“The People, Foods, and Landscapes of 1828”: the 2023 Rendezvous, in Castor Canadensis, the Journal of the Jedediah Smith Society

Page 1

Castor Canadensis
The Journal of the Jedediah Smith Society v University of the Pacific, Stockton, California

Vol. 2, No. 1. Spring 2023

Page 2

Castor Canadensis
 Spring 2023

 The Journal of the Jedediah Smith Society ⋅ University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
 Vol. 2, No. 1
 Joe Green, editor Irene Soler Steiner, designer
 Marlene Smith-Baranzini, assistant editor

“The 2023 Jedediah Smith Society Rendezvous” by Bob Zybach ............................................................................... 2

“Excerpts from the 2023 Rendezvous Guidebooks” by Bob Zybach .......................................................................... 10

“The Jedediah Smith Bakersfield Monument,” by Jim Ahrens ................................................................................... 12

“A Matter of Timing: George Simpson and Jedediah Smith,” by William G. White .................................................. 15

“Meet the JSS President” ............................................................................................................................................ 19

“Jed Smith in the Schools, 1926 and Beyond” ........................................................................................................... 21

The Board of Directors ................................................................................................................................................ 22

Website Renovations ................................................................................................................................................... 22

Fur Trade Organizations .............................................................................................................................................. 22

Coming Events ............................................................................................................................................................ 22

The Editor’s Corner ..................................................................................................................................................... 23

Publishing Guidelines .................................................................................................................................................. 23

Dues ............................................................................................................................................................................. 24

New Members ............................................................................................................................................................. 24

*Our cover photo, taken by JSS member Peter Meyerhof, captures the beauty of the Pacific Coast just north of Crescent City,
California, not far from Jed’s trail.

Jed’s journeys into the American West were arduous—and fatal for many of his men—yet he frequently extoled the
magnificence of his surroundings. He delighted in the “undulating prairie” of Mandan country, in the “beautiful
encrustation found in the Salt Plain,” in the “rich chocolate loam” of the Sacramento River where, he said, “the
whole face of the country is a most beautiful green, resembling a flourishing wheat field.” Jed may have epitomized
the rugged individualist and aggressive capitalist, but he also exhibited a vivid aesthetic sensibility.

Page 3

A member of the Jedediah Smith Society Board, Bob Zybach holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Oregon
State University. He is the author of several articles on a wide range of topics, including the use and management of
 Oregon forests and early Indian trails. Zybach also has extensive knowledge of Jed’s travels through Oregon.
 He has been recognized for his work with at-risk high school students and for his research into the history of
 blacks in Oregon. He is a distant relative of David Jackson.

 The 2023 Jedediah Smith Society Rendezvous:
 From Smith River, California, to Fort Vancouver in 1828

 by Bob Zybach
 I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to
 follow the course of rivers that run through a new land. Jedediah S. Smith, March 1831

 This painting of Fort Vancouver was made in 1845 or 1846 by British military spy Henry Warre while under orders
 to “obtain a general knowledge of the capabilities of the Oregon Territory in a Military point of view” in “perfect
 secrecy, so far as possible.” The fort was being constructed during Smith’s winter 1828-29 stay there,
 and he may well have been among its first occupants.

The April 2-5, 2023, Jedediah Smith Rendezvous followed Jedediah Smith’s 1828 route from Smith River, California,
to Smith River, Oregon, and finally to Fort Vancouver. The theme of the Rendezvous was a comparison and contrast
of the foods, people, and landscapes Smith and his men encountered with those of our time.
To assist participants in learning about this theme, I assembled four Guidebooks, one for each day of the tour. Each
Guidebook includes a detailed and documented map of Smith’s 1828 routes and campsite locations, beginning south
of Hoopa Valley in northwest California on May 2 and ending with his return to Fort Vancouver on December 11.
(Two representative pages of the Guidebooks, including instructions for their use, follow this essay. Copies of all four
Guidebooks will be available on the Jedediah Smith Society website shortly after renovations to the site are complete.)

