> thank you powell's books and thank you for being here. normally i hav">
> thank you powell's books and thank you for being here. normally i hav" property="og:description">
> thank you powell's books and thank you for being here. normally i hav">
>> next, "astoria" by author john jacob. this an is hour and 14 minutes. >> thank you powell's books and thank you for being here. normally i have a more formal presentation. i have a reading i show at readings. but tonight is a special night so i am going to do something different. and i want to tell stories a little bit more and, of course, i will do some readings. it is special we are at powell's books, we are in oregon, astoria is nearby and we are also here with c-span so we have a national and oregon audience. i will tell stories and you may know some of them and may not some of the others. but i will start with how i came to this story. and actually, what is surprising about it is how this story was very-well known in its day. in 1836, when washington irving was commissioned by john john jacob astor to write these, irving's book also called "astoria" was a best seller in 1926. they have been forgotten now. i think some of you know about them. but in the national consciousness they are largely forgotten except along historians and people that follow western history. it is a really important story. it is historically significant and a great adventure story. that is partly what attracted me to it. it is also a store that i feel needs to be told because those events have had a big impact on the shape of the north american c continent and on the course of the american empire over the years from 1810-1813. i stumbled across this story randomly. there are many things about being a free-lance writer, which have been for 30 years, that are a struggle. uncertainty. but the cool thing is how one idea leads to another. that is what happened in this case. 7-8 years ago i was working on my last book, a book called "the last empty places" in which i profiled four unpopulated areas of the country. and of course, one of them had to be eastern oregon as i am sure some of you can guess. i was driving, in the course of my research, one evening in late may, down a very long, lonely empty highway in eastern oregon. it was getting dark and i thought i was going to sleep by the road. i came to a town finley with a hotel and spend the night there with gratitude of this being there. and the next morning i said how did the town get the name of john day. and i know you have heard of the john day river, and dam and there are many things called john day. but i am not sure everybody knows how all of those john day's got their name. i did research on john day and in a nearby historical society and it turned out john day was one of the original historians who was sent from john jakeer pastor in 1810 to find the first colonial on the west coast. what john day, i didn't know the bigger story at that point, i just knew john day was this guy who, i am trying to think of where the trauma started, but it started early. he was a 40-year-old kentucky hunter and he ended up being starved to death and poisoning himself with cames. survived by shooting a wolf and eating it's skinned. was helped by a number of indians on the way. was left behind by his main party. wandered a winter trying to find the tracks of the main party. found abandoned indians he thought would help him who ended up stripping him of his clothes and leaving with him nothing. after that, john day was done with the wilderness. he had to go back the same way he can and he had what looked like to me to be ptsd. he tried kill himself. he tried to shoot himself. he didn't survive. but he sent back. so i read that and thought that was incredible. the more i looked into john day's story i realized he was just one tiny part of this undertaking john jacob astor took to the west coast. that is what got me intrigued and the more i looked into it and i thought this should be told in a book. i write exploration history. these are the stories i love. so i took it on as a book publisher. and luckily i found a publisher with harper collins and becker. in the introduction you heard a little bit about what the expedition was. john jacob astor had a vision of global grade on the pacific rim. this is five years after lewis and clark were here. and thomas jefferson had the same vision. astor had this idea, approached jefferson and he endorsed it at the whitehouse. it was astor's idea to capture all of the furs through and funnel them through the mouth of the columbia river and sell them to china. in china these furs, especially sea otter, fetched high prices because the chinese mandarin used the sea otter furs which were luxury and the finest and densest coast of any animal in the year. astor wasn't the first ship on the west coast but he was one of the earlier ones. he came up with this 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 here for furs. trading things like knifes, beads and pots. and then taking those furs to china, trading them to the chinese for incredible markups in both places. taking chinese luxury goods like silks, keys, porcelain back around the world to london and new york. his idea was to have especially a fleet of ships circling the globe continuous and trading along the way at an incredible markup. and thomas jefferson was hoping that the settling along the west coast would be the first seeds of a democracy. not even an american democracy. but just the first seeds of a democracy. something like a sister democracy to the united states and it would speed to the east and the two would join in the middle and make the whole continent a