Redwood History Basic Data

B. TRADERS from the HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY ENTER the AREA

Alerted to the American encroachments by the attack on Smith's party, the Hudson's Bay Company took steps to secure the Indian trade of northern California.

In the period between the Smith expedition and 1833, two other groups are reported to have followed the route pioneered in 1828. Alexander R. McLoud, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, in late 1828 entered the Sacramento Valley. After trapping the streams of the upper Sacramento, McLoud returned to Fort Vancouver through the Shasta Mountains. At the same time, a second party of Hudson's Bay people led by Peter Skene Ogden had moved down the east front of the Sierras to pinpoint Smith's trail to California and thus shortstop any American trappers who might be planning to tap the California trade, via this route.

Ogden passed through the mountains in the autumn of 1828, and spent several months trapping in the San Joaquin Valley. When Ogden and his people returned to Fort Vancouver, one report has them passing up the coast by "the route Smith had formerly traveled. This is contradicted by others, one of whom wrote, "he left the Valley upon the trail made by McLoud," which was through the Shasta Mountains.

There are also reports that another trapper, Michel La Frambois, who entered the valley in 1832, returned "over the usual route along the coast." [18]