Parallel lives
Long-standing readers of this blog (sit down, take the weight off your feet) will recall my interest (obsession?) with the life and works of David Douglas, botanist & plant collector extraordinaire, 1799-1834. I've followed him around the world, from his birthplace in Scone to where he died in Hawaii and his grave in Honolulu. If you have a flowering currant or California poppy in your garden you have a direct connection to Douglas. If you live in a house built in the UK since the late 1800s you have an even more direct connection because all your structural timbers are probably from species introduced by Douglas.
Anyway, later this summer I'm off following him again, to York Factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay. To mark this I thought I'd give you some contemporaneous accounts from his 1827 journal of his trek across the continent from the Pacific Northwest to Hudson's Bay.
Douglas has a very laconic style. Always travelling in hard, nay harsh, circumstances he makes light of his difficulties. This is a man who observes that "...so much worn out was I three times by fatigue and hunger that twice I crawled, for I could hardly walk, to a small abandoned hut. I had in my knapsack one biscuit."
Later, on the Columbia River, he observes the effect of the native's diet - "Lewis observes that when eaten in a large quantity they [Camass roots] occasion bowel complaints. This I am not aware of but assuredly they produce flatulence.; when in the Indian hut I was almost blown out by strength of wind."
He ends 1826 on the Multnomah River above present-day Portland, Oregon ending a hard-bargaining session with an Indian with the immortal words "He had my blessing and promise of a sound flogging should I ever meet him in a convenient place."
Now let's pick him up contemporaneously. Here he is on May 13th, 1827 on the Athabasca River, on his cross-continent journey with the voyageurs of the Hudson's Bay Express. He has already spent two months coming up the Columbia, over the Rockies through the Athabasca Pass and is now working his way down the Athabasca River.
"Sunday 13th. Close and cloudy. By making an early start 10 miles was gained to breakfast; shortly afterwards we left the canoe and cut over a low point of wood and arrived at Assiniboine at two o'clock. Mr Stuart killed a male partridge. I make some small slug and procure a pair of this fine bird."
Watch this space for more from David Douglas, as well as normal service from his mate Woody Wilbury at Allotment 81.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Kew!!!!
Monday, May 05, 2008
Massive Attack....
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Heading North, not South
I should, as I type this, be on a ferry in the middle of the North Sea, en route to Denmark to start the first leg of Short Way Round, my motorcycle trip round the edge of Europe from the very top of Denmark to Istanbul and beyond. For all you know, I may be on that ferry. But I’m not, I’m at home. Short Way Round is postponed, in favour of an equally big adventure on a different continent.
Those of you with long memories may recall me banging on about my Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship in 2001, following in the footsteps of David Douglas (Google him), botanist and plant collector (1799-1834). This adventure is to do some unfinished business from my Fellowship and start an entirely new project.
Context first. In 1827 Douglas set off from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest with the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company to travel east across the continent. Their destination was York Factory, the HBC’s eastern supply base for the fur trade in the Canadian sub-arctic, from which Douglas was to sail on an HBC ship back to England. They made it, walking and birch-bark canoeing. D caught the ship and made it safe home for further adventures before a gory end on Hawaii in 1834 (I’ve stood where he died and at his grave in Honolulu).
York Factory is still there (Google it) and almost as hard to access now as in 1827. There’s no road or rail link; there’s no electricity and no food, apart from what you bring in. But I’m going there in the summer, with two colleagues (one from Scotland and one from Oregon) to start filming a television documentary on Douglas.
None of us have been to York Factory before; indeed it only gets about 70 visitors a year. Only being open for 3 months of the year, frozen tight the rest of the year and at risk of polar bear attack may have something to do with that of course! It’s only about 60 miles south of Churchill, where the bears congregate in the town waiting for the sea to freeze (it’s still frozen now).
The route runs something like, fly to Winnipeg, fly further north in a smaller plane, get a Greyhound bus for three hours on a gravel road to (literally) the end of the road. Then get an even smaller plane (5-seater, float plane I suspect) to fly to York Factory. Then do it all in reverse 3 days later.
And in due course there’ll be more filming to fill in more of the blanks of the Douglas story.
This is an opportunity which has been a long time coming and can’t be turned down. Short Way Round, on the other hand, can be done ‘later’. And it’s only postponed, not ‘off’. I’m really looking forward to this; can you guess?!!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Fort Brassica
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Crikey
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Really love that Lovage