democracy. that is the background. so what i am going to do is read a snipit from four characters. and that is what attracted me to the story. there are different leaders and characters and personalities. they react in very different ways in these situations and their actions in the course of these expeditions going across the country and at cape horn determined a lot of what happened in the decades to fall. in some ways, these personalities shapes our destiny on this continent. the first one is from marie dorman. she was the wife of piere who was the interpreter. one went up oversight and investigations overland and the other was near cape horn. the senior was the ininterprete for lewis and clark. and maria was a native american women. and dorian insisted his wife come along. she wasn't too happy about the idea. she had two small boys and learned in-route she was pregnant. she has the most incredible survival story you can imagine. a friend in missioula has studied a lot about lewis and clark and pointed out to me as i was reaching this story that sack juwea met with dorian and they certainly did. they were in the same camp. this is when she was going back up the river to, i think, the man dan villages and marie dorian was going up the river for the first time. sally said well i have always wondered what sack gee said to marie dorman and wouldn't that be an interesting conversation to hear. so i tried to guess a little bit. i am speculating. this is a non-fiction book but i say one likes to think what they said to each other. it is likely they knew each other. two indian women in the small settlement of st. louis and wise interpreters in the fur trade. what would they have said to each other? it will be very long and difficult to reach the ocean. you and your children will suffer. by then, five years after her journey with lewis and clark, she adopted european dress and manners and understand whites with powerful guns and urge for furs and profit had just begun their long reach for the ocean. she might have started this represented the end of her people's nomadic life. one imagines her saying to marie dorman don't go. or join them because they will come to our homelands whether we join them or not. or you will see amazing things. organizing into four river boats layed with 20 tons of goods and equipped with ors, sand and tow ropes the party left from winter camp on april 21, 1811 with sails set in a favorable wind. they hoped to reach the pacific in late summer or autumn. the second passage i am reading takes place as they are going up the river from their winter camp which was about 400 miles up river from st. louis. and as i mentioned, they were to follow the lewis and clark trail that is going up the missouri, over the rockies and down the columbia. thaws went up the missouri, the father they went the worse the stories got about the indians at the head water. the overland leader was a young new jersey business man named wilson price hunt who was known as a nice guy, serious minded, conscious, and liked to lead by c concensus but he had never been in the wilderness before. astor knew that hunt would remain loyal to astor. but astor hired a lot of other scottish fur traders, french canadian voyagers. he was looking for the best and that happened to be the canadian fur traders but they were loyal to the british crown and not necessarily america. so he had wilson hunt leave his party that was twice the size of lewis and park's expedition. several hunters and wilson price hunt, marie dorman. as they are going up the missouri, they are hearing about the black feet and one of the problems is mary heather lewis had killed two young black feet. and they left a jefferson medal hanging around one of the black feet's neck and thread the territory. and the black feet were angry about that insult. so there had been a previous party going up the missouri to try to establish a fur pacific coast at the head waters or the missouri. and it disappeared. and no one new what happened to it. so as hunt's party is going up the missouri one day in may of 1811, they are sitting on the river bank and resting after the morning's poling and rowing having breakfast. they see canoes and in it are white men. and there are three ken tutucki. and edward robinson is one of them and he is wearing a scarf around this head. underneath the scarf he was s p scalped. this told deeply on wilson price hunt. the young new jersey business man. and the three trappers said, well, look you don't want to go up to the head waters of the missouri, we know a better way. we know a way that you can leave the missouri, strikeout overland, cross several mount ranges and we think we can get you to the river that is part of the head line of the columbia. and that meant for wilson price hunt to strike out into a thousand miles at least of uncharted terrain that was unmapped. hunt, the serious conscious businessman had to deliberate what to do. so that is the next passage i am reading is hunt's decision in this situation. the four boats made good progress up river under sail that day. that is day they had breakfast and met the three trappers. and camp that night. may 27th, 1811 on little cedar island. they were 1, 075 miles up the island of st. louis. a grove of cedar tree grew in the center surrounded with vines and flowers. brad bury and nettle, these are two british bought botonist scrambled about gathering plants. hunt was bothered by his own problems of deciding if he had to turn from missouri. the best route became a subject of anxious inquiry. hunt closely questioned the three kentuckians about the proposal and consulted with others who ent went up the island. hunt polled them as we would throughout the journey on their opinion about the way to go. one pictures hunt's party camped on the islands in the river that granted safety from indian attack with a large fire of long driftwood longs throwing sparks at the bright stars. 