Simpson to Spokane River
Henry Jame Warre, “The Columbia River above Sioux Island Rapid, Washington, LAC Mikan 2834204 C-117072) This is probably the Grosse Roche, where Simpson rode on horseback from Fort Okanogan, to meet the men who were coming upriver in the boats.
In the spring of 1825, Governor George Simpson paused his journey at the future location of the Wascopam Mission, while travelling east on his way to the Rocky Mountains and Red River. He was returning from his first journey west to Fort George [Astoria], and he had also seen to the construction of the new Fort Vancouver some ninety miles up the Columbia River. “The weather has been delightfully fine since we left Belle Vue Point,” where Fort Vancouver stood, he said, “and to day the heat was actually oppressive. On the tops of the distant Hills we see a little snow, but along the banks of the River vegetation is in a forward state. Made a demi-discharge of a Mile at the Dalles and carried the whole of the Baggage at the little Dalles. [A demi-discharge means they took the boats upriver with half their loads removed.] Made the Chutes Portage and Encamped at the upper end. Surrounded by Indians all Day who assisted us on the Portage and conducted themselves with great propriety, indeed from what I have seen of the Natives on the Communication I am satisfied that if any serious evil or difference arises hereafter with them it will be our own fault, as notwithstanding the bad character they bear I should not hesitate to pass up or down the River with merely the Crew of my Single Canoe.” As I said in my last post, in 1829 he would learn to not be so trusting.
So, that was Tuesday, March 22, 1825. On March 23 he had a long discussion with an Indigenous chief named Blue Capot, who told him there were plenty of Beaver on the Umpqua River, and said the Indians there were peaceable. That day the men of his brigade found the rapids in the Columbia bad because of the lowness of the water. It seems that when the water is high the men must deal with whirlpools, and when it is low they have rapids to deal with. “The Sun very powerful today and much incommoded by the Clouds of Dust & Sand drifting across the River, which is most injurious to the Eyes.” That was a common complaint in the York Factory Express journals I read–wind and fine sand were not a good combination. That night they “have difficulty in picking up along Shore sufficient Drift Wood to Boil our Kettles.” The next day, March 24, they poled against the current of the river the entire day, and although Simpson said that the men were “fed on Wretched fare, Pease & Beans, with no other Seasoning than a little Grease; the Pease and Beans are bad of the kind and [on] occasion a Bowel complaint which keeps the people constantly running ashore instead of prosecuting the Voyage.” That’s food poisoning, which must have been a constant complaint on these river journeys over the years. Feeding the men good food would certainly help prevent these unfortunate delays.
On Friday March 25 they passed the Big Island and camped at the Umatila River, “the weather cold and disagreeable.” On Saturday they reached Fort Nez Perces, Walla Walla, about 6 o’clock at night. Simpson learned that the fort’s Interpreter (who was named John) was causing problems among the local Indigenous tribes who were threatening to attack the fort. Simpson sent John upriver with a message for Spokane House. He also instructed John to meet him at the junction of the Spokane River, where he planned to have him thrown in irons and taken across the Mountains. Simpson would “fix him for a few years on the Coast to keep him out of harms way.” Which coast did he mean, I wonder? What was worse was this: At the Spokane Forks Simpson would learn that John, the interpreter, was in league with an Indigenous man named Cut Lip, a Cayuse chief who wanted to capture the Fort Nez Perces post when the men left it to bring in their supplies from Fort Vancouver. Simpson enticed John to join the outgoing canoes with the expectation he would return in the Fall, although Simpson had no plans at all to return him to the west side of the Rocky Mountains. I wonder what happened in the end?
To continue the journey: On the Sunday that followed Simpson harangued the Indigenous chiefs to soothe their anger — haranguing was an effective way to speak to First Nations everywhere. As unfriendly as haranguing sounds to us, it worked with the Indigenous people, because it was part of the Indigenous traditions of chiefs everywhere. After the long meeting that followed the harangue, Simpson discussed with John Warren Dease how the fort was being run, and made changes. He reduced the post’s dependance on imported goods and demanded that they grow more of their own food. He had brought potatoes upriver with him for this purpose. Horses cost money, but over the last three years 700 horses had been purchased from the Indigenous peoples and then slaughtered for provisions for the fort. Simpson put a stop to that practice. (It isn’t exactly what I had planned when I started this, but the more I dig into Simpson’s stories, the more I like the man.)
