Arizona republican., 1913-07-14

Overland Expresses of Great Com
 pany Many Years Ago
CPortland Oregonian)

]
 i It is stated in the school histories
 of Oregon that the Hudsons bay com pany. which controlled the coast re-
 zion from about 1920 to 1840. com
 municated regularly with the home
 office of the monopoly by means of overland expresses. A party of ca l pablo men with d well tried leader i set out from Vancouver every spring 1 and made their way to Fort York, near the mouth of Nelson river. on i Hudson's bay. At about midsummer another party left Fort York for Van couver, going over the same route in the opposite direction. Dispatches and other important matter were carried both ways. Ships from London reach cd Fort York at fixed intervals and thus communication was maintained without interruption between the most distant parts of the HudsOn's bay company's vast empire and the heart of the civilized world. Hitherto not a great deal of information has been available to the public about the coun- try through which these expeditions travelled. Imagination, having but few facts to work with has pictured it as | fOrlorn desoIation wrapped in per petual snow and haunted by the ter
 
 An account of some of the trips. which has lately been published by the Royal Society of Canada, puts a different face upon them. The men. when they were properly inured to that kind of travel. underwent no eX- cessive hardships and experienced only such deprivations as made hunt ing enjoyable and brought into play the arts of the expert WoOdsman. The Hudson's bay clerk whose entertain ing journal has thus been made ac- cessible was Edward Ermatingcr, who served the company for ten years, be- ginning in ISIS. He wntered one year at Island lake, another at OK fcrd house, and Spent two winters at York factory, on Hudson's bay. Then he passed a year al Red river and finally went to the region of the Co., lumbia, where he stayed three years. Cn March 29, at a quarter before 6 in the evening he left Vancouver at the head of an express party for Fort York With his company were varf ous persons we'll known in Oregon history pr. Mclaughlin, who was then chief factor of the monopoly. was the most distinguished. but Pierre Chrysologne Pambrun, whom Bonneville encountered at WaIla Walla in 1882. was also with the ex- petition. So was the bOtanist David Douglas, who wrote an interesting account of his scientific and other experiences in the Canadian wilder ness.
 As far as Walla Walla the gentle men of the party rode horseback most of the way such sorry beasts as they could obtain from the miser- able saVages along the river The In dians as We see them in Ermatinger's Journal present very little to console the admirers of the noble red man of fiction. One of their old women who had chanced to die at an inconvenient moment was found by the travellers thrust into a pit beside the trail and left there without a rag of covering Tor the coyotes to devour On an other occasion some of the travellers forgot gun at the morning camp fire. Returning for it, they found it in the possession of a red faced scamp, who only gave up the booty under threats of death Ermatinger found the Indians south of the Co., lumbia in much the same moral and economic state as Jason Lee did those Of the Willamette They were hopelessly filthy and depraved Eff forts to convert them were total faiI- ures and they usually rapaid kind ness with treachery.
 Ermatinger'S party followed the