60 men, women and children move in to the fire. hunt moves from this fire and tent interviewing and deliberating. what lay out there in the vast prairie night in the whole western continent. when mountains would let them past? which rivers and tribes seemed unroamed in the darkness? on little cedar island, wilson price hunt tasted the flavor of unknown. hunt, responsible for a large group of people and the expectations of great men probably found it either romantic or exhilarating. there were men that surely awaited him and on the other was the route that left missouri and skirted south of the black feet where his party might wander loss through snowy mounts and starvation deserts. the questions confronting one are mundane, this route or that, this river drainage or another, the implications are profound and sometimes fatal. by morning he decided. it isn't surprising that on a concern fight or venturing out on terrain, hunt who waited fighting, chose the latter. fear of retreating for the party and himself. whatever the prospective, hunt made the faithful decision. the overland party would leave the missouri and veer to the south of the planned route avoiding the black feet and go on foot and horse back into the swath of unknown terrain. the decision made. hunt sat down to write mr.astor of his change of plans. i will skip back to astor. he was a focused business man. came to the country as a young man from waldorf, germany. we have heard the name waldorf, astoria and it is named after that. we started importing musical instruments from england and exported furs from the north american continent to londoned. he was a very focused, driven toward his bottom line. meticilous in his planning. he spent years laying the ground work for this expedition. in all of his planning and preparation, he had not allowed for one major factor. mountain climbers talk about exposure meaning the risk in a situation. on a cliff when a small mistake can result in major consequen consequences. in 1810, this far wild edge of the north american continent with his brutal storms, hostile neighbors, difficulty of communication, vulnerability to empires, exposed as any habitable place on earth nor was it able to what this would do on to the men chosen to host the empire. under stress, each one succumsu to traits. this trading scheme joined the dream of two powerful men. astor would dominate the market, pacific rim trade and reef profits as would his fur trader partners. through john jacob astor, president jefferson and his successors established an outpacific coast on the dim pacific coast. jefferson's vision embraced the envision of north america and recorded astor's enterprise in shaping the undertaking. i view your take as it was said on your side of the continent and liberty and several government spreading from that side and this side will ensure complete establishment over the whole. there was a lot of weight riding on wilson price hunt when he is making the decision. wilson price hu wrestling on cedar island with this thoughts. another leader in this is a scottish fur trader by the name of duncan mcdougal. he was hired from canada where the experts were. there were many different personalities but duncan mcdougal would be short, feisty, looking out for himself and manipulative. astor made him second in command of the west coast colonial. hunt was supposed to be first in mand. but in hunt's absence, astor said mcdougal would be second. they were supposed to arrive at the mouth of the columbia at that point in the fall of 181 # 1. but fall came and went and they still hadn't arrived. duncan mcdougal was in charnel there. so i am going to read some of his thoughts. and what happened was at that point, i should back up a little bit in the story. the one expedition was hunt going over land and the other was the sea going party coming around cape horn. this was led by a sea captain, john thorne, who was a naval hero against the barbary pirates. a fearless guy. the ship was just stuffed with trade goods. it was called the tong kim. and some people in the room might know it. all different ways to pronounce it. it was stuffed with trade goods, 9,000 pound of powder and cannons. it carried captain thorne, his crew of yankee sailors and these fur traders. the scottish fur traders as well as a number of french-canadian voyages. and several young clerks from canada. several educated young men who were keeping journals. captain was materialisically minded in the sense of discipline. he had a boatload of shaggy fur traders and voyagers and the first night out, by 8:00, they were drawing pistols. when captain thorne ordered lights and out the fur trader said no. and thorne said lights out at 8:00. it came to death threats at that testimony and they went down hill from there. these accounts are amazing. the fur traders are in a robo boat and they are sailing out to sea and expecting it to turn around and come back. it is six miles out to sea and they are mildly rowing after it. the falcon islands are barren and uninhabited. what saves them is the nephew is on board and he goes up the thorne and draws two pistols and says turn around the ship or you a dead man. he turned it around. that is one of the misadventures on the way to the columbia. they stop in hawaii and lots of adventures there. they pick up hawaii swimmers and they are experts at canoe and sailing and growing gardens and they buy a lot of pigs