The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson's Journeys in the West by Nancy Marguerite Anderson

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 113, no. 4 Privateownershipwasnotthe intentof the 1864 Yosemite Act, which granted the valley to the State of California with the condition that the “premises shall be held for public use . . . and shall be inalienable for all time” (p. 107). In the meantime, Hutchings had purchased“two sections of land”(p.120).Presumably he never receivedadeedinfee simple.TheYosemite Park Commission refused to recognize Hutchings’s land claims — even though he pared it down to 160 acres — and offered him $24,000 to dismiss them.He refused the payment,trusting his case to the courts.In 1873,the Supreme Count ruled against Hutchings,and soon after,the commission evicted him from his land and the valley. Huntley is quite determined to revise historians ’ view of Hutchings as an opportunist to a man who dedicated his life to Yosemite and California.She suggests that theYosemite commissioners had less than noble motives behind their effort to remove Hutchings. She stresses his deep love for nature and how he would do nothing to damage the valley. She suggests that while John Muir and Hutchings had serious differences, they both loved wilderness and Yosemite. Historians have always credited Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson for the 1890 congressional act that created Yosemite National Park. Huntley suggests that Hutchings deserves some of the credit, but provides no evidence to make her case. In her defense of Hutchings,the author notes that Muir made an advantageous marriage,was somewhat of an elitist, curried the favor of wealthy Americans such as E.H. Harriman, and died a wealthy man. Hutchings, on the other hand, “did not cultivate relationships with mentor/patrons who could provide entrée into the parlors of gilded-age capitalists” (p. 173). The attack on Muir seems unwarranted. In regard to the central issue — private land within the park — Huntley reminds readers that they ought not impose contemporary environmental attitudes toward land into the historical record. Perhaps not, but clearly the Yosemite Park commissioners recognized the dangers of checker-boarding the valley with private lands.To fulfill the valley’s purpose as a public sanctuary,the commissioners could not risk Hutchings’s attitudes.In the end,Yosemite Valley required a sacrifice of individual rights for the common good that the promoter was unwilling to make. Huntley has written a provocative work. She has taken on the myth that Yosemite Valley was set aside by noble “gentlemen” and administered by selfless commissioners who opposed selfishness, greed, and exploitation of the environment. She has proven that it was not that simple. Yet, has she exonerated her subject and redefined him? Certainly we now have a greater respect for Hutchings’s dedication to California and Yosemite. In the end, however, Hutchings appears as a tragic figure. While he fully recognized that Yosemite Valley was a national treasure, he did not have the insight to understand that he could not own a part of it. His reputation would have been so much greater had he graciously accepted the commissioners’ offer and acknowledged that national interests were paramount to his own. Robert W. Righter Southern Methodist University The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson’s Journeys in the West by Nancy Marguerite Anderson Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., Victoria, Vancouver, 2011. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 239 pages. $19.95 paper. Alexander Caulfield Anderson played a major but insufficiently acknowledged part in the growth of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in the mid nineteenth century, particularly in the opening of trade routes to the Pacific coast. One of his prime contributions, which he accomplished with the help of a Métis guide and aboriginal men and voyageurs, was the  Reviews negotiation in 1846 of the route from Kamloops to Fort Langley via Lillooet and Harrison Lake. Yet Anderson was not just a fur trader and explorer. His career also included farming, mapmaking, business, writing, and service as Inspector of Fisheries and Indian Reserve Commissioner. A lake, a river, and an island are named after him. The Pathfinder, written by his great granddaughter , is a chronological history of Anderson ’s varied career. Chapters cover successive time periods from his departure from Scotland in 1831, first for Lachine, then to most of the...