At each campsite from May 2 (Hogback Ridge) through July 13 (Defeat River), either Smith or his clerk Harrison
Rogers made daily journal entries regarding their foods, encounters with natives, travel progress, and campsite
locations. These journals constitute the earliest historical documentation of the lands and people of northern California
and the southern Oregon Coast. Transcriptions of the journals appear in the Guidebooks in chronological order and
are indexed by page numbers to the maps. Daily journal entries after July 13 were written by Alexander Roderick
McLeod, Chief Trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) based at Fort Vancouver. Our Rendezvous participants
could thus read original verbatim eyewitness accounts by three “journalists” of native peoples, customs, and
geographical features from the 1820s, and compare or contrast them to their own experiences and environments nearly

2

Page 4

200 years later. For anyone who wishes to conduct further studies, the Guidebooks also contain reference lists of the
journals themselves and interpretations by scholars.

An excellent hunter and beaver trapper, and a proven survivor and leader, Smith has often been compared to Lewis,
Clark, and Fremont as one of the most important explorers and cartographers of the western US. He was also an
important ethnologist shortly before the indigenous people he met and described were ravaged by disease and whose
cultures were forever changed by guns, trade goods, and social contacts with foreign white (and black) people and
their powerful domesticated animals.
Smith and Rogers traveled with 16 or 18 armed men and 300 horses and mules loaded with traps, guns, ammunition,
hundreds of beaver skins, camping equipment, and trade items—mostly beads. Travel routes were determined by
topography, river crossings, and pasturage. Fresh water, prairies, and grassy meadows were essential for survival; elk
and Indian trails along ridgelines and riparian areas were key travel routes; fallen logs, cliffs, and nearly impenetrable
thick brush—predominantly rhododendron, salmonberry, salal, hazel, and huckleberry—were frequent impediments.
Several people were helpful in planning and coordinating the Rendezvous, including Wayne Knauf, Milton von
Damm, Rich Cimino, Joe Green, and myself. Joe Molter supplied field research and suggestions for the California leg
of the trip; Jim Auld provided significant insight into the Umpqua disaster and burial site history; and Jim Anderson
made arrangements and contacts for the Oregon City and Fort Vancouver visits.
Our traveling Rendezvous was specifically intended to be a series of one-day events so that we could accommodate
local participants and others unable to be present for our entire journey north. The four Guidebooks were developed
with this benefit in mind, but also for anyone who wishes to visit these locations later.
All four days of the Rendezvous began with a 9:00 a.m. rendezvous in the parking lots of the local Best Western
Motels in Crescent City, Bandon, Reedsport, and Dallas, respectively. From there we formed a caravan to each of the
designated stops for that day’s travel. Amazingly, no one got lost; there were no vehicle problems, no disputes, and
everyone reached each stop or mealtime as scheduled and in good spirits.
Our first day followed Smith’s and Rogers’ daily journal entries from their June 14, 1828, Cushing Creek campsite,
just south of present-day Crescent City, north to their July 2 Coquille River camp near Bandon.
At the Crescent Beach Overlook, as shown in the Guidebooks, we could see the Cushing Creek campsite where Smith,
his men, and their many horses and mules sojourned for two days. They had just arrived at low tide from their camp
at Endert Beach when Rogers wrote, “Plenty of grass on the mountain for our horses, but very steep for them
to climb after it.”
As Smith discovered, Cushing Creek was much better:
 It being low tide by passing around a point in the water I was enabled to travel along the shore and
 encamped in a prairae [sic] of about 100 acres of tolerable grass. In the vicinity was a plenty of Elk
 sign.
So, he decided to stay another day:
 I lay by to recruit my horses. Several of us went hunting and Joseph Lapoint in the morning killed
 one of the largest [animals] Elk I had ever seen. He was not verry fat but [in] tolerable [order] good
 meat. His size induced me to weigh the meat which I found to weigh 695 lbs neat weight exclusive
 of the tongue and some other small pieces which would have made it above 700 lbs.
Rogers:
 A number of Inds. visited our camp again to day, bringing fish, clams, strawberrys, and a root
 that is well known by the traders west of the Rocky mountains by the name of commeser, for trade.
The Indians to which Rogers refers were probably the native Tolowa, and they had an abundance and variety of quality
foods for meals and trade. The men in Smith’s party typically shared a diet of deer, bear, and elk as they traversed
northern California and western Oregon, but their fare also included an occasional horse, their only dog, and flour—
with a greater variety when they could trade beads for food. The travelers’ first encounters with lamprey eels were
mostly negative, but even these creatures were soon eagerly eaten, along with berries, fish, clams, and camas.