from them. finally make it near the mouth of the columbia. we all know in this room at least what lies off the mouth of columbia and that is the columbia bar. that great sand bar that blocks the mouth of the river where the huge volume of water of the columbia river goes out and the huge volume of water of the pacific ocean and its trumendious swells are kicking in and the swell is like this. and it is one of the most dangerous waters in the world. there was one channel through the columbia bar. today it was marked it stretch and known. it wasn't known then. so the charge from john jacob astor is to drop the men and supplies inside the columbia bar and thorne is supposed to go on his way and trade sea otter furs on vancouver island where the rich stretches of sea otter habitat were that at point. thorne is in a hurry to get past the columbia bar. he starts spending small boats with sailors and voyagers to find the channel. they loose two or three boats. nine guys die trying to find there channel in three days. the fur traders and sail arors e saying this is madness. it was very rough weather but thorne was relentless sent them any. they get over the bar. almost wrecked. they finally chose a spot for the first american colony. we know where it is. it is where astoria, oregon is. where they lay the cornerstone of the first building they decide they will call this astoria after john jacob astor. thorne drops the men and supplies and goes up to vancouver island to trade for furs. this leaves duncan mcdougal behind wondering where the hunting is. the indians who had initially created them and traded with them and were around their settlement disappeared, too. late summer, early fall of 1811, it is really spooky out there. their sense of exposure deepened. their camp was nothing but a wilderness in the vastness of the pacific with its crushing wells and storms. it felt like the end of the world. there was an unseen network of indian tribes each with loyalty and packs hidden by a communication network. the astorians could only guess what the native people were thinking. should the astorians need to free they had nowhere to go. the nearest reliable help laid a year's journey away. paranoia set in for mcdougal especially. he had drawn a target on his back. he set himself up telling everyone of his importance and the glory and power of his empire. now with men gone and stewart's party, this is another party coming up the columbia, traveling up river and the indians forest and river quite, mcdougal realized me was a king who posesed either castle or army. he posesed the tribes through the wisdom of his own thinking. he was given the chance and wondered why when they wish to grow powerful and healthy at his expense? he had a trove of trade goods that the tribes coveted. the indians could see the treasure lay unguarded after they went up the river. the paranoia strengthened. so mcdougal is coming up with this idea that he calls all of the mashing chiefs of the neighboring tribes to come to his settlement and he gathers them around and pulls a small, glass wile from this pocket and he said in this, i hold the deadly small poxs and the indians were decimated by them 20 years ago. i have to pull out this cork and everyone dies. and that is how we tries to regain power. he later marries the daughter of one of the chiefs as another insurance policy but that comes some tistimulatotime later. we have wilson price hunt, before i read the last passage, who made the decision at little ced ced ced cedar island. he dawdles and doesn't under the urgency of the nature. he needs -- he has 10-15 tons of gear and supplies with him. 60 people. huge parties. he needs horses to carry this. he stopped at the village and started trading for horses but the problem is indians don't have enough horses so he scrambles to find more. weeks past by and it isn't until late july he leaves missouri to head in the swath of unknown terrain. he treks for four months on food and horseback. marie is there and she found out she was pregnant and due in december and this is july. the scottish fur traders are riding. the voyagers some walking and some riding but eventually they got 1500 horses. they cross what is anyhow the dakotas, wyominging, over the t ton mountains. are into idaho on this side and they come to a small river and the three trappers say, well we are sure this leads to the columbia. here you go. this is the way down. and so they build 15 big dugout canoes out of cottonwood. they pile into the canoes and there40 voyagers and they are eager to get off the horses and can canoes are their their. they start down the river and it is happy first day. second day they hit a few ripples. third day, they swamp a canoe in rapids. by the 9th day they are going over major waterfalls and voyagers are drowning. they have to abandon the ship skwp they have run out of food and they are in the snake wharf cannon and winter is coming up. they start off on foot. and they end up in hells cannon which is the deepest cannon in the area. and hunt has to make a decision on whether to leave starving partners behind because they are too weak or trying to keep the party together. that is where hunt while mcdougal is waiting, wondering where hunt is. he is struggling through these c c c c c c canyons. and he has someone with him who crossed the continent 10 years before with alexander who crossed the canadian north in 1793. so he is one of the experienced fur traders on the ship. and pick up on interpreter at what is now grace harbor. they end up in what is now near the sound in bc. the interpreter actually says you tonight -- don't -- want to go there because the indians here have