On Sunday evening, at dusk, he left Fort Nez Perces with a party of men on horseback, and joined the boat party at their Snake River encampment. They continued their journey the next day, and encamped that night halfway up the Marle banks [Hanford Reach]. The following day they camped just below Priest’s Rapids. “The weather continues fine,” he wrote. “Myself sadly annoyed with Toothache and after many ineffectual attempts succeeded in pulling out the offender this morning with a silk thread.”
The next day they made their way up the Priest’s Rapids, and encamped at its head. The party was “visited by the Priest and his band amounting to about 100 Indians in the Evening, who smoked with us and went away peaceably.” The footnote for the Priest says this: “This was an Indian chief who was given his name in 1811 by a party of Pacific Fur Company trappers. Alexander Ross thought the name to be the English rendition for the Indian name Ha-qui-laugh, which means doctor or priest. Franchere attributed the name to the fact that the trappers saw this native performing on some others at the Rapids ‘certain aspersions and other ceremonies, which had the air of being coarse imitations of the Catholic worship.'” This man, the Priest, almost certainly learned his religious practices from the Shoshone communities to the east, who had learned their own versions of the Catholic religion from the Spanish priests at Santa Fe, and from other Indigenous people who had been followers of the two Spanish missionaries of the Escalante/Dominguez Expedition that explored Utah in 1776. There is a long history of Catholicism in the Pacific North West, and it arrived long before the first North West Company men entered the territory.
Let’s continue Simpson’s journey: On the last day of March they set off up the Columbia River once more. The following day began with a keen frost in the morning, oppressive heat in the middle of the day, and a heavy Rain in the evening. “A serious accident had nearly happened through my carelessness this Evening in firing at a Duck in the direction of the other Boats, several grains of the Shot having lodged in the Gunwale within a few inches of Mr. [Alexander] Kennedy’s Head, altho at a distance of nearly 200 yards.” He wasn’t shy in admitting his mistake, in the journal, at least. I wonder how graceful he was to the men he had come close to shooting by accident.
On April 3 they reached Fort Okanogan, although Simpson grumbles they had
amused ourselves in the Rapids for three hours by Moon light, to the great annoyance of the Bottoms of our Craft and to us the danger of drowning, in order to gain Okanagan, if possible, and by hard poling and paddling the Canoes reached this Post about 9 pm. I accompanied by Mr. [James] McMillan arrived two hours earlier, having borrowed Horses of Indians about 10 Miles lower down.
This habit of leaving his men behind to do all the hard work, while he rushes on ahead on horseback whenever he can, is the constant theme of his travels. He does this again and again, on every journey, whenever he can, and sometimes twice or thrice in the same journey. As we know from the biography of Simpson written by James Raffan, titled Emperor of the North, Simpson did the same thing in Russia! Sometimes he even gallops off with the provisions for the men in his saddlebags. It’s amazing: If he is near a post and he wants to get comfortable and warm, and he’s had enough of this uncomfortable mode of travelling, he just gallops off (and James McMillan gallops off with him, as we see on this occasion.)
So, onward. It is April 3 when he reaches Fort Okanogan before his men. On his arrival he finds Chief Trader John McLeod Sr. of Kamloops here, “who came with his people and returns from Thompson’s River about a Fortnight ago.” This is before the formation of the York Factory Express, and McLeod has brought his furs to Fort Okanogan to ship out with the Annual Brigades that preceded the Express, I suppose. Simpson had left the outgoing brigades behind at Fort Vancouver, so they are somewhere on the river but certainly not yet at Fort Okanogan. At this place (as at others), Simpson decided that the post should not be providing provisions for the families of the men who worked there. “Almost every man in the District has a Family,” he complained, “which is productive of serious injury and inconvenience on account of the great consumption of Provisions; but by changing the men this evil will be remedied and the Women and Children sent to the Indian relatives.” By “changing the men,” Simpson had decided that the men should not be assigned to a single post, as they currently were: instead they could be transferred between the posts, leaving their wives and children behind them. This is a plan that did not work out, as far as I know: although it must have sometimes occurred when a man wanted to lose his wife.
While he was at Fort Okanogan, Simpson received a visitor: Chief N’Kwala, of Thompson’s River to the north, “who came hither purposely to see me; he is the most respectable manly looking Indian I ever saw, appeared much pleased with what I said to him and promised faithfully to back and support us with all his power. I made him a present of a Medal bearing the Company’s arms, which he seemed to prize greatly, and gave him a few other trifles. We parted excellent Friends and this interview I think will go far towards the safety of the Establishment…He enquired particularly if they might soon expect a “Messenger from the Master of Life” on their lands (Meaning a Missionary, because they had heard in the course of the Winter that I considered such probable) but I could merely tell him that I should represent to the “Great Chiefs on the other side of the Water” that such was their wish.”
