Legendary Giant Author:Gladyce Damewood A young French Canadian, Joseph DeLore had always embraced his dream of becoming one of Canada's "Legendary Giants." While growing up on the family farm near Sorel, and on the outskirts of Montreal he perfected the necessary skills of canoeing and trapping the beaver. The Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers were his waterway to the Grand Portage, the... more » gateway into the great northwest. In 1812, Joseph began his life as a voyager at the age of twenty, he engaged with the Northwest fur company, and years later for Hudson Bay Company. Each day he met and accepted the challenges of his adventurous life, absorbing the dreams of his youth. Joseph never returned to his homeland, years had faded away memories which were exchanged for the reality of his life. He had an Indian wife and their children born to them on the trapping trails. He had canoed the great rivers Columbia, Willamette and Snake and he had left his footprints on mountain passes and along small tributaries still unnamed Years pass and age changes dreams and decisions in life. Faces and places find their way into our history. Fort Vancouver, John McLoughlin, Peter Skeen Ogden and Father Blanchet all have a recorded purpose. Not lost in this history is a French Canadian Joseph DeLore, who along with his fellow French Canadian fur trapper friends established the first settlement in the Willamette Valley. Using only a past vision of their own youth, a small community named "French Prairie," Oregon Territory came in to being. Canada may have lost a son, but I am proud to be the great-great granddaughter of a man who saw a future and laid the foundation for our state of Oregon.« less