3

Page 5

From Cushing Creek we followed Smith through Elk Valley. Today it consists mostly of trees, buildings, lawns, and
fields, but Smith described it this way in 1828:
 One mile along the beach north & then turning to the right I traveled 4 Miles across a prairae leaving
 a range of hills on the East running North not far distant and thickly covered with Hemlock & Cedar.
 The prairae was covered with brakes bushes & grass & had many springs.
And Rogers:
 The day clear and warm, plenty of muskeatoes, large horse flies, and small knats to bite us and
 pesterous early of mornings and late in the evenings. The timber along the bottom, ceador,
 hemlock of the largest size, under brush, hazle, briars, aldar, and sundry other s[h]rubs; the soil
 v ery rich and black.
From Elk Valley we moved to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park because of its common history with the Jedediah
Smith Society and for photo opportunities. It is doubtful that Jed’s party entered this area because of insufficient
pasturage and obstructions like fallen trees and limbs, although they probably explored some of its western perimeter
where there are many trees “of the largest size.”
We were surprised to find no interpretive signs, pamphlets, or other information about Jedediah Smith in the Park or
in the adjacent Hiouchi Interpretive Center. We learned that even the tiny Jedediah Smith Visitor Center would be
closed in fall and winter. We were later informed by Patrick Taylor, Interpretation and Education Program Manager
for Redwoods National and State Parks, that a project is in the works to update the Park’s informational and
interpretive signage, and that the Jedediah Smith Society will be consulted regarding proposed texts and installations.
After a stop at the expedition’s campsite on the north side of Smith River, we entered Oregon, crossed the Winchuck
and Chetco Rivers and were treated to pizza by Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation chairperson, Jeri Lynn Thompson, and her
daughter, Katrina Thompson-Upton, at her Northwest American Indian Coalition office in Brookings. Another
Tolowa mother and daughter were also present, and together with our group and a local journalist, more than a dozen
individuals discussed Smith and Northwest Indian history. We carried on a meaningful dialogue focused on Smith’s
expedition through Northwest Indian communities, recognizing the subsequent negative impact on the indigenous
peoples who consider these areas their home “since time immemorial.” As we explored the legacy of these encounters,
we also contemplated how to improve regional racial and ethnic relationships and our shared histories.
Our first coastal stop in Oregon was Harris Beach State Park where we discussed the broken cliffs and stretches of
sandy beaches that extend from northern California to Vancouver Island and still show the dramatic effects—and
distinct travel barriers—that remain from the January 26, 1700, Cascadia earthquake and ensuing tsunami. This
catastrophic event has been precisely dated using Japanese tsunami documentation and tree-ring analyses of
submerged trees. Survivor accounts undoubtedly remained in the generational memory and stories of the native people
Smith encountered. Smith’s pack trail was the first along the southern Oregon Coast—memorable for its sheer cliffs
and deep brush-filled ravines. Much of today’s Highway 101 follows this route, but the oral histories are forever lost.

 Harris Beach looking south.
 The geological effects of the 1700 Cascadia earthquake and subsequent tsunami, still apparent today, formed
 formidable barriers to Smith’s expedition. Note the people and driftwood at the base of the cliff for scale.
 April 2, 2023, photo by Peter Meyerhof.