Simpson put Francis Annance in charge of Okanogan for the summer, and James Murray Yale (possibly then at Fort Alexandria) was sent to New Caledonia with messages. McLeod, who was in charge of the Kamloops post, was sent down to Walla Walla with horses for that post, whether he liked it or not. (He didn’t.) Then Simpson took a horse and travelled upriver on land, to meet the boats at the campsite on the other side of the Grosse Roche, or Big Rock. As we know from The York Factory Express, this was a common practice, one that allowed the gentlemen to stay at Fort Okanogan for a day or two, to complete the business of the post, while the men in the boats went on ahead. The boats arrived above the Grosse Roche at about 1 pm, and Simpson took his place in the canoe as they continued the journey upriver.
On April 7, Simpson borrowed horses from the San Poil Indigenous community, and rode to the forks of the Spokane River. The boat arrived that night, and perhaps late at night. Peter Skene Ogden reported himself to be at he headwaters of the Missouri River on January 25, 2025, although it was uncertain where he was now, in April. At the forks of the river Simpson had a conference with Alexander Kennedy, James McMillan, Finan McDonald, and Alexander Ross, on moving “the Establishment of Spokane House to the Kettle Falls; the advantage to be derived from this change are, that a very heavy expense and serious inconvenience in transporting the Outfits and returns between the Main River and the present Establishment by land, a distance of about 60 Miles, will be avoided.” There was also a good stock of fish at the Falls, he said. He then had a conference with “Eight Chiefs belonging to the Flat Head, Coutonais [Kootenay], Spokane, and other tribes, who assembled here for the purpose of seeing me…The Spokane & Flat Head Chiefs put a Son each under my care to be Educated at the Missionary Society School, Red River, and all the Chiefs joined in a most earnest request that a Missionary or religious instructor should be placed among them; I promised to communicate their request to the Great Chiefs on the other side of the Water, with a recommendation from myself that it should be complied with.” And then, he “Finally Settled with Mr. Ross that he should undertake charge of the Missionary Society School, Red River, at a Salary of 100 pounds per Annum and he accompanies me out for that purpose.”
The two Indigenous boys who joined this expedition at the forks of the Spokane River were, of course, Spokane Garry, and Kootenay Pelly. The latter died at the school, I understand from the result of a fall from a horse. Spokane Garry returned in 1831, and although he is not mentioned in George Traill Allan’s 1831 York Factory Express journal, he is there. But there were four Indigenous boys in these canoes this year: you will remember that when he left Fort George, Simpson took with him two of Chief Concomely’s grandsons, who were also to attend the school. I do not know what happened to them.
On April 12, Simpson wrote in his journal: “Everything being settled here we made a start in the Evening and Encamped about a League above the Forks. The Weather Stormy with hail, showers and Rain. Baptised the Indian Boys, they are the Sons of the principal Spokan & Coutonais Chiefs, Men of great Weight and consequence in this part of the Country; they are named Coutonais Pelly and Spokan Garry.” We learned from a later journal that the father of Coutonais Pelly was called Grande Queue, for his long pigtail. “Many years ago,” Simpson wrote at the time he met Grande Queue, “when selecting some boys to be sent from the Columbia to Red River for their education, I had taken a son of this chief as one of them, naming him Kootonais Pelly, after his own tribe, and the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The youngster, a fine, clever, docile lad, died — a blow from which the father never recovered; and though the mention of the deceased would have been utterly repugnant to savage etiquette, yet I am pretty sure that the Grand Queue, as well as myself, was thinking rather of the poor boy than of anything else.”
That is interesting: that the mention of the dead son’s name would have been repugnant to the Kootenay father. James Robert Anderson, son of Alexander Caulfield Anderson, tells the story of a First Nations man who became enraged when James accidentally mentioned the name of his daughter in the man’s presence. James had not been taking about the daughter, of course, but about another Indigenous woman who carried the same name. Nothing happened: The man bristled and a frightened James ran off and hid. But the tradition is clearly here: you do not mention the name of an Indigenous child or person who died to a relative or father of that person. James’ experience occurred at Fort Alexandria and this was in the Kootenays.
I will stop here and continue this story in the next blogpost, which will appear here when written: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/whatever-i-call-it/
To go back to the beginning of this journey from Fort Vancouver to Red River in 1825, then go here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/simpson-at-fort-vancouver-1825/
Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2025. All rights reserved.