New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest, Vol. 1 of 3

New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest, Vol. 1 of 3 Synopsis

Excerpt from New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest, Vol. 1 of 3: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson 1799-1814, Exploration and Adventure Among the Indians on the Red, Saskatchewan, Missouri and Columbia Rivers

The most commanding figure among the Northmen is Sir Alexander mckenzie, whose double Iaurels are those of first reaching the Arctic ocean by way of the great river which still bears his name, and of first reaching the Pacific ocean overland through British America; and whose work, originally published in 1801, has become classic. In that year our untitled Alexander Henry was established as a winterer or kz'wmcmz in a post he had built on the Red River of the North, and engaged in the humble routine of traffic with the Indians, whom he cheated and debauched as a matter of course, with assiduity and success, upon strict business principles and after the most approved methods. Meanwhile, however, he fell into another habit, of which the Northmen were seldom guilty; for he took to the pen, and at his leisure - that is, when he was not serv ing his coppery' customers with diluted alcohol or other articles they desired to secure at fabulous prices - he kept a journal. In this literary habit he persevered until the very day before his death and this veracious chronicle, in which nothing whatever is extenuated, for aught there be set down in malice, is now before us It may not be of the heroic order; but it mirrors life in a way Mr. Samuel Pepys might envy, could he compare his inimitable Diary with this curious companion-piece of causerz'e, and perceive that he who goes over the sea may change his Sky, but not his mind. There is said to be a great deal of human nature in mankind; certainly our author had his share of it, and so had all the people in his book, to judge from the way that English, Scotch, French, American, and Indian characters are shown up under his unterrified hand.

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