4

Page 6

As Smith reached the Rogue River, he increasingly noticed indications of European trade items on a route established
in January of the previous year by HBC Chief Trader McLeod. An excellent trapper in his own right, McLeod was
promoted by the HBC to brigade leader. Like Smith and Rogers, he kept a daily journal as he looked for new sources
of beaver.

Because Smith and Rogers’ 1828 route and campsites retraced McLeod’s, the Guidebooks also include McLeod’s
journal entries for 1826 and 1827.

On July 2, after leaving Sixes River, Rogers noted the topography:

 The country, for 3 days past, appears to leave the effects of earth quakes at some period past, as
 it is quite cut to pieces in places and very broken, although it affords such an abundance of good
 grass and clover.

When the expedition reached the Brush Creek trail, which skirted the eastern perimeter of Humbug Mountain, Smith’s
party camped in a grassy prairie of about 1,000 acres. Today this prairie is a manicured State Park with planted trees,
mowed fields, and tightly packed campsites. After a drive through this area for context, we met in the Day Use area
across the highway, which gives the appearance of an ancient campsite—a place comprised of an old-growth
myrtlewood grove, huckleberries, a fish-bearing stream, and shelter against coastal winds and storms.
Other than the obvious towns, highways, roadside weeds, and parklands, the principal differences between the
landscapes that Smith, Rogers, and McLeod described in 1828 and the ones we observed in 2023 were (1) far fewer
grassy prairies, meadows, and brushy fields (trees, crops, construction); (2) many more trees over a much larger area
now (seeding and planting); 3) significantly fewer large, old trees now (logging, windstorms, and wildfire); and (4)
more deadwood along the coast and bays now. This latter condition exists mainly because for hundreds of generations
greater numbers of people gathered driftwood, limbs, and logs for firewood, construction materials, and tools. Such
practices mostly ended 50 to 75 years ago.
The final stop for the day was Bandon where participants were encouraged to visit the 1854 Nasomah Massacre
memorial. Here, an interpretive sign fronts a small landscaped park with a short walkway featuring culturally
significant native plants and a symbolic art installation. The sign features an evocative poetic recounting of Nasomah
history and culture with the telling words, “Right Here.” One line reads, “We watched Jedediah Smith destroy our
houses and build rafts from the cedar planks. That was in 1828.” That happened. Right Here.
On Day 2 our first visit was to Seven Devils Beach, followed by a drive along Seven Devils Road, an example of the
rugged terrain Smith encountered inland from the ocean beaches. We made a brief stop on our way to Cape Arago at
the South Slough Interpretive Center to observe the nearly impassible brushlands of salal, huckleberry. salmonberry,
hazel, and rhododendron the expedition had faced. At the Cape Arago campsite Rogers wrote,
 Marishall caught a boy about 10 years old and brought him to camp. I give him some beads and
 dryed meat; he appears well and satisfied, and makes signs that the Inds. have all fled in their canoes
 and left him.
This was the Kalapuyan slave boy named Marion, who Smith later claimed was the Umpqua Indian killed less than
two weeks later during the so-called Umpqua Massacre.
From Cape Arago our Rendezvous followed Smith’s route to Sunset Bay. There, the expedition found good pasturage
and traded for food with local natives while cutting a path through the brush and marshes separating the coast from
South Slough and Coos Bay. At the Hollering Place, in present-day Empire, Rogers penned a July 9 note:
 We crossed in Ind. canoes; a great many Inds. live along the river bank; there houses built after the
 fashion of a shed. A great many Inds. in camp with fish and berris for sale; the men bought them as
 fast as they brought them.

5

Page 7

Sunset Bay.
 Smith’s party spent two days here, with good forage. However, they had to forge a difficult two-mile path through
 coastal brush and bogs to reach present-day South Slough and Coos Bay.
 February 2, 2023, photo by Bob Zybach.

From the Hollering Place we traveled to the Coos History Museum where we met local historians Steve Greif, David
Gould, and author Lionel Youst, who compared a story from McLeod's written journal to a local native oral history
account. Youst also provided the group with an annotated index to the comprehensive research materials he has
donated to the Museum for use by students, teachers, and other researchers. Lunch was served at the Seven Devils
Brewery in Coos Bay.

