An historical perspective of traders efforts to establish the NW coast. “Daugherty livens the tragic, round-the-Horn journey of the Tonquin and the first attempt to establish a post on the Columbia River. The subsequent overland expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt, its important attempts at negotiating with Manuel Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company, its following of the Snake River, the eventual founding of Astoria and its treachery-ridden capture by the British Northwest Company in 1812, is charged with the thrill of historical guesswork that leaves the mind wondering as to the present extent of American territory had Astoria not been betrayed to the British.”..Kirkus Review