Gabriel Franchère

I titled my blog Oregon and Quebec and in one post I acknowledged that many readers (both readers?) likely believe the two places are far apart and have little to do with one another. But one of my goals is to show that in fact many of the earliest Euro-American residents of Oregon came from Quebec. The first Catholic bishops of the Oregon territory were Quebecois. The earliest comprehensive glossary of the Chinook jargon, the trade language used by Indians and trappers in the Oregon territory, was published in Montreal (written by Rev. Modeste Demers, revised by Rev. F. N. Blanchet, in 1870). And among the founders of Astoria, Oregon in 1811, the trading post financed and named for the fur trading magnate John Jacob Astor, was Gabriel Franchère, a Montrealer. He is particularly noteworthy because he wrote a travel narrative that is the best record of the expedition, and was the primary source for Washington Irving's Astoria.

Franchère sailed from New York in September 1810 on the Tonquin, and stopped at the Islas Malvinas or Iles Malouines before rounding Cape Horn, and for a lengthy stopover in Hawaii after the horn. In late March they reached the Columbia, and with great difficulty and the loss of eight men in their launches, crossed the bar. For me, homesick for the Willamette Valley, a great charm of this text is Franchère's reaction to the climate and the vegetation. The enormous trees, the spring flowers, and the success of his garden: “les navets etaient d’un grosseur extraordinaire; nous en mesurames un qui portoit 33 pouces de circonférence et pesoit quinze livres et demie. De douze patates que nous plantames, le produit fut de 90, que nous conservames avec soin pour l’année suivante." But at leaner times Franchère was forced to trade for horses and dogs; the animals that the Indians themselves did not care to eat.

Astor's scheme was inspired by the fact that as the Hudson's Bay company and especially the Montreal based Northwest Company stretched their networks farther and farther into the Rocky Mountains, they pushed against the limits of the yearly routine around which the trade had always been organized. The voyageurs would leave the posts in the spring with furs trapped over the winter, deliver them to Montreal, and return to the posts in the fall with the essential goods Indian trappers needed for the winter. It was not feasible to make this round trip from the upper Saskatchewan River in one season. Moreover, one of the richest markets for beaver, mink, and other furs was now in Canton (China). So a Pacific Coast fur factory could be very lucrative. Trade goods might be supplied in large ocean-going vessels, and furs collected from the western slopes of the Rockies, and shipped directly across the Pacific, along with the seal and otter skins collected along the coast. At last the transcontinental trade that explorers had dreamed of since the sixteenth-century could become a reality!

Astor sent a ship around the Horn, and a separate expedition overland, along the same route used by Lewis and Clark some six years earlier. But at the same time the NW Company traders, including David Thompson, were exploring the Columbia Valley with the same goal as Astor. And on july 23, 1811, Thompson himself showed up in Astoria: “Ce monsieur voyageoit plutot en qualité de géographe qu’en commercant de pelleteries. Durant un séjour de 7 à 8 jours qu’il fit avec nous, il eut occasion de prendre plusieurs observations, étant muni d’un bon quart de nonnante. Et il me parut qu’il tenoit un journal régulier” One thing that amazes me in this book is how the traders and explorers all seem to find each other in this enormous country. When I go hiking I usually have a map and look at it every mile or so. These guys followed directions on a very large scale; something like "ascend the Columbia to its headwaters, turn east, cross over a pass, and..." This was the route Franchère followed home, where he arrived on Sept. 1, 1814.

Franchère was extremely lucky to survive, but not lucky enough to find his fortune. While he stayed at Astoria to build the trading post, the Tonquin set sail to explore the coast, and near Nootka on Vancouver Island was attacked by the Indians and burned. Only one man survived, escaped from captivity and returned to Oregon to tell the tale. The party that crossed overland to Oregon suffered horrible privations. When the War of 1812 broke out and Britain and the United States became enemy powers, the competition for Astoria was no longer merely commercial but political. The Astorians surrendered to the more numerous NW Co. men, and “C’est de cette maniere que je perdis en un instant mes espérances de fortune après avoir franchi les mers et enduré toutes les fatigues et les privations auxquelles je fus exposé en formant l’établissement.”


Franchère kept a diary during his voyage, and wrote a narrative upon his return. In 1820 the editor Michel Bibaud published Relation d'un voyage à la côte du nord-ouest de l'Amérique Septentrionale, dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13, et 14. This text was used by Irving, along with interviews with Franchère and other members of the expedition. Then an English translation appeared in 1854, and several others after that. But the original manuscript, held now at the Toronto public library, remained unpublished until 1969, when the Champlain Society released it in a bilingual edition. I've purchased a less-expensive French edition from LUX of Montréal.


I look forward to reading Astoria when I get back to Oregon, and perhaps to studying how Irving and others changed Franchère's original narrative. It's final lines are mémorable enough, and Franchère finally reaches his hometown, after paddling all the way from the Rockies. "Enfin après avoir desscendu ce dernier rapide nous mimes pied à terra à Montréal après le coucher du soleil, après quatre ans, un mois, et six jour d’absence. Je m’acheminai immédiatement vers la maison paternelle, ou l’on ne s’attendoit guère à me revois, les nouvelles leur étant parvenues que j’avais été massacré avec M. McKay et l’équipage du Tonquin. Je me retrouvai ainsi au millieu de ma famille et de mes amis, par un effet de la divine providence, qui voulut bien me preserver...”