The final stop for the day was the site of the infamous Umpqua “Massacre” and subsequent Christian burial of 11 of
the men killed during that incident. Weeks before our Rendezvous, the Jedediah Smith Society had secured official
Oregon Historic Cemetery recognition for this location, and we discussed an appropriate memorial.

During the Rendezvous we did not speculate about the routes taken by the survivors of the July 14 murders—Smith,
Arthur Black, John Turner, and Richard Leland. Black, alone, was the first to reach Fort Vancouver safely, as Chief
Factor John McLoughlin reported to HBC headquarters on August 10:

 H o n b l e . S i r s , O n the 8th Inst. at 10 P.M. an American of the name of Black reached
 this place, in his opinion at the time, the only survivor of a Party of Nineteen (19) Americans, the
 remainder having been massacred by the Natives of the Um[p]qua River . . .

On the following day Smith, Turner, and Leland arrived—thus, four survivors in all. McLoughlin quickly ordered
McLeod to assemble a brigade, return with Smith to the scene of the attack, and retrieve as much of the Americans’
livestock, furs, and other possessions as possible. Any physical punishments imposed on the perpetrators were left to
McLeod’s discretion.

The daily campsite and journal entries transcribed in the third and fourth Guidebooks are McLeod’s. Smith, Black,
Turner, and Leland accompanied him and the HBC brigade on the recovery trip back to Defeat River—as Smith had
named it—and on their subsequent return to Fort Vancouver. Upon reaching the mouth of Smith River on October 28,
1828, McLeod described the stark scene:

 Stoped at the entrance of the North Branch, where Mr. Smiths Party were destroyed, and a Sad
 Spectacle of Indian barbarity presented itself to our View, the Skeletons of eleven of those Miserabl
 Sufferers lying bleaching in the Sun, after paying the last Service to their remains we continued
 forward and made the Coast . . .

6

Page 8

Withheld from this edition pending review. The item keeps its place in the register and its permanent link.

Page 9

The third day of the Rendezvous began with a visit to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Elk Viewing Area
along the Umpqua River a few miles east of Reedsport. About 120 horses and mules grazed here on a tidal prairie that
must have been similar to the pasturage near the 1828 Smith River campsite. From there we toured the Fort Umpqua
replication in Elkton, hosted by Deborah Gritton, the Education Program Coordinator for the Elkton Community
Education Center. After a lunch at Arlene’s Restaurant, some of our party returned to California.

From Elkton, we closely followed Smith’s and McLeod’s routes and campsites to the Forks of Elk Creek and Pass
Creek at present-day Drain, and then the Territorial Road through Anlauf, Lorane, Crow, Veneta, Elmira, Franklin,
and Cheshire to Monroe. This route was pioneered by McLeod as the HBC “pack trail” to the Umpqua in 1826 and
then developed into the 1829 California Trail for HBC beaver trapping expeditions to the Sacramento Valley. It was
eventually converted into the Applegate Trail wagon road in 1846 and became Oregon’s first Territorial Road in 1851.

This path was a segment of the main route from the Willamette Valley through the Elk Mountain [Mountain La Biche]
to the Umpqua Valley, and from the Columbia River to San Francisco until an alternate route from Pass Creek began
to be favored and later evolved into today’s 99-W and I-5. From Monroe to Adair Village, we took the modern route
on 99-W (dating to 1852) before returning to McLeod’s HBC pack trail through Tampico, Airlie, the Little Luckiamute
River crossing at Bridgeport, and ending at the Dallas Best Western where we had dinner with Northwest Metis
historian Rob Foxcurran, who traveled with us from that point forward.

