey with lewis and clark, sacagawea had adopted european dress and manners. She may have understood that whites with powerful guns and endless numbers and the urge for farmland in profit, had just begun their long reach toward the western ocean. She may have understood that these first expeditions going west, represented the beginnings of the end for her people and their ancient way of life. Her saying to marie dorian, do not go. [laughter] , because theym will go to our homeland no matter if we join them or not. Or, you will see amazing things. Organizing into four riverboats that had 20 tons of goods and equipment and a sales. The Overland Party and barks from the winter camp on april 21, april 1911. They hope to reach the pacific as they expected, in late summer or autumn. So the second passage im reading takes place as theyre going up the river from their winter camp which is a little, about 400 miles upriver from st. Louis. And as i mentioned that they were to follow the lewis and clark trail which, of course, goes up the missouri and then over the northern be rockies to the columbia and down the columbia. Well, they went up the missouri and the further they went, the they heardtories about the ferocity of the indians at the headwaters of the missouri. The leader of the party was a young, new jersey businessman wasd wilson prize hunt, who known as a nice guy, very serious minded and very conscientious. He liked to lead by consensus. But he had a great shortcoming. He had never been in the wilderness before. Astor chose him that he would remain chosen because he knew that he would remain loyal to him. Best inooking for the the firstrate business and those happened to be for trade business and happened to fur traders, but they were loyal to the crown. So he had hunt leader the party, it was about 60 people. That is huge. Several scottish family, and hunt and his. And dorian and that family. So as they are going up the river, they are hearing the stories about the first of the tribe. Problems, one small scouting party had killed two young blackfeet and they had left a jefferson medal hanging around one of the next of the s of thet neck blackfeet and then fled the territory. And the blackfeet were still very angry about that insult. So there is a Previous Party going up the columbia at the headwaters going up the missouri, at the headwaters, and it had disappeared. And nobody knew quite what happened. So as the party is going up the missouri, one day in may of 1811, they are sitting on the riverbank dressing after the morning rowing. They are having breakfast and a c two canoes coming down the two canoes coming down the river and a signal them and it turns out there are three kentuckians that are survivors of the massacre of the missouri. And one of them is wearing, a 66yearold kentuckian is wearing a scarf around his head. And underneath, he has been scalped and he has survived. Scalped inally been ohio earlier, but he did survive this massacre. This impressed deeply on hunt and the three trappers said, you do not want to go to the headwaters of the blackfeet, the headwaters of the missouri, but we know a better way. We know a way that you can leave the missouri strike out the , over land come across several Mountain Ranges and we think we can take you to a river that is part of the headwaters of the columbia. We think we can get you there. And that meant for wilson price striking out into what appeared to be 1000 miles of totally unchartered terrain. So hunt, the serious conscientious business man had to deliberate what to do. So that is the next passage im decision in the situation. Before the boats made progress upriver and under sale that day, the day that they had breakfast and a method trappers coming down under sail that day and , camp that night may 27, 1811 on little cedar island, there milesw an estimated 1075 up the river from st. Louis. The island was a botanical wonderland that grew in the center, surrounded by vines and flowers. Voyagers and woodsmen chopped new mass from the cedars to replace the damaged ones. , while theyists scrambled about collecting plants, hunt was distracted by his own problems. He had to decide whether to turn from the missouri. The best possible routes became a subject of anxious inquiry, he wrote that night camping on cedar island. He questioned the three kentuckians about their proposal and he consulted with two other trappers that had traveled the upper missouri, carson and jones. Mr. Astor introduced him to try to reach a consensus among the partners. Hunt told him, as he would throughout the jury hold them polled them, as they would , on their the journey opinions on which way to go. One picture on the Narrow Island granted a certain safety from indian attack with a large fire throwing yellow sparks toward the diamond bright prairie stars. One woman and two children pressed in toward the comfort. Perhaps they move between the fire and the tens interviewing and deliberating. In the vast prairie night and the whole western continent behind this tiny growing circle of warmth and humanity. Which mountains would let them pass . Wilson price hunt for the first time tasted the unknown. Though though the flavor might intoxicate it intoxicate a young man, hunt who is responsible for a great many people and expectations of great men, found it neither exhilarating or romantic. On the one hand, they were the blackfeet warriors that surely awaited him. And on the other, the wrath of leaving the missouri into striking over land, going south of the blackfeet where the party might wander lost over snowing Mountain Ranges and through the starvation deserts. What might have come as a starting the revelation about striking out into the unknown is that with all the questions confronting one could be monday, this river drainage or another, the implications are profound and sometimes fatal. Decided. G, he had it is not surprising that in the choice between