s addicted to soap as the men to
the fragrant weed.

Active trading with the Indians began at once. The lake was named
Stuart in honour of Fraser's companion, and the ground was cleared for
a palisaded fort, which, when erected, they named Fort St James. The
scene was enchanting. The lake wound for a distance of fifty miles
amid the foot-hills of the mighty forested mountains. It was four or
five miles wide, and was gemmed with green islets; and all round,
appearing through the clouds in jagged outline, were the opal summits
of the snowy peaks. No wonder the two Scotsmen named the new inland
empire New Caledonia--after their native land.

It will be remembered that M'Dougall had heard of another mountain
tarn. This was forty miles south of Stuart Lake, at the headwaters of
the Nechaco, the north fork of the Fraser. Stuart went overland south
to spy out the southern lake; and his report was of such an entrancing
region--heavily forested, with an abundance of game and fish--that
Fraser glided down the Stuart river and poled up the Nechaco to the
lake which Stuart had {90} already named after his chief. Again a fort
was erected and named Fort Fraser, making three forts in the interior
of New Caledonia.

Fraser had sent a request to the directors of the North-West Company to
be permitted to fit out an expedition down the great river, which he
thought was the Columbia; and in the spring of 1807 two canoes under
Jules Quesnel were sent out with goods. Quesnel arrived at Fort St
James in the autumn, bringing from the east the alarming word that
Lewis and Clark had gone overland and taken possession of all the
territory between the Missouri and the mouth of the Columbia. No time
was to be lost by Fraser in establishing a claim to the region to the
west of the Rockies between the Peace and the Columbia. Fraser went
down the river and strengthened British possession by building a fourth
fort--Fort George at the mouth of the Nechaco. This was to be the
starting-point of the expedition to the Pacific. Then, towards the end
of May 1808, he set out down the great river with four canoes, nineteen
voyageurs, and Stuart and Quesnel as first assistants.

[Illustration: Simon Fraser. After the portrait in the Parliament
Buildings, Victoria, B.C.]

Fifteen miles below the fort the river walls narrowed and the canoes
swept into the roaring cataract of Fort George canyon. {91} The next
day they shot through the Cottonwoo