<P> There were other possible migration paths for early settlers, miners, or travelers to California or Oregon besides the Oregon trail prior to the establishment of the transcontinental railroads . </P> <P> From 1821--1846, the Hudson's Bay Company twice annually used the York Factory Express overland trade route from Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay then on to London . James Sinclair led a large party of nearly 200 settlers from the Red River Colony in 1841 . These northern routes were largely abandoned after Britain ceded its claim to the southern Columbia River basin by way of the Oregon Treaty of 1846 . </P> <P> The longest trip was the voyage of about 13,600 to 15,000 miles (21,900 to 24,100 km) on an uncomfortable sailing ship rounding the treacherous, cold, and dangerous Cape Horn between Antarctica and South America and then sailing on to California or Oregon . This trip typically took four to seven months (120 to 210 days) and cost about $350 to $500 . The cost could be reduced to zero if you signed on as a crewman and worked as a common seaman . The hundreds of abandoned ships, whose crews had deserted in San Francisco Bay in 1849--50, showed many thousands chose to do this . </P> <P> Other routes involved taking a ship to Colón, Panama (then called Aspinwall) and a strenuous, disease ridden, five - to seven - day trip by canoe and mule over the Isthmus of Panama before catching a ship from Panama City, Panama to Oregon or California . This trip could be done from the east coast theoretically in less than two months if all ship connections were made without waits and typically cost about $450 / person . Catching a fatal disease was a distinct possibility as Ulysses S. Grant in 1852 learned when his unit of about 600 soldiers and some of their dependents traversed the Isthmus and lost about 120 men, women, and children . This passage was considerably sped up and made safer in 1855 when the Panama Railroad was completed at terrible cost in money and life across the Isthmus . The once treacherous 50 - mile (80 km) trip could be done in less than a day . The time and the cost for transit dropped as regular paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships went from ports on the east coast and New Orleans, Louisiana, to Colón, Panama ($80--$100), across the Isthmus of Panama by railroad ($25) and by paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships to ports in California and Oregon ($100--$150). </P>

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