Hard times make for hard men. The Pacific Northwest in the early 1800's was no place for tender spirits or the faint of heart. It was a time and place that saw the clash of civilizations in its purest and most devastating form. A place where unbridled capitalism and the unquestioned doctrine of manifest destiny ran headlong into cultures and nations thousands of years in the making.
The Tonquin - 1811, follows the journey of John Jacob Astor's merchant ship to this wild coast. Astor was the quintessential new world capitalist. A man so rich that his corporate empire influenced the fate of nations from Europe to America to Asia. For his expedition into the Pacific Northwest, Astor chose a crew of adventurers and woodsmen led by a young former lieutenant in the American Navy. A hardened battle veteran, Jonathan Thorn was a man driven by pride, discipline, and the need to be remembered throughout history as the man who broke the west coast of North America to his will.
For Astor's business partners on the journey, and particularly for the fur trader Alexander McKay, Thorn's quest for domination was a clear recipe for disaster. Having lived and traded with First Nations people his entire life, McKay understood that riches were had through agreements for mutual gain. McKay was a trader, not a conqueror, and had no interest in the subjugation of the people he considered his partners in creating wealth, instead wanting to remake the social order of the world in favour of men of commerce over those with arbitrary power.
The destination of the Tonquin was the mouth of Columbia River in modern day Oregon. There they would establish a fort that would hold back the British, the Spanish, and the Russians, and solidify America's claim to the entire Pacific Northwest. Lost in the details of conquest and greed was the obvious fact that the area being claimed was already inhabited by nations exponentially older than the young republic to which Astor and his colleagues belonged.
Chief Wickaninnish of the Tla-o-qui-aht, on the west coast of modern day Vancouver Island, had become the most powerful chief in the Pacific Northwest by the time of the arrival of the Tonquin. Wickaninnish had seen his people devastated by the twin plagues of European disease and white man betrayal, and sought change.
Into these turbulent waters, caught between unstoppable forces and immovable objects, paddles the film's protagonist Kasicall. His search for a 'cure' for his people leads him to Kyuxa, a fellow wanderer and bearer of mixed blood. She makes it very clear to him that it is highly unlikely he will find a 'cure' between incompatible worlds, but agrees to his promise of guns as payment for her service as a guide.
When Kasicall's journey crosses paths with the Tonquin in June of 1811, he becomes the catalyst to the cataclysm he sought so desperately to avoid. Thorn and McKay travel with him to his village looking to trade for sea otter pelts, but Wickaninnish had been lied to and had suffered the consequences of his good faith one too many times to shrug off the disrespect that Thorn showed. Kyuxa's words echo in the hearts of Thorn and Wickaninnish, and no measure of compromise offered by McKay and Kasicall could save them from the ultimate logic of a system built at the barrel of a gun.
To review our script, please contact us.
Cam Baker: 780-910-1880 or
cam_baker [at] pacificrimproductions.org
Read Mayflower of the West (PDF-124KB)