Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/193

SLACUM'S REPORT ON OREGON, 1836-7 185 The Northwest Company being at this time established at Fort George, (having purchased of Mr. John Jacob Astor, of New York, his interest in his trading establishment, called by him Astoria,) continued to trade with the Indians, and built a trading-house near the site of the old fort. This was kept up, first by the Northwest, and since by the Hudson Bay Com- pany, to the present day. For several years previously to the coalition, however, the interior trade of both companies had become materially lessened by their vicious and destructive opposition to each other ; but from this period, the coalition, in 1821, the now Hudson Bay Company have extended their enter- prises over an extent of country almost incalculable. I shall endeavor to point out the enterprise of this company, and the influence they exercise over the Indian tribes within our acknowledged lines of territory, and their unauthorized introduction of large quantities of British goods within the territorial limits of the United States. Fort Vancouver, the principal depot of the Hudson Bay Com- pany west of the, Rocky mountains, stands on a gentle acclivity, four hundred yards from the shore, on the north bank of the Columbia, or Oregon river, about 100 miles from its mouth. The principal buildings are enclosed by a picket forming an area of 750 by 450 feet. Within the pickets, there are thirty- four buildings of all descriptions, including officers' dwelling- houses, workshops for carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, coopers, tinners, &c., all of wood except the magazine for pow- der which is of brick ; outside and very near the fort there are forty-nine cabins for laborers and mechanics, a large and com- modious barn, and seven buildings attached thereto ; a hospital and large boat house on the shore, six miles above the fort. On the north bank,, the Hudson Bay Company have erected a saw- mill on a never-failing stream of water that falls into the Columbia ; cuts 2,000 to 2,400 feet of lumber daily ; employs 28 men, chiefly Sandwich Islanders, and ten yoke of oxen ; depth of water, fours fathoms at the mill where the largest ships of the company take in their cargoes for the Sandwich islands market.