the near certain violent confrontation and confrontation of the blackfeet or venturing out into the great stretch of unknown, he chose the latter. One could call it a bold choice in the spirit of exploration or cowardice or a retreat into the safety of the party and for himself. Whatever their members perspective, he had made the fateful decision. The Overland Party would leave and go to the south of the route, avoiding the blackfeet and going on foot and horseback into the great swath of uncharted terrain. The decision made, hunt sat down to write mr. Astor of his change in plans. Skip back for a moment. Astor had come from germany, and weve all heard the name of the astoria, it is known for his hometown it is named after his hometown. After the new york revolutionary war. He started importing Musical Instruments from england and he exported furs from the north American Continent to london. Met on board the ship that brought them over it over, told him he could make a lot of money doing it. He had spent years laying the groundwork for this huge expedition. In all his meticulous planning and preparation, astor had not allowed for one major factor. Mountain climbers talk about exposure, meaning ones level of risk in a particular situation , on a very narrow ledge for instance, when a small mistake can result in major consequences. In 1810, when john jacob launched his great endeavor, this far edge of the north American Continent with its storms, hostile natives, extreme remoteness, difficult location, dense rain forest, it was as exposed as any inhabitable place on earth. Nor was it possible to predict the possible distorting effect that this degree of exposure would have on the personalities and leadership abilities of the men he had chosen to head the west coast empire. Under extreme stress on each , who succumbed to his own best and worst traits. For anyone that stood to gain for it, his vision was to mesmerizing. His greatest trading scheme harmoniously profoundly joined together the farseeing men. He would dominate the world for her market and the pacific rim trade and reap the profits as would his trade partners. Through John Jacob Astors partners and west coast county president jefferson and his , successors would establish a democratic outpost on the distant Pacific Coast. Jeffersons vision and grace to the entirety of the north america and other corded at the enterprise a powerful role in shaping the continents political destiny. I view your undertaking jefferson would write as the , germ of a great free and independent empire on that side of the continent and at liberty and selfgovernment spreading from that side to this side, will ensure the great establishment over the whole. So there is a lot of weight writing on hunt and his decision. Wrestling on little cedar island with his thoughts. So, another leader in this is scottish a scottish trader known by the name of duncan mcdougall. He was one of the first traders fur traders that was hired from canada, where the real experts were. And there were many different personalities among these traders and many different degrees of expertise. Well im a duncan mcdougall, this sketch of him would be well, duncan mcdougall, this show that he would looked out for himself. Feisty and manipulative. And he had made him the secondincommand of the colony. Hunt was the first in command. ,ut in the absence of hunt astor said that mcdougall should be in charge. What happened with William Price hunt in the party with the three kentuckians, they were supposed to arrive at the mouth of the columbia. It was not a story a at that point a story of at that point. Astoria at that point. And they were supposed to arrive by 1811, but the fall came and went. And they did not arrive. And mcdougall was wondering what had happened. At that point, i should back up a little bit. Comeau one expedition though, one expedition was of hunt going over land and one was a seafaring party that was led by a sea captain, jonathan thorne. U. S. , a naval hero by the a u. S. Naval hero against the pirates, a fearless guy. The ship was just stuffed with talking ship called the tonikin. There are a lot of different pronunciations. But it was stuffed with trade goods, 9000 pounds of gunpowder, and it was carrying all the porties to start astors at the mouth of the columbia. And it also captain carried captain thorn, his sailors, and it carried fur traders. The scottish fur it carried several young clerks from canada, educated young men who are always keeping the journals. Captain thorn was a very fearless guy and a very rigidly minded in this sense of discipline. So he had a boatload of boat load of her traders and voyagers and the first night out at 8 00, they were drawing pistols when the captain ordered lights out and they said no. We still want to keep socializing and smoking the pipe on deck. And it came to threats of Death Threats at that point. He tried to abandon the first traders and sale of way without them. [laughter] they are in a boat growing madly after and it keeps failing out to the sea and they keep expecting it to turn around and come back and its 6 miles out and they are going after the islands. They are uninhabited. They think they are going to die if they are left behind. Finally, what saves them is the nephew of one of the first traders is on board and he goes up and he draws to pistols and puts them under his chin and says term around the ship is instant or you are a dead man. That is only one of the misadventures on the way to columbia. There are many more but they finally do make it to columbia and they stop in hawaii. Lots of misadventures. They pick up a lot of swimmers and they are experts on canoes on a sailing and support the colony and columbia. They finally make it to the captain of the finally near columbia. We all know in this room at least applies off of the mouth of columbia which of course is columbia bar, the great sandbar that blocks