resentiment for earlier traders and thorne ignores them and goes in anyway. throughout the book, i write in a number of places about the american tribes and the culture. and i will not go into detail other than to say it was irony that astor's parties ended up coming against two of the wealthiest tribes. one being black feet and the other being the northwest coastal indians with the salmon runs and the sea life like whale whales, oysters and ducks and on and on. in many ways their way of life was materially better than many in london and new york. they lived in lawn houses. they had an elaborate culture with pot latches and beautiful artistic traditions and huge war voyages. and so he dropped anchor out in the cove out in the sound. and josey, the interpreter, and mckay the experienced fur trader go into the shore to talk about negotiati negotiations. thorne stays on board but the big canoes come out to the ship. thorne sees no reason why he should not start trading on his own and that is where this passage begins. out in the cove on board, negotiations unfolded less smoothly. i am saying i am sure mckay and the interpreter were welcomed by the chiefs in the village. negotiation unfolded and the indians big cedar canoes with their long snout like prowls ran around the ship's hull. they wore weather-proof comical hats and had rolls of see otter to trade. captain thorne with no experience on the indian trade ordered them to spread out blue beads, pots and other trade goods. an elderly chief climbed aboard to establish the prices to trade goods for furs. captain thorne said two blankets, and beads, in exchange for one sea otter. he rejected the offer as too low. it was a clash of two cultures on the purist of economic terms. account vary to the exact detail between the two but follow the same general pattern as a whole. they wanted five blankets instead of the two that thorne offered for a sea otter. thorne didn't budge. he had a vast deal of pride in his nature wrote washington irving. he held the whole race in salvage contempt. they were at a stalemate. he wasn't a bargainer. he could he had given a fair price. but he entered a culture where trading was a way of life. they were not ignorant. he dismissed the low price. thorne stalked off angery among the deck and he followed him and ridiculed his offer, harassing him and pestering him to train. captain thorne spun about, temper exploding and grabbed a sea otter fur and rubbed it in his face. dam your eyes, he said to the chief. kicking away the trade fur on the deck and then through thomas off the ship. the other indians left in their canoes. the two returned to the ship and when they heard what happened they urged him to weigh immediately because they will look for insult he warned. thorne laughed them out. you pretend to know a great deal about the indian character doing ross's account that captured the spirit of the encountering. you know-nothing at all. don't be so saucy now. it didn't 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. but we can keep talking. let's see. here we have the microphone. there is a question right there. >> what is so interesting about this story is how much you had to leave out to get it into pages you got it in. one of the fascinating pieces was during the war of 1812, mcdougal sold fort astoria to the northwest company, the canadian company for pennies on the dollar, but none the less it was sold to a canadian company and that could have ended there and this could be southern british columbia except that the treaty -- then a british ship captain of the raccoon came in and conquered the port during the war of 1812. and because of the treaty of gent all conquered possessions had to be returned. and so because it was conquered it had to be returned to astor and it was in 1818. here we are in oregon. if they had gotten their three months later this would be southern british columbia. there is about half a dozen of these. >> and you are bringing up a good point. this book focuses on 1810-1813 so the aftermath. this whole region is in limbo for 40 years after these events. and for just the reason that the questioner was citing that the war of 1812 broke out and that made astoria a prize of war or potential prize of war. so mcdougal basically, i will not tell the whole story, but mcdougal heard war had broken out. that will royal navy was coming to seize astoria and so he sold it out to a rival and was made a partner subsuantly. i say he fashioned himself a golden parachute and then died out. he died in a nasty way in canada years later. it is like what happened now section of this book. and there are no details about how he did. but it wasn't so many years later. but the epiitting is he died tag a terrible death. that was mcdougal. there were so many things that could have gone differently in this part of the continent. if astoria had succeeded this might not have been southern british columbia, but the united states might poses the entire west coast from alaska to mexico. or even more if we were a trading power across the pacific. it could have been a separate country. but as it was because of the war of 1812 and it wasn't the treat of gent but in 1818 as many of you know the u.s. and great britain signed the join occupation agreement for the northwest that meant neither americans or british could be here even though the british established themselves in this region and this area was in limbo until the 1840s. it could have been all british or all-american. other questions? >> if wonder if you go into detail about jacob astor and the struggles he faced trig trying to get the ship out here >> terrible struggle. you can imagine it is 12,000 miles around cape horn in new york city. it take as year to get a message. sorry, it is 25,000 miles. 