Our final day began with a brief tour of Champoeg hosted by Park Manager David Figgins. We viewed the Park's
catalogued artifact collection and visited the monument to the 1843 Wolf Meeting and then stopped at the Museum of
Oregon Territory in Oregon City with its spectacular views of Willamette Falls and its collection of historical
documents and native artifacts. We met Jim Anderson, Virginia Jaquez, and Suzi Schoensee there and caravanned to
our final destination—Fort Vancouver.

 Fort Vancouver restoration by the National Park Service (NPS) as it appears today—in the same dimensions and
 appearance as seen by Smith while the fort was being constructed in 1828 and as painted by Warre in 1845-46.
 April 5, 2023, photo by Peter Meyerhof.

Our tour guide at the fort was Aaron Ochoa, a longtime National Park Service Chief of Interpretations at Fort
Vancouver who had recently returned from a tour of duty to Thailand as a National Guardsman. Though this was his
first day back on the job, he adeptly guided us through a history of the HBC, Fort Vancouver, and the fur trade, with
visits to the fur storage warehouse, Indian trading store, blacksmith shop, and Chief Trader’s kitchen. Another
highlight was a presentation by Matt Dalimata, the fort’s jolly and knowledgeable blacksmith.

8

Page 10

Aaron Ochoa, Fort Vancouver Chief of Interpretations, informing us
 about the cannons in front of the Chief Factor’s house.
 April 5, 2023, photo by Bob Zybach

Our final rendezvous was dinner at the nearby Beaches Restaurant along the Columbia River. Goodbyes, thankyous—
and we all went our separate ways.

 The final stop at the Fort Vancouver Chief Factor’s house on the way to a parting regale at The Beaches Restaurant
 on the Columbia River. (L-R) Rob Foxcurran, Bob Zybach, Jim Anderson, Suzi Schoensee,
 Aaron Ochoa, Virginia Jaquez, Eric Tschuy, and Peter Meyerhof.
 April 5, 2023, photo by Matt Dalimata.

9

Page 11

Excerpts from the 2023 Rendezvous Guidebooks

 by Bob Zybach

10

Page 12

Guidebook Instructions
 The four 2023 Rendezvous Guidebooks were designed
 for JSS members, students, researchers, and others
 with an interest in local history and places. These two
 pages illustrate how the guidebooks were used during
 the Rendezvous at the first stop: the Crescent Beach
 Overlook viewing the modern location and landscape
 of Smith's April 14, 1828, campsite near the mouth of
 Cushing Creek.
 Facing Page: (upper left) This is the cover of
 Guidebook #1, featuring a reproduction of Paul Calles
 1987 painting, In the Land of Giants. Smith and others
 probably viewed the redwoods, but it is unlikely they
 brought pack teams or horses into them because of
 surface obstructions and lack of browse. (upper right)
 A GIS map created by Vyla Grindberg, based on
 research by Joe Molter and Bob Zybach, showing
 Cushing Creek campsite in relation to Smith’s travel
 route. (lower left) The Table of Contents showing
 1828 dates of named and mapped campsites and the
 page in the guidebook in which Smith’s and Rogers’
 transcribed journal entries for that day can be found.
 (lower right) Cushing Creek campsite transcribed
 journal entries.
 This Page: (top) Crescent Beach Overlook with (L-R)
 Milton von Damm, Arthur Hurley, Peter Meyerhof,
 Suzi Schoensee, Virginia Jaquez, and Richard Cimino.
 Photo April 2, 2023, by Tam Moore. (center) View of
 Cushing Creek campsite from Crescent Beach
 Overlook. April 2, 2023, photo by Peter Meyerhof.
 (bottom) Map of Smith route to and from the Cushing
 Creek campsite by Joe Molter.

*Guidebook copies will be available on the JSS website as soon as renovations to the site are complete.
James Ahrens was president of the Montana Hospital Association and also chair of the National Veterans Rural
Health Advisory Committee. After retirement from the MHA, he started a consulting company that served several
health-care organizations. In 2017 he and his wife Kathleen moved to Bakersfield, California, where Ahrens
remains active in community and Kern County activities, including the Kern River Fly Fishers. He is a member the
Jedediah Smith Society Board.

11