David Douglas, Western Naturalist

During the winter, Douglas stayed close to the fort. He spent the time reading, socializing, and copying his journal. He packed and labeled specimens and shipped them back to England. At the end of March, Douglas joined an expedition on a fur trading mission to the Spokane River and Kettle Falls. Though the climate is much drier and the vegetation is more sparse on the east side of the Cascade Mountains, he was still able to collect sixteen different species of sagebrush and several new species of shrubs which were previously unknown to science.

By June he returned south to the Walla Walla area and the Blue Mountains. He saw a particularly steep peak that he wished to climb. His Indian guides refused to accompany him, so Douglas went on alone. He was inundated by a severe storm, which pounded him with hail and rain. He struggled back down the mountain, where his guides built a fire for him, where he rested until able to travel.

Despite his enthusiasm for collecting and traveling, Douglas suffered many depredations and illnesses. In fact, the only time his journal makes interesting reading is when he describes his suffering. He was frequently sick, sometimes for weeks at a time. He scraped his knee on a packing nail and suffered severe infection, which would heal but give him pains for the rest of his journey. On several excursions, he ran out of food and subsisted on little or nothing for several days. One time rats got into his tent and ate many of his seeds. He caught one of the rats trying to knock over his inkwell. He shot it, then put it in his bag of specimens.

In September of 1826 he journeyed to the Umpqua River in Central Oregon, where he had heard of a new type of evergreen. A storm brewed and blew down his tent. Trees fell all around him and scared his horses. A few days later he stumbled and fell down a rocky ravine and was knocked unconscious. Eventually he got to his destination, where he found a downed sugar pine, which was an incredible 215 feet long and 57 feet 9 inches in circumference.

He mostly stayed near the fort over the winter, but prepared to go east with the brigade in the spring. The brigade left on March 20, 1827, sailing up the Columbia to its headwaters in British Columbia. They

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