The Canadian Civil War: Volume 3 - West to the Wall

by William Wresch

How much of this is real?

  Much of this series is based on real events. The Verendrye family did exist and explored much of the west. Their base was the region around Lake Superior. Jean Baptiste de la Verendrye was killed along with his men soon after they left their fort at Lake of the Woods. The motive for the attack is unknown. His father, Pierre, successfully traded and explored all over the west – up to the Rockies.

  The Rockies were a significant barrier to westward travel. To understand just how hard they were to cross, you might wish to read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. His account of the Lewis and Clark expedition is marvelous. Their journey was incredible – but that was the problem. Coming back to explain how hard it was for a military unit to cross the mountains, it became clear that normal families would never make it over.

  Then in 1812 South Pass was discovered by Astorians returning to the east from their trading post in Oregon. Half starved and freezing, they traveled south along the mountains to keep safe from the Sioux. Their journal is interesting in that it makes almost no mention of just how important the pass was to become. They were too cold, and too near starvation.

  The real event to make the Rockies surmountable was the arrival of Presbyterian missionary Marcus Whitman. He was determined to create a roadway over the mountains – and to make it clear to the world that such a trip was possible. So he took a wagon and his wife over south pass to their mission in eastern Oregon. In 1843 he returned to the east and guided a group of farmers over his trail, soon to be known as the Oregon Trail. Soon thereafter, he and his wife were killed by local Indians who blamed them for a smallpox epidemic.

  South Pass, and much of the Oregon Trail, has since become Interstate 80. You can drive over the pass at 70 miles per hour. If you look to the north side of the road as you pass through Wyoming, you will see a large bust of Lincoln marking the pass.

  Pierre De Smet was a Jesuit missionary who really did travel thousands of miles through the west. He is also known for being a friend of Sitting Bull. There is a town of De Smet, and I took some liberties with its description. For those of you with children, you make recognize De Smet as the hometown of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is in South Dakota, and not nearly as far north as I put it in this book. It is also much smaller. But it is a nice place, well worth visiting. I had the family there one Fourth of July, and they do great fireworks.

  As for the Sioux villages, here I changed geography. Such villages exist, but they exist along the banks of the Yukon River in western Alaska. I used to write software for the school district there, so I know the school buildings well – I used to sleep on the floor of the libraries when I visited to do teacher training or software upgrades.

  As for the angry-men, well, much of that comes from contemporary news, does it not? The Cliven Bundy standoff was taking place as I wrote this book. It started me thinking.