the mouth of the river where the huge volume of water goes out and about huge volume of water of the Pacific Ocean and its tremendous swells over crashing end and the tides are waiting this way and that and it is in the world this day as it was banned. There is one channel through the columbia bar. Today it is stretched and its node then it was not known and shifted all the time. So the captain with his charge from John Jacob Astor is to drop the men and supplies at the mouth of columbia inside the columbia bar and then he is supposed to go on his way into the trade is upon Vancouver Island where the rich stretches of sea otter habitat were at that point, and associates in a so he is in a hurry to get across the columbia bar after all these terrible misadventures and he starts sending small boats with sailors to find the channel. They lose to boats or three of these boats and 9 of them drowned trying to find a channel over the course of three days and the free traders into some of the sailors are saying this is matt s. To go send a small boat into the very rough weather at the time but he was just relentless. So finally they get across the columbia bar. It smashes a couple times and it gets inside but they finally choose a spot for the First American colony and we know where it is. In early fall of 1811, it gets really spooky there. Their sense of exposure deepened. Their camp was nothing but a tiny clearing in the vastness of the pacific with its crushing swells and storms. It felt like the ends of the earth also will open between c and forest, and elaborate in unseen network of Indian Tribes each with friendships and animosities linked to by the hidden communication network. It was another great unknown. The ustory and astorians could only guess what were these native peoples thinking . Should they need to flee they had no one to run to and no one to hide. The exposure were profound. The nearest reliable help was at least a years journey away. Paranoia set in for mcdougal in particular. It was as if in the need for selfimportance he had drawn a target on his back. Mcdougal set himself up as the king of the northwest telling every indian chief who listened while visiting the tent of the state of his importance and the glory and the power of the empire to be. Now with stewarts party, another exploratory party kaaba coming up the columbia as well as the party traveling up the river and with the indians banished into the river strangely quiet, mcdougall realized he was a king that possessed neither counsel nor army. Perhaps he also surrounded the tribes through the prism of his own thinking. He hoped to grow wealthy and powerful from this enterprise surely knowing that there would come at least in part of the in part at the expense of the native inhabitants. Why, given the chance, wouldnt they wish to grow wealthy and powerful at his expense . Key set trade goods as well as guns and gunpowder that the tribes coveted. After the tonkin had left and stuarts party departed up the river, the indians could plainly see the treasure unguarded. The paranoia deepened. So mcdougal came up with this idea that he calls the neighboring tribes to come to the settlement and he pulls a small vial out of his pocket and says in this i hold the deadly , smallpox. And the indians had been decimated 20 years earlier by smallpox. I just have to pull off this quark and everyone dies. That is how he tries to regain power. He later marries the daughters of one of the chiefs as another insurance policy. But that is sometime later. Meanwhile before i read the last passage, we have those same wilson price hunt who was up the river making his decision at cedar island at the advice of the kentucky trappers so he ends up for some reason he doesnt really understand the urgency of winter in the mountains. Hes never been in the wilderness before. Hes already way behind the route schedule that he is supposed to be keeping. And 15mates between 10 times of gear and supply with him. He needs forces to carry all this. He stops at the villages and he starts trading for horses. The problem is they dont have quite enough horses so he scrambles are bound to tricky find more. It isnt until late july that he toally leaves for missouri head into this unknown terrain. He tracks for four months on foot and horseback. Marie and her toddlers are there. She realizes that shes pregnant and is due in december and this is july. Of course the Scottish First writing aders are are riding. Eventually they have 115 or so. You can imagine. They cross what is now the dakota is which is now wyoming over the range and over the mountains, so they are in idaho just beside and if they come to a small river and they say well we are pretty sure this leads to columbia. Here you go. So they built canoes out of cottonwood. They pile into the canoes and 30 voyagers. They start down that river and the first day everybody is happy and that river and the water is flat. By the ninth day they are going over major waterfalls. Voyages are drowning. They have to abandon the canoes and start out on foot. The problem is if they run out of food and they are in the plains of what is now Southern Idaho and the river canyon and winter is coming on. To make a long story short they end up in the canyon that is deeper as you know is the deepest in north america. They are starving. He has to make the decision whether to speed the starving partners behind. So that is another decision in his life, that is where hunt is and while mcdougal is waiting and wondering where he is he is struggling through the canyons of the River Country. He heads up to Vancouver Island and he has onboard alexander mckay, a very experienced trader who in fact crossed the continental north 10 or 12 years before louis and clark was Alexander Mackenzie of whom many of you know cross the Canadian North but is nowborder but is now the Canadian North of 1793. So alexander experienced first traders on