12,000 is china. that was one of the problem with astor's vision was the lag in communication. not the lack of communication because he tried to communicate. he didn't know rather hunt arriv arrived. he did, mostly entact but he was there. he was wanting them to stand fast and he was willing to put endless resources behind it. but his men didn't have the will. hunt, i can, thought that astor was that willing to spend as much money as astor was willing to spend. astor, at one point, spent over a year trying to convince the u.s. navy or the president, secretary of state, everybody in washington, d.c. to send an armed ship to the mouth of the columbia to defend astoria against the british navy. and the u.s. navy was going to send the ship but the crew got diverted last second. he was a planner and outfitted other ships. bought a ship called the well armed. he sent two captains undercover to see london. and he gave them a blank check to buy a british ship and sail an armed british ship to astoria in the company of the royal navy. it was going to defend against the royal navy but left from the royal navy. it was a stealth ship. but it wrecked in hawaii and the crew mutiny so it was one thing after another. >> john jacob astor was forming the party that was to go by sea did we have the idea of the dif culty he had face? >> i have thought about that a lot. the people in the decision of facing the unknown and the mental stress interests me and could astor under that. he was a fur trader in the hudson valley in new york. he dragged his wagon swamp and forest. so he had some understanding. but now one realized how much terrain there was between here and new york. that was a long walk. in those days, there were tribal territory the whole way. some densely populated. some unpopulated. there were deserts and that was a big issue. in southern idaho there was no food. i think astor knew little about how they would suffer. he learned in the long run. ... >> the spanish or in california. were they aware of what was going on in the northwest? they had a little bit. >> yes, good point. the spanish -- of course of this historical background i could go into. i will try to limit myself, but the spanish and started building missions from what is now blog, california, from their settlements in what was nomex go up the coast and a 17 70's, and they got as far as san francisco that was the farthest north mission. and they have gone up to stake claim to that territory. they more or less stopped around san francisco. the russians have started building foothills down from alaska. that is where the gap ifs in the settlement was between what is now alaska and have san francisco. that was all essentially unclaimed. that is what jefferson saw, this huge unplanned chunk of northwest coast. >> i read once that the russians tried to put a settlement down on the coast of washington or oregon. i only read it once, and i was not sure of the facts of that. i have never seen a sense. i know the russians were trading >> well, that is a sort of follow-up to the question. the russians to build a post in california they year after the store was founded. says it is now called for ross. it had a different name and the russians, but that is an hour's drive north of san francisco. in fact, a beautifully restored museum today. so both the russians and the spanish were aware that astor was doing this, as were the british. the british said, putting a settlement on the pacific coast. so they said david thompson, well-known great explore to come out. thompson got down to columbia and putting flagpoles of saying, you know, i will build a post here and here as you went down to columbia. what is now the tri-cities he put his notice that he was going to build a post. the guts of a mountain. what did he get to? a story was already there. he missed it by three months. otherwise -- you're saying, he could have done their first. and to over there. >> thank you. >> in the writing of history the story has been dealt with. a book comes out about every 20 years. and david lavender wrote, you know, the early writers. how do you see your writing as being something that adds to the complexion or the depth or the brunt of the story? >> what i have done is, you know, the books that have come out previously have not really focused on these expeditions the way -- with the depth that i have. and that is really what i have focused on. i am an adventure writer. i focused on the exploration and the venture of it, and i really tried to get into the minds and the physiology and the indian tribes and that, the very detailed specifics of what it was like on those overland journeys and trying to bring those to life as much as possible. so some wonderful books. james p. rhonda, that is a really well, beautifully researched scholarly work. if you want a historical detail, that sells everything that there is to now. and that was not my mission. my mission was to -- my self-appointed mission was to focus on the adventure story of these expeditions and use that. what i wanted to do is, there is such tremendous story and dramatic story. the hardest thing for me westerly things out. there are so many stories. the difficulty was keeping things out. and even then, you know, it's not a huge book, but is not a small book writer. or i wanted to do it -- and by telling these stories, these dramatic stories of one to use those as a lens to get into the history, as a vehicle to get into the history as a way to bring no reader along. so my first priority was to tell a really good story. so that's what i've done. that