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Article content In the most recent Ponderings, we accompanied David Thompson, wife Charlotte, their three small children, along with their crew on their 1807 Howse Pass trade excursion. This was Charlotte’s first experience exploring the Rockies. Although the mountains and scenery were glorious, the reality of the terrain and waterways put them all in precarious situations. “As harrowing and frightening as it was for even the strongest of men, what is not written [in David’s Journals] is that Charlotte made the same crossing with three small children in tow.” After overwintering at Kootenae House, first trading post in the Columbia Basin, starvation and attack by the Peigans [Pikani] loomed over the Thompson party as they made their way eastward over the Rockies. It was June 1808. At one point in their journey, while crossing a stream, one of the pack horses “began to behave wildly, nearly crushing my children to death with his load being badly put on, which I mi ....
An Archbishop Blanchet pilgrimage route Visit sites key for the founder of Oregon Catholicism, including those along his 1838 trek into the frontier French Canadian voyageurs transported two priest to the Oregon Country in 1838. 12/19/2020 2:45 PM select Fr. Francis Blanchet trekked to Oregon in 1838 and became the region s first archbishop. Archbishop Francois Norbert Blanchet, who came to Oregon as a middle-aged French Canadian missionary to establish Catholicism, arrived 182 years ago after an arduous trip. Today, pilgrims can follow his intriguing journey more easily. Father Blanchet and his colleague Father Modeste Demers departed in canoes with a band of voyageurs from Lachine, Quebec, on May 3, 1838, and arrived at Fort Vancouver 4,500 miles later on Nov. 24 of the same year. In a way not dreamed of by the two 19th-century missionaries, modern motorists can make the journey with about 4 ....