To the fur trade we chiefly owe the opening up of the vast region embraced in the Dominion of Canada, from the slender thread of settlement on the banks of the St. Lawrence westward to the Pacific, and from the shores of Hudson Bay to the 49th parallel, which in 1846 became the international boundary. South of this line the principal voyages of exploration across the continent, at the beginning of the century, were the American expeditions in 1804-1806 of Lewis and Clark, up the Missouri and down the Columbia Rivers, and the later trading operations of John Jacob Astor, who established Astoria, the great western emporium of the fur trade. In this trade Astor laid the foundations of his colossal fortune. Closely following on these enterprises, and growing out of them, came the prolonged international controversy on the Oregon question, which from 1818 to 1846 formed a bone of contention between Great Britain and the United States. The treaty of 1846 established the Canadian boundary line and settled the question of the national ownership of the northern California coast.
Lewis and Clark accomplished for the United States what Sir Alexander Mackenzie had accomplished for Canada. They opened up an overland route to the Pacific, and divested the region of much of its terror to the heart of incoming civilization. Much of the territory opened up by these explorers French enterprise had already traversed. Indeed, to the French and the Scotch belong the honors of discovery over most of the continent. The whole country west of the Great Lakes was early made known by Frenchmen. In 1679 La Salle erected Fort Michilimackinac, at the entrance of Lake Michigan, and followed the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. In the same year Du Luth reached the western extremity of Lake Superior and took possession of the sources of the Mississippi. About the same period Perrot and Le Sueur journeyed over the region and established forts by order of the French Governor. In 1742 Verendrye reached the country of the Mandans, in what is now the territory of Dakota, and tracked the upper waters of the Missouri. Later he roamed over the vast plains of the Saskatchewan and probed the continent as far west as the Rocky Mountains.
In the track of the French traders a series of posts was established, extending from Sault Ste. Marie and the Kaministiquia to the distant Saskatchewan and the hyperborean Athabasca.
Later still was established the chain of trading-establishments of the Northwest Company, that linked the country from New Brunswick Post, at the source of Moose River, to the distant Fraser, the Thompson, the Peace, and the Mackenzie. Then came the cluster of Hudson Bay posts that figure so prominently in connection with the fur trade in the Northwest.
But in this enumeration we by no means exhaust the enterprise or tell the whole story of Franco-Canadian and Scottish-Canadian trade. In addition to Mackenzie's work on the west of the Rocky Mountains were the labors of James Finlay, another Scotchman, who ascended Peace River four years after Mackenzie, and explored the branch of that river to which he gave his name. In this region the name of another Scot is associated with the waters of the Fraser; while the other great river of British Columbia bears the name of still another Scotchman, David Thompson. All three were employees, of the Northwest Company, of Montreal.
On the Walla-Walla and Columbia rivers the Northwest Company had in its service a whole colony of Scotchmen. The area of the company's trading operations was by no means confined to the district of Red River. The Nor'westers did a thriving trade on Columbia River, in Oregon, where they had an important and lucrative post. Their business on the coast was also extensive, reaching from California to New Archangel. On the Pacific slope, in 1817, the company had more than three hundred Canadians in its employ. From its ports three or four ships were annually despatched to London, by way of Cape Horn, freighted with furs. The ships on the return passage brought supplies for the establishments on the coast.
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
– Acts 4:12