"
The brothers La Verendrye in 1735, two centuries after Cartier, were still
looking for a way to the western sea (Mer de l'Ouest). With their father
these sons ventured their lives and gave their fortunes to the exploration
of the northwest out beyond Lake Superior, out past the ranch where a
century and a half later President Roosevelt wrote the "Winning of the
West," out to or beyond the edge of what is now the great Yellowstone
National Park, anticipating by more than sixty years the first stages of
the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. The snow covered the peaks of the
Big Horn Mountains, but the party probably forced a way to the Wind River
Range before they reluctantly turned back from the foot of the mountains,
disappointedly fancying that they might have seen the Pacific if they
could have reached the summits.
It is not far from the place where they began their homeward journey that
I have seen two trickling streams, within a few yards of each other,
start, one toward the gulf and one toward the Pacific--but the latter had
seven or eight hundred miles of mountain and forest to pass before it
could touch what the Verendrye brothers hoped to see.
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