ward and Lewis
and Clark's trail to the mouth of the Columbia? In 1805 Simon Fraser,
who as a child had come from the United States to Canada with his
widowed mother in the Loyalist migration, and now in his thirtieth year
was a partner in the North-West Company of Montreal, had crossed the
Rockies by way of the Peace river. He had followed Mackenzie's trail
over the terrible nine-mile carrying-place and had built there a
fur-post--Rocky Mountain Portage. He had ascended that same Parsnip
river, which Mackenzie had found so appalling, to a little emerald lake
set like a jewel in the mountains. There he had built another
fur-trading post, and named it after his friend, Archibald Norman
M'Leod. This was the first fur-post known to have been erected in the
interior of New Caledonia, now British Columbia. The new fort had been
left in charge of James M'Dougall; and during the winter of 1806
M'Dougall had crossed the heavily drifted carrying-place and descended
the Bad River as far as the south fork of the Fraser, which all traders
at that time mistook for the upper reaches of Gray's Columbia. Instead
of going down the main stream of the {88} Fraser, M'Dougall ascended
both the Nechaco and the Stuart; and if he did not actually behold the
beautiful alpine tarns since known as Fraser Lake and Stuart Lake, he
was at least the first white man to hear of them.

In May of 1806, after sending the year's furs from Rocky Mountain
Portage east to Fort Chipewyan, Simon Fraser set out to explore this
inland empire concerning which M'Dougall had reported. John Stuart
accompanied Fraser as lieutenant. They crossed from the head-waters of
the Parsnip to the south fork of the Fraser, and on June 10 camped at
the mouth of the Nechaco. Towards the end of July the Carriers camped
on Stuart Lake were amazed to see advancing across the waters, with
rhythmic gallop of paddles, two enormous birch canoes. When the canoes
reached the land Fraser and Stuart stepped ashore, and a volley was
fired to celebrate the formal taking possession of a new inland empire.
What to do with the white men's offerings of tobacco the Carriers did
not know. They thought the white men in smoking were emitting spirits
with each breath. When the traders offered soap to the squaws, the
women at once began to devour it. The result was a frothing at the
{89} mouth as amazing to them as the smoke from the men. History does
not record whether the women became a