when he abruptly ordered Vallade and Charles to hunt for game and the rest to look for white cedar to build a canoe.
The men sang as they set to work constructing the canoe, but Thompson appeared worried. “The river’s rising two feet a day,” he cautioned. “Our boat must be sturdy and the paddles strong.” He grew even more concerned when a little more than a week later the boat was ready and their hunters had found only small game to keep everyone fed as they worked, but none for their journey. After Ignace, Côté, and Pareil returned with the cache of trade goods, the Salish braves who had accompanied them gathered up the borrowed horses and prepared to leave. Thompson stopped them to bargain with tobacco and powder, and the Salish agreed the voyageurs could have a plump filly to slaughter for meat to take in the canoe as they shot down the Clark’s Fork River.
Much later, after they took their places in the canoe, Peter wasn’t surprised when Thompson ordered him to sit in the back. They now had enough men to paddle, and experience would be needed to navigate the rapids ahead. “May God guide us,” Thompson said. He then hopped into the canoe and sat beside Peter. Dog crouched between boxes of trade goods, and Boulard enthroned himself on a sack of flour.
Charles gave the bobbing vessel a mighty shove into the fast-moving water before leaping in to take his place at the bow. Accustomed though he was now to travelling on water, Peter felt his heart hammer as they flew with the current — Boulard determinedly keeping the canoe in the middle of the river.
In spite of Boulard’s efforts the current often tossed the boat in front of the small islands he tried to avoid, and sometimes they found themselves tipping downward through a series of eddies or twirling in a whirlpool. Each night the battered canoe had to be turned over to dry, and in the morning it had to be freshly caulked with heated pitch scraped from the pines found in the woods along the way. Also each night Thompson led the men in a prayer of thanks for keeping them safe that day and another to ask for an equally safe journey the next day.
“We must cross the lake that two years earlier I named Pend Oreille to reach the Pend Oreille River,” Thompson said in the morning. “Praise God it should be less furious than this one. With good fortune we should reach Kullyspell where we’ll give the trading goods to James McMillan and build a better canoe to proceed down to the mouth of the Columbia.”
Peter admired the mapmaker’s ability to recall each river individually, for he was right about the Pend Oreille. In some places it was over its banks, but it had no islands or rocks midstream and the current was swift but not treacherous. Peter relaxed and, no longer fearing Dog might get frightened and leap from the canoe, he let go of the braided rope around her neck.
Before the end of the day they reached Kullyspell House and found that McMillan had already left for his annual trip east over the mountains. Except for twelve tents of Kullyspell Indians camped beside the lake, this post, too, was deserted. Luckily, Thompson understood enough of the language of the people camping there to converse with them for several minutes. When he returned to the men in the canoe, he said, “I’m told our elusive Finan McDonald is with Jaco Finlay at Spokane House, thus I’ve hired two of the men here to find him and tell him to bring horses to carry our goods.”
That was good news to Peter, and judging by the grins of relief on the faces of the tired voyageurs, it made them happy, too. The Kullyspell people were very friendly and insisted on preparing a feast for them. That night they dined on baked fish, dog, some sort of waterfowl, and bread that Thompson said was made of moss hanging from trees. Peter found it dry and hard to swallow, and Dog refused it totally.
Peter didn’t hear all that Thompson had to say to Finan McDonald when the company man finally arrived with three men and thirteen extra horses, but it must have been serious. As they parted that night, Thompson called after McDonald, “Try to remember that the Peigans aren’t bad people and that most of them are our friends.”
McDonald didn’t reply. Nor did he even turn around when Thompson spoke. The next day, however, when they began the two-day trip to Spokane House, Peter was relieved to see that the tension between the two men had disappeared and they were able to discuss amiably the problems of transporting trade goods over the mountains.
“A good road can be made through the pass where the Athabasca begins,” Thompson insisted, “provided it’s travelled only in summer months.”
McDonald had doubts. “When the Peigans learn of it, they’ll block that, as well.”
“I disagree. That far north they risk a confrontation with the Cree as well as with the traders who will be well armed to defend themselves.”
“I haven’t been to the mountains so far north,” McDonald admitted. “What about horses?”
Thompson shook his head. “Horses wouldn’t be useful until the headwaters are reached and it’s too shallow for canoes. A post could be made there to keep packhorses for the distance to the great river at a place I call Boat Encampment.” McDonald looked at Thompson, a question in his eyes, and the mapmaker said, “Yes, the great Columbia River. I’m almost certain now that I’ve found its source up in the mountains.”
“Then why —” McDonald began.
Knowing what the question would be, Thompson interrupted to give McDonald the same reasons he had given to his men as to why they first went to Kootenay House rather than risk their canoe on what he thought was the Columbia River. The mapmaker finished by saying, “Still, I can’t be certain we were at its source until we reach the great ocean and return upstream.”
Peter shivered again when he thought of the return across the mountains. Thompson had said it would be before winter, and he hoped he was right. But it was now mid-June and they still hadn’t reached the big ocean or even knew how far away it was. He sighed inwardly as he remembered how good it had been to sleep in the cabin at Whitemud House. He had awakened there to the smell of porridge. And there would be real bread and carrots and onions. Peter felt his mouth watering.
Two days after they arrived at Spokane House they prepared for the ride north to a place called Kettle Falls where David hoped to find both guides and information on the people as well as on the river they would travel. It took four days of steady riding to reach the place, making it necessary at times for Peter to stop and boost a weary Dog up to share his saddle.
Côté laughed when he first saw Dog draped in front of Peter. “Is it not strange your friend will allow you to take her up to give her rest but refuses the caress on the head?”
“Maybe she has a headache,” Peter said shortly. It was a sore point that Dog still growled and backed away if he tried to pet her. Then, reminding himself it wasn’t Côté’s fault, he hastened to add, “Maybe she still has pain.”
Côté nodded and clicked his tongue sympathetically. “From Monsieur DuNord.”
Peter had forgotten about DuNord, and he wondered now if the man and his companions had made it back to Rocky Mountain House. He wondered, too, what they would have to say about Thompson’s expedition when they got there. Just then the sounds of axes on wood accompanying the shouts of children and barking dogs cut into his thoughts. Ahead was Kettle Falls and the largest village of tents Peter had yet seen on this trip.
Recalling an earlier description he had heard of a gathering of the tribes for war, Peter thought this was what he was seeing, but he quickly dismissed that idea when he noticed the children chasing one another and the women gossiping and laughing as they scrubbed clothing on the rocks along a backwater above the falls.
Thompson put up a hand to halt his small train of men and horses, obviously pleased. “This
