Adventures on the Columbia River: Including the Narrative of the Residence of Six Years on the Western Side of the Rocky Mountains, Among Various ... with a Journey Across the American Continent

by Ross Cox

Ross Cox was a fur trader for the Pacific Fur Company. In 1811 he sailed from New York around the Horn to Hawaii and up the Columbia River. He resided on the Columbia River and surrounding areas for six years. He was not a hero but he was a survivor, and a sharp observer who wrote one of the best first-hand accounts of the fur trapper's life.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

259 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Peter Stark's Astoria, he in passing mentions this early 19c report by an Irishman in the employ of the upstart North-West fur trading company, after the debacle of Astor's attempt to compete on the Pacific Coast against the Hudson Bay monopoly. Cox's adventures begin in the Sandwich Islands, and this may remain the most appealing section. Imagining the "queens" on Oahu beating the sailors at checkers, for instance, conjures up its own charm.

Of course, as the reality behind this globalization two centuries ago proves, there's far less enchantment once Cox hits the mainland. Forget any noble savage stereotypes. He longs for conversion of the natives worldwide, for what he reports--much admittedly hearsay, or at least secondhand at best: the 1957 editors (I read this complete ed. not the public domain copies Goodreads tends to multiply) strive to document where the original account deviates from the patchy, contradictory, or sparse if any historical record in this chaotic, raw, and self-aggrandizing era--doesn't play up the romantic notions of peaceable tribes anymore than the cunning traders, brawling voyageurs, or drunken layabouts among the American, Canadian, and British...plus truly diverse, polyglot, semi-inclusive, multinational-crew. The actual travels after a spirited start out West grow less involving as the band heads towards Montreal, a pacing repeated in Stark's retelling on the bicentennial of the expedition Cox had joined.

Being all of nineteen, he understandably scrutinizes the plight and power plays of the fairer sex, among not only n the rare representative Jane Barnes from England, but of the women old and young, exploited, sold, abducted, and contended for, and not infrequently cast aside, by their masculine mates, both white and "Indian." Those seeking to comprehend how females were regarded in these mercantile, pitiless, and transactional times may find much within.

Tall tales may populate the initial, livelier portions. Lost in today's central Washington State, attacked by hawks and wolves, watched by bears, tormented by the elements without and hunger within. It always makes for a good story.

This was excerpted in Bruce Barcott's 1994 anthology Northwest Passages. Well, the most rousing man vs nature moments. But Cox also does his best to set down the features of the various European and indigenous characters who fill these pages. He later became a newspaper man in Britain and Ireland, and even if scholars with the luxury of hindsight may quibble over his biases, granted the limitations of frontier knowledge, I'd say he tried to provide as comprehensive a version as possible. Even if as editors suspect, he tended to set himself in a starring role too often.

While aimed at the blinkered sensibilities of what Christian civilization could bring to the great hordes of those left out of the Empire, the nation newly independent, and the Latin American colonies recently freed, this chronicle does capture the attitude of an everyday observer who participated in this epoch. Cox conveys the tedious daily struggles instead of the dramatic discoveries. He examines the truths as best he can, despite his emissions, elisions, evasions.

It's about a trek in reverse over five months from "New Caledonia" or today's British Columbia, to Quebec. Not at all limited to the titular tributary, it nevertheless expresses the experiences of a footsore tenderfoot who manages to keep up with contenders far more skilled, the vying laborers from French, Metis, Scots, and North American origins. As well as from Hawaii, Africa, the East Indies, and ports of call which remind us of how, then as now, international may be the workforces of many a corporation which seeks to profit off natural resources hunted, fished, trapped...

[Stephen Merlino · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of my research for book three in my series—which takes place on a wild frontier—I am reading as many old west pioneer/explorer journals as I can get my hands on. So much fun to read! So much of the weird and wonderful and so many mundane bits of 19th century life that are fascinating to one spoiled by the comforts of the 21st century.

This book is the memoir / diary of a Northwest Company fur trader—from 1812 or so—and must surely be the oldest account of the unspoiled region around the Columbia. He starts of a greenhorn pulling idiotic moves like napping during a rest stop and getting separated from his party, but over the course of a decade out west he ends up an experienced wilderness voyageur.

Wonderful observations on native tribes and customs up and down the river, sometimes snobby and judgemental, and always ethnocentric, but sometimes surprisingly open minded.

Strong 19th century British style. Dry wit. Lots of florid and superfluous verbiage; like, instead of, “We went...”, he writes, “We endeavored to make our passage...” 😄

[Ginny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a simple version of his longer book. He tells of his adventures coming to Astoria and working with the men in the fur trade. Another historical perspective from a clerk during 1813.