ASTORIA; OR, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
BY WASHINGTON IRVING
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
IN THE COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I
became intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners
of the great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in
genial style at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the
stranger. At their hospitable boards I occasionally met with
partners, and clerks, and hardy fur traders from the interior
posts; men who had passed years remote from civilized society,
among distant and savage tribes, and who had wonders to recount
of their wide and wild peregrinations, their hunting exploits,
and their perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes among the
Indians. I was at an age when imagination lends its coloring to
everything, and the stories of these Sinbads of the wilderness
made the life of a trapper and fur trader perfect romance to me.
I even meditated at one time a visit to the remote posts of the
company in the boats which annually ascended the lakes and
rivers, being thereto invited by one of the partners; and I have
ever since regretted that I was prevented by circumstances from
carrying my intention into effect. From those early impressions,
the grand enterprise of the great fur companies, and the
hazardous errantry of their associates in the wild parts of our
vast continent, have always been themes of charmed interest to
me; and I have felt anxious to get at the details of their
adventurous expeditions among the savage tribes that peopled the
depths of the wilderness.
About two years ago, not long after my return from a tour upon
the prairies of the far West, I had a conversation with my
friend, Mr. John Jacob Astor, relative to that portion of our
country, and to the adventurous traders to Santa Fe and the
Columbia. This led him to advert to a great enterprise set on
foot and conducted by him, between twenty and thirty years since,
having for its object to carry the fur trade across the Rocky
Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the Pacific.
Finding that I took an interest in the subject, he expressed a
regret that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its
national character and importance had never been understood, and
a wish that I would undertake to give an account of it. The
suggestion struck upon the chord of early associations already
vibrating in my mind. It occurred to me that a work of this kind
might comprise a variety of those curious details, so interesting
to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its remote and
adventurous enterprises, and of the various people, and tribes,
and castes, and characters, civilized and savage, affected by its
operations. The journals, and letters, also, of the adventurers
by sea and land employed by Mr. Astor in his comprehensive
project, might throw light upon portions of our country quite out
of the track of ordinary travel, and as yet but little known.
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