board of the ship and they pick up an interpreter on the way up to Vancouver Island of the harbor and they end up in what is now the island near. And the interpreter said you dont want to go into the sound. The indians here have bad memories of earlier traders and resentment. He ignores them and goes in any way. I write throughout this book in a number of places about the native american tribes and the different cultures. Im not going to go into any detail at this point other than to say it was an irony that out of all of the native american tribes in north america that his parties ended up coming against two of the wealthiest ones and one of them with their incredible herds of buffalo and the other being the northwest coastal indians with the incredible salmon runs and oysters and clams and on and on. They had an incredibly rich life materially and i say in many ways the way of life was materially better than many people in london and new york at the same time. They had a very elaborate ceremonial culture, beautiful artistic traditions and these huge canoes. The interpreter goes into georgia over the negotiations at the Indian Village and meanwhile some of the canoes he is impatient so that is where the passage begins. Out of the cove the negotiations unfolded. Out on the code, negotiations unfolded less smoothly. On shore the interpreters were warmly welcomed by the village and the chiefs in the village. They pulled alongside the ships whole and they were moving in theintoclothing and weatherproof hats. The paddlers held up sea otter for us to trade and the captain and the naval hero with no experience in the indian trade on shore at the villages ordered a tempting array spread out on blankets, knives and other trade goods. An elderly indian chief claimed climbed aboard to establish the prices to trade goods. The captain made an offer. Two blankets and some smaller items in exchange for one sea otter fur. They rejected the captains offers as far too low. It was a clash of the cultures and the purest economic terms. Accounts vary as to the exact details of the interaction but follow the same general pattern as to the incident as a whole. He wanted five instead of the two that he had offered. Thorne didnt budge. He had a deal about honest pride in his nature and moreover he , held the entire sovereign race in contempt. They were at a stalemate. Jonathan wasnt a bargainer. He was a navy man with little experience offside the cultures. He believed he had given a fair price of but he entered the northwest trading culture where bargaining was a centuries old way of life. They dismissed the price and stomped off along the deck. They followed him holding up the bundle of c. L. Otter of sea otter furs. Character the captain suddenly spun about with his temper exploding. He grabbed the fur in his face. Damn your eyes shouted and kicking away the traded goods they got on the desk but he threw thomas. The others had immediately left in their canoes and they returned in the ship leader that day and when they heard what had happened, urged captain thorn to weigh anchor immediately. The indians were looking for revenge for such a deep insult. Thorne contemptuously laughed them off. You pretend to know a great deal about the indian character, he said. According to alexanders account that captured the spirit of this tense encounter whether or not the exact wording. You know nothing at all. It did not end well. But that is where i will end. Thank you very much. We can talk and take questions. [applause] feel free to get up and leave or we can keep talking about it. There is a question right there. Whats so interesting about the story is how much you have to leave out to get it in the pages. One of the pieces i thought was fascinating was during the war astoria was sold. The Canadian Company for pennies on the dollar but nonetheless it was sold to the Canadian Company and that could have ended right there. This could have been southern British Columbia except the british ship captain came in and was conquering from canadians during the war of 1812 and because of that treaty all conquered possessions had to be returned. And so it had to be returned in 1818 and so here we are in oregon and the history is full of stuff like that. If they had gotten their three months later, this would be southern British Columbia fulls that there is about half a dozen of those. You are bringing up a good point. This book focuses on these years 1810 to 1814. The aftermath, this whole region is in limbo for about 40 years after these events for just the reason you were citing. The war of 1812 broke out and this is all in the book towards the end. I focus on these expeditions the war broke out and thats made astoria a prize of potential prize of the 4. Of war. War had heard that broken out so he sold it out to north west and was subsequently made a partner. [laughter] i say he fashioned himself a golden parachute and bailed out. He died in a very nasty way into canada. There are no details about how. The epitaph is he died a terrible death. There are so many things that could have gone differently with this part of the continent. The United States might possess the entire west coast down to axico is a story had become powerful trading empire across the pacific. Vision. Asked hers it could have been any number of things. I dont want to get into many historical details but in 1818 as many of you know, the u. S. And british signed the occupation agreement for the northwest which meant either americans or british could be here even though the british had already by that time the time established themselves in this Columbia Basin region. It could have gone a lot of different ways and it could have been astoria. It could have been british or allamerican. I wonder if you can go into astor to thejacob resupply to the heart of 1812 and the struggles they had to face. It was a terrible struggle. You can imagine it was 12,000 miles