Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/261

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John Work's Journey to Umpqua River, 1834
239

been edited or otherwise altered. The bracketed numbers represent the pages of the H. H. Bancroft copy of the journal. The writer of the subjoined comments is indebted to William S. Lewis, of Spokane, Washington; T. C. Elliott, of Walla Walla, Washington, and F. G. Young, of Eugene, Oregon, for many details of information.

This copy of the John Work journal of 1834 was made from the H. H. Bancroft copy of the original, under direction of Dr. Herbert I. Priestly, librarian of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California. The original journal is in the Provincial Library at Victoria, British Columbia.


Journal of a trip to the southward in 1834

1834. May 22. Very heavy rain the greater part of the day. Left Vancouver on a Trading & Trapping Trip to the Southward with 12 men. We embarked at 2 p. m.

Comments

May 22. The "traverse," where the boat route joined the mountain trail, was on Willamette Slough (Multnomah Channel), called by John Work "little channel/probably one or two miles northwest of the railroad station named Holbrook. This is some twelve miles from Fort Vancouver and five miles south of the present town Scappoose. At or near this "traverse," the Hudson's Bay Company had a dairy on Wapato (now Sauvie) Island. The mountain trail led across hills of between 1100 and 1200 feet elevation to McKay Creek, tributary of Tualatin River. John Work's bateaux probably crossed the upper end of Sauvie Island, which was then inundated by the spring freshet of Columbia River. See map of Charles Wilkes in Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-42. The distance across the mountains is estimated by John Work at ten miles, but the later winding road (1923) is about eight miles. It may be of inter-