is allied added depth. washington irving does a wonderful job telling the story. start over there. >> could you say just a little bit more about david thompson stripped-down and coming into a story about the same time? >> there is so much to say. so david thompson works for the north west company which was a british rival, canadian rival. and he proposed a partnership to start a west coast colony. and did more less kind of him than hot and finally apparently declined in. he went ahead and started one anyway. as soon as the british heard that he was starting one, says a northwest company heard that he was starting one they sent a message through their interior network of rivers and lakes and the voyager canoes to as far west as they could. they sent it to david thompson who was then the exploring a spin the northern rockies region he had been up there several years and was just coming back east. he finally won it a vacation after during this huge amount of exploration. and the indians, and the stargazer because he was always using a sexting to mappings. he was on his way back and gets the message coming up toward the rockies by who forger can it assess turn around and go to the mountain. it's not clear exactly what the details of the message work, but he immediately turned around, tried to get to the mouth of the columbia, crossed over the rocky mountains, had to winter up in some past with all the snow, built canoes the next year, paddled down the columbia, you know, just another day in the life of david thompson. but he got there and was three months -- by the time he got there they have been three months. and then he went back upstream. he actually i know within. these guys, even though they might be rivals in enemies there was this cordial but jen ominous. he was welcomed with all the, you know, dinners and per geology. stayed away, and then they all turned around and went back a stream. >> so he was one of the most wealthy men in the country. you mentioned the of a blank check for the ships. why did he not give his a story in party? >> he did. he had essentially in what amounted to a blank check, like a blank check book. one of the things i write about is the irony. in the bottom of hells canyon in the winter starving. it brings to mind, you know, what money can do in certain circumstances or not do. haunted have a blank check. this was, you know, another segment of this whole story. when he eventually got to a story he went off, the second supply ship finally arrived, a ship called the beaver three months after hunter arrived. hundt went off on the beaver to etch rate up the coast of british -- you know, vancouver island. that ended up being its own fiasco. and he and the captain had the choice of returning to a story at in the winter when it was stormy are going to hawaii to fix is shipped. the captain convinced and to go to hawaii to fix the ship. and then he ended up in the south pacific after that. he just wanders all over the place. and, you know, he finally shows up 15 months later and it's already been sold out. he said, what are you doing? why are you selling the place? they were saying, where were you ? >> what happens with this pregnant lady that was supposed to have a baby? >> more stories. did she -- she is this incredibly tough woman, and she, you know, goes through the whole hells canyon winter starvation seen. she and her family have one horse between. they go through struggles, blizzards, all thing. they finally get out of hells canyon. they find some indians, the big party found some indians who will guide them across the mountain range in winter. they don't want to do it, but they're convinced to do it. she gives birth at the base of blue mountains. late december. and then they have to cross blue mountains, you know, really cold, snowy conditions. the baby dies after a week. so it is just one of these things. there should be a little marker. i try to trace that trail where there were. >> barry down here in st. joseph . >> and she -- there is way more marie dorian story. she survived this incredible massacre that came later kamal branch of people up in the snake river country were massacred, including the husband. she and her two boys escaped and and had a horse. she killed the horse, smoke is the meet. in up in the blue mounds in winter and a showman out of a horse's side and then hiked over the mountains in the spring. eventually years later she ended up as one of the first settlers in the valley. when the wagon trains came out bringing settlers she was already there. that's another face. you know, again, there are some many phases to the story. all of stumbling around one. there was a return party of cook but from of. between those two parties the return party led by robert stewart is a well-known been in western history. they found what you all know as the oregon trail. robert stewart on the way back discover what's called self pass through the rocky mountains which was the key piece of geography kiffin that was finally discovered or you could crossed the rocky mount's with in a wheeled vehicle ten. and that was the key link in the oregon trail that allowed settlers to come last carrying their belongings. once the valley was becoming recognized as this very fertile, fertile kind of garden of eden on the west coast. in fact, it was the astorians refers to explore. they knew it was a very rich agricultural place. it became this tremendous magnet for the some of the west and the western ford movement and for these wagons and settlers to get out there them to come out, find a way out. it was the astorians route they found. they were greeted by marie doreen. well, thanks. you been a wonderful ai