around from new york and vice versa. It takes a year to get the message either way. Sorry, 25,000 miles. That was one of the big problems in astors vision is the lack of communications. He tried very desperately to communicate, but he didnt know for two years that it had exploded. Hunt eventually did arrive mostly intact but not entirely. But he had little control over what was going on and he was wanting him to stand fast and put tremendous resources behind it. Endless resources. His men didnt have the will. In hunt, i think they thought astor wasnt as going to spend as much money as he was to defend the place. At one point he spent over a year trying to convince the u. S. Navy or the president and secretary of state, everybody in washington, d. C. To send a ship to dock with columbia to defend astoria against the british navy. The navy was going to send a ship that the last minute they were diverted to fight the battle in the great lakes and so it didnt go. Stor outfitted another couple ships and bought a ship from new york to run the blockade. He sent two captains under cover. They sent the sea captains to london with a blank check to buy the british ship and sail the british ship in the company of the royal navy that probably left because they felt it was a british or russian ship. About it was one thing after another. When they were forming the Overland Party and the party that was to go by the sea did they have any idea of the difficulties the party would have in reaching astoria . That aspect of these people in difficult situation and mental stress really interests me. Could he understand that . He dragged his wagon through swamps and forests and whatnot so i think he had some understanding. Nobody realized how vast the continent was. Thats a long walk. In those days, there were tribal territories. Were deserts. The deserts were a big issue. I think he knew very little about how they would suffer. I think he learned in the long run what they did. A descendent of astor came here in 2011 to celebrate the asentennial and he is known lord astor. Did the descendents of john jacob moved to england . There is a long line of astors. Around one of the descendents 1900, moved to england and eventually became a titled aristocracy but he is a descendent of this. The one i am writing about is the founder of the dynasty and there were many descendents in the United States including the John Jacob Astor down on the titanic. That would be the great, great grandson of the one i am talking about, the founder. Dynastyone from this went to england. The one who what to astoria is related to john jacob . He was not an imposter. He was not an imposter. [laughter] the spanish were in california. Were they aware of what was going on in the northwest . They had a little bit of claim. Yes. Good point. Of course there is all this historical background i could go into. The spanish started Building Missions from california from their settlements and basically what is now mexico at the california coast and that is in the 1770s and they got as far as San Francisco about the furthest north mission and they had done it in parts of the state claim to the territory. They more or less stopped out of San Francisco and the russians started building down from alaska. So that is where the gap in the settlement was between what is now alaska and San Francisco. That was all essentially on the claim and that is what they saw was this huge chunk of the coast. I read once the russians try to put a settlement down on the coast of washington or oregon. I wasnt sure of the facts of that and ive never seen it since. I know that they were treating trading sea otter. That is a followup to the question behind you. The russians did build a fur post in california the year after astoria was founded in 1811 or 1812. It had a different name but that is about an hours drive north of San Francisco and its a Beautiful Museum for the post today. The spanish were unfair that is where the british. Hes been a settlement on the Pacific Coast and he better get out there so he sent David Thompson a wellknown explorer and the british explorer to come out to columbia and thompson got down columbia and was tagging or putting flagpoles up saying im going to build a post here and here as he went down columbia and what is now the tricity as he is going to build the post and what did he gets to . Astoria was already there. He had missed it by three months. He could have gotten there first. In the writing of history as it has has been dealt with. It seems like a book comes out every 15 or 20 years and David Labrador wrote about the early years. Your writinge about this as one that adds to the breath of the story . The books that have come out previously havent really focused on these expeditions in the depth that i have. I am an adventure writer and i focused on the exploration and the adventure and i tried to get into the minds and the physiology and at the very detailed specifics of what it was like on those overland journeys and to try to bring them to life as much as possible. So the idea of the wonderful books about astoria and that is a really well beautifully researched scholarly work about astoria and if you want a historical detail that tells everything there is to know and that wasnt really my mission. My nation, my selfappointed mission was to focus on the adventure story of these expeditions. There is such tremendous stories and a dramatic stories and the hardest thing for me was to leave things out. The difficulty with keeping things out. I wanted to use them as a lens to get into the story as a vehicle to get into the story as a way to bring the reader along into the history, so my First Priority was to tell a really good story so that is what ive done. Washington irving does a wonderful job telling the story. The sentences are long compared to ours. We are going to keep the microphone moving from one side to the other. Could you say