In his most recent volume on the European settlement of Vancouver Island, local author Michael Layland considers the early botanists of the region, starting with Indigenous people, “the island’s first true naturalists,” and continuing through the voyages and trading expeditions of the first century of contact. Through the records of explorers, settlers and visitors, he examines the broad continuum of the naturalists whose legacies are still apparent today, including David Douglas, for whom our beloved Douglas fir was named.
In June 1824, two eminent British naturalists, both distinguished in the scientific aspects of exploring distant lands, naval and commercial, discussed a new opportunity. The Hudson’s Bay Company had invited them to suggest a suitable candidate to participate in a voyage to the northwest coast of America.
The first of these advisers was Dr. John Richardson, who had accompanied Sir John Franklin as surgeon and naturalist on two major expeditions into the Arctic and subsequently led the search for the missing explorer. At the time residing in Edinburgh, Richardson was working on a major government publication, Fauna Boreali-Americana, preparing the sections on quadrupeds and fishes and assisting William Swainson with the birds.
The second was William Jackson Hooker, Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow. He had earlier undertaken botanical expeditions to Iceland and the Alps and had recently published Flora Scotica. He was also working on the botanical material from the Franklin expeditions for eventual inclusion in Flora Boreali-Americana.
The opportunity the two men discussed related to an upcoming voyage of the Hudson’s Bay supply vessel the William and Ann, to HBC’s Fort George near the mouth of the Columbia River. The purpose of the voyage would also include investigating the trade in sea otter pelts along the north Pacific coast, particularly at Sitka, before returning to London. The anticipated duration was two years. The position of ship’s surgeon, which also entailed carrying out other scientific research throughout the voyage, was yet to be filled.
Hooker had the ideal candidate: John Scouler, “a young man every way qualified for such a situation . . . unquestionably one of our ablest botanical students.” Scouler was born in 1804, the second son of a calico printer, in a village southwest of Glasgow. After a standard elementary education plus some tutoring by a local clergyman, at the age of about 13 he enrolled in a logic class at the University of Glasgow.
He continued studies intended for the medical profession, including botany and other natural sciences, as well as human anatomy and surgery. In September 1824, he travelled to Paris to further his studies for a few months at the renowned Jardin des Plantes.
Immediately upon Scouler’s return, Hooker put forward his name to the HBC, which accepted the suggestion. Notwithstanding Scouler’s lack of practical experience or formal certification, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow swiftly granted him status as their licentiate.
In London, before joining the ship, Scouler visited both Dr. Richardson, who advised him on the preparation of zoological specimens, and Dr. Archibald Menzies, by then age 70. Three decades earlier, he had sailed those same waters with George Vancouver. Menzies instructed the 20-year-old in collecting and preserving botanical specimens. Both men showed their personal collections to the young traveller about to embark on his own journey of discovery.
It happened that another of Hooker’s protegés, David Douglas, would also sail aboard the William and Ann but would disembark at Fort Vancouver. Funded by the Horticultural Society of London, Douglas would collect botanical specimens from the region around the fort, the basin of the Columbia River, and more generally throughout the interior of the Columbia district.
After a cursory elementary education in rural central Scotland, Douglas had apprenticed, then qualified, as a gardener at two grand estates. The second of these, Sir Robert Preston’s Valleyfield, was renowned both for its splendid collection of exotic plants and for an extensive botanical library. Douglas seized the unique opportunity of studying these. He then joined Hooker’s newly established Glasgow Royal Botanic Garden, where he became the star student, and was soon promoted to head gardener.
Hooker, having seen Douglas’s abilities on field excursions, felt that the young man was ready for a greater challenge. So, in 1823, he recommended him to the Horticultural Society of London for a botanical collecting expedition to the northeastern United States and Upper Canada. Following Douglas’s success on this mission, the society arranged with the HBC that he travel to Fort Vancouver to collect material from their western districts. By this time, he was just 25 years old. Before departing, he too consulted with Richardson and Menzies.
As Scouler and Douglas boarded the William and Ann, they discovered to their mutual surprise and pleasure that they were to be companions for the voyage, the former as a senior member of the crew, the latter as a passenger. They had known each other from Hooker’s lectures, and both took delight in having a kindred spirit to share in the grand adventure.
The six-year-old William and Ann, a 140-ton register, single-deck snow [a type of brig] owned by the HBC, had been refurbished for the voyage with a full copper bottom and iron cables. Scouler recorded that they left Gravesend with everything necessary for the preservation of plants and animals. Every article, either of medicine or food, that could in any degree contribute to their comfort, or assist in preventing scurvy, was liberally provided.
Under Captain Henry Hanwell Jr., the ship carried a complement of 14. This was Hanwell’s first command as skipper, and his performance would prove below expectation. At one o’clock, July 27, 1824, under heavy rain, they weighed anchor and left the Thames estuary. They made stops at Madeira and on both sides of South America, including the Galapagos Archipelago, giving the two young men opportunities to study exotic botany and wildlife. They were not the first naturalists to visit the islands; in 1795 Menzies himself had called there as Vancouver’s expedition returned to Britain.
In the Galapagos, Douglas collected 45 birds of 19 genera, and 145 plant specimens, all of which he knew would be of great interest in England. Unfortunately, the continuous rain and high temperatures of the equatorial region, including a hurricane, resulted in most of them rotting before they could be preserved. Scouler noted:
“[Collecting here] is an extensive labour, & would require a more extensive knowledge of the island than can be acquired in a transient visit of two days, to give an account of the natural productions.” [Note: Ten years later, of course, just such an extended study did happen, when Charles Darwin aboard HMS Beagle spent five weeks in the archipelago during a charting mission. But that scientist would not publish the results of his visit, far-reaching in significance, until decades afterward.]
After a voyage of eight and a half months, which Douglas described as “long and tedious,” William and Ann arrived at the estuary of the Columbia River. Despite heavy rains and thick fog, Captain Hanwell managed to cross the treacherous sandbars and anchor on the north shore of the river. While awaiting a pilot from Fort George, the naturalists explored. Douglas immediately identified a plant he had seen in Menzies’s collection. “On stepping on the shore Gaultheria Shallon [salal] was the first plant I took in my hands. So pleased was I that I could scarcely see anything but it.” It grew exactly as Menzies had noted.
Douglas also recorded seeing for the first time the tree that would become linked to his name: “The ground on the south side of the river is low, covered thickly with wood, chiefly Pinus canadiensis, P. balsamea and a species which may prove to be P. taxifolia.” These will have been western hemlock, balsam fir and Douglas fir, none of which are now considered to be of the genus Pinus. Although Menzies had brought back his description of the tree and some twig samples, he had not acquired any cones or seeds. This would be Douglas’s task, among many others.
Excerpted from In Nature’s Realm: Early Naturalists Explore Vancouver Island, TouchWood Editions © 2019 Michael Layland
