er route, which had been discovered by David
Thompson. He describes well the forests of remarkable trees on this
portion of the Pacific coast, opposite the south end of Vancouver
Island: the crooked oaks loaded with mistletoe, the tall wild cherry
trees, the hazels with trunks thicker than a man's thigh, the
evergreen arbutus, the bracken fern, blackberries, and black
raspberries; and the game in these glades of trees and fern: small
Columbian _Mazama_ deer, large lynxes, bears, gluttons, wolves, foxes,
racoons, and squirrels. Overhead soared huge Californian condors
(_Pseudogryphus_).

Henry was drowned in 1812 in the estuary of the Columbia River,
through the capsizing of a boat.

The question of the identity of the great river flowing to the Pacific
from near the headwaters of the Peace--the river which Mackenzie had
discovered and been forced to leave--was finally decided by SIMON
FRASER, one of the most celebrated among the North-west Company's
pioneers. Like Mackenzie, he believed this stream to be the upper
Columbia.

Accompanied by John Stuart and Jules Quesnel, he left the Fraser River
at its junction with the Nechaco on May 22, 1807, and, keeping as near
as he could to the course of the river, found himself in the country
of the Atna tribe, Amerindians of a diminutive size but active
appearance, from whom he obtained an invaluable guide and faithful
interpreter, Little Fellow, but for whose bravery, wise advice, and
clever diplomacy the journey must have ended in disaster or
disappointment--a remark which might be made about nearly all the
Amerindian guides of the pioneers.

The Atna Indians were dressed in skins with the hair outside, and were
armed with bows and arrows. They besmeared their bodies with fish oil
and red earth, and painted their faces in different colours. Bison
were quite unknown to them, being very seldom found in those latitudes
on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. The country of the Atna
Indians on the upper Fraser abounded in elk, wapiti, reindeer, bighorn
sheep, mountain goats,[2] and beaver.

[Footnote 2: This remarkable beast (_Oreamnus_) they called "Aspai",
and wove from its white wool an excellent cloth for their clothing.]

Here is a description by Fraser of some of the rapids in the upper
part of the river named after him.

"The channel contracts to about forty yards, and is enclosed by two
precipices of immense height, which bending towards each other make it
nar