CHAPTER VI.'
AMONG THE MISSIONS.
Proceeds to Fort Vancouver - Progress of mission work - Starts out again in July-Painful accident- Scenery of the ColumbiaWretchedness of natives-Old clothes and old fish-The Spokan plain again-Forty little lakes-Father Hoeken at St. Ignatius - Through the woods-The relish of life in the open air-Something about "medicine "- A magnificent view-St. Mary's on the Bitter Root.
Very Reverend and Dear Father Provincial?
ACCEPTED the kind offer of Mr. Lewes, and took my seat in one of the barges of the Hudson Bay Company brigade, on its way to Fort Vancouver. We stopped at Fort Okinagan,s where I administered baptism to forty-three persons, chiefly children. Our passage was very pleasant and agreeable. I have little to add to what I have already stated in my preceding letters of last year respecting our residence at Saint Francis Xavier and the other Catholic establishments in the Willamette valley and vicinity. St. James' Church at Vancouver, St. John's in Oregon City, St. Mary's at the Convent, and St. Francis Xavier's chapel have all been opened for divine service. The new church among the Canadians of Grand Prairie, and the Cathedral of St. Paul, were fast progressing. The number of children in the Sis
1 This chapter follows the English text of the Oregon Missions, and comprises Letters XIX, XXI and part of XX of that work (Letters XVIII, XIX and part of XXII Missions de l'Oregon), published as letters to the Provincial of Missouri, Reverend J. O. Van de Velde, and dated as by notes inserted at the proper points.
Letter dated Fort Walla Walla, July 18, 1846.
s The trading-post at the mouth of the Okinagan river, established in 18rr by David Stuart, one of the Astorians who came in the Tonquin. Abandoned about 1862.