author
Gabriel Franchère
1786–1863
A French Canadian fur trader and memoirist, he left one of the clearest first-hand accounts of the early Pacific Northwest and the founding years of Astoria. His writing blends adventure, trade, travel, and close observation of a fast-changing frontier.
2 Audiobooks
Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific
by Gabriel Franchère
Brackenridge's Journal of a voyage up the river Missouri, 1811; Franchère's Voyage to Northwest Coast, 1811-1814
by H. M. (Henry Marie) Brackenridge, Gabriel Franchère
About the author
Born in Montreal on November 3, 1786, he became a fur trader, merchant, and writer whose life carried him far beyond Lower Canada. As a young man he joined John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company and sailed west, taking part in the venture that helped establish Fort Astoria on the Columbia River.
His fame rests largely on the memoir he wrote from those experiences, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814. The book is valued for its vivid, first-hand picture of the fur trade, ocean travel, and daily life in the Pacific Northwest during a formative moment in regional history.
After his western travels, he returned to commercial life and remained connected to the world of trade as well as to the memory of the frontier he had witnessed. He died in St. Paul, Minnesota, on April 12, 1863, but his journal continues to be read as an important eyewitness record of early North American exploration and settlement.