just a little bit more about David Thompsons trip down and coming in about the same time . Like theres so much to say. So he worked for the northwest company which was the british rival, the canadian arrival. They actually worked with him at the times and proposed a partnership to start the west coast colony, and of a more or less kind of appearance lee declined and he went ahead and started one anyway. As soon as they heard he was starting one they sent a message through the interior network of rivers and lakes in the voyager canoes to as far west as they could and they sent it to David Thompson who was then exploring up in the Northern Rockies and he had been out there for several years and was just coming back east. He finally had a huge amount of exploration of mapping and they called him a stargazer because he was always mapping things. He was on his way back and he gets a message coming up by the voyager canoe is and canoes and this has got to the mountains of colombia and it isnt clear exactly what the details of the message were but immediately he tried to get to the mouth of columbia, crossed over the Rocky Mountains, have to winter up in a pass of in the Rocky Mountains with all of the snow, paddle down the columbia just another day in the life of thompson and by the time that he got there they had been there for 3 months. He went upstream and actually hung out with them. Even though they might be rivals and enemies there was a sort of cordial miss and so he was welcomed to all of the dinners and then they turned around and went back upstream. Of the most on wealthiest men in the country and you mentioned he gave a blank check for the ships in london. Why did he not give his party he did. Hunt had what amounted to a blank checkbook. One of the things i write about is having a checkbook in the bottom of hells canyon starving. It brings to mind what money can do in certain circumstances or not do. Hunt david have a blank check. Thiswas another segment of story. When he eventually got there the second arrived three months after hunt arrived to the coast of Vancouver Island in alaska that ended up being its own fiasco and they had the choice for the returning in the winter when it was stormy or going to hawaii to fix the ship and the captain convinced him to fix the ship then he ended up in the South Pacific after that and he just wanders all over the place. And he finally shows back up in a story as Something Like 15 months later and its already been sold out. What happens with this pregnant lady that was supposed to have a baby . She is this incredibly tough then and she goes through winter starvation seen. She and her family have one horse between them. They go through struggles and the whole thing. They finally get out of hells canyon. Who will some indians guide them across the Mountain Range now to the Blue Mountains in winter. Hunt convinces them to do it. And marie gives birth at the base of the Blue Mountains in the winter until late december and then they have to cross the Blue Mountains in really cold conditions and the baby dies on the top of the Blue Mountains after a week so its just one of these things and there should be a marker. I tried to trace that trail. Was she very down here in st. Joseph . There are more marie stories. She survived this incredible massacre later where a whole branch were massacred, including her husband, and she and her two boys escaped and she killed the horse, smoked the meat, hid in the Blue Mountains and in a andter all winter long hiked over the mountains into the spring came to columbia and , got canoe. Eventually years later she ended up at one of the first settlers in the valley. So when the wagon trains came out, she was already there and that was another phase of the story. There are so many stories that all of the stumbling around at the Current Party did on the way out here through the snake River Country and over the Blue Mountains and then there was a return party that went carrying messages from astoria to new york. Those two parties got a return party led by Robert Stewart that is a well known name now, they found what you all know as the oregon trail. That is how the original route was discovered from all this blind wandering around and all the way back discovered south pass. That was the key piece of geography where it was finally discovered where you could cross the Rocky Mountains in a wheeled vehicle. That is the key link in the oregon trail that allowed that was to come west carrying their belongings and once they could do that, the valley was becoming recognized as a very fertile kind of garden of eden on the west coast and in fact there were a story ends as story ends that for the first to explore the valley and if they knew that it was a very rich agricultural place so this became the magnet for the settlement of the best west movement and foodies by dancing to settlers to get out there they had to come out and find a way out that they followed to get out. Thanks. You have been a wonderful audience. [applause] thank you all for coming and i will be up here if you want to talk at the table. On history bookshelf, here from the countrys bestknown American History writers of the past decade every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern and you can watch any of our programs anytime when you visit our website. You are watching American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. During the cold war, policymakers feared u. S. Population was falling behind the soviet union. The class includes a look at franked programs made by cap are in the 1950s. This is about 45 minutes. Good afternoon and welcome. Today, we will talk about cold war era science educations cells. We have talked about classroom films before. To do any history of classroom film, you have to understand the scholarship. I will be pulling together works that i have done and from other historians, some scholars, even folklorists. Is