NORTHERN INTERIOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

points projecting into the lake, the background rising
abruptly into a ridge of hills of varied height and magni-
tude. On the east the view is limited to a range of two
or three miles by the intervention of a high promontory,
from which the eye glances to the snowy summits of the
Rocky Mountains in the distant background. I do not
know that I have seen anything to compare with this
charming prospect in any other part of the country ; its
beauties struck me even at this season of the year, when,
nature having partly assumed her hybernal dress, every-
thing appeared to so much greater disadvantage.”*
McLean hardly does justice to the beautiful mountains
which rise on either side of Lake Stuart, one of which
towers 2,600 feet above the surface of the water, while on
the opposite shore another, though less prominent, is still
higher. These reminded Fraser of the absent fatherland
so often vaunted by his mother, and led him to call the
whole country New Caledonia. Then, again, the lake is

I. ** Notes of a Twenty-five Years’ Service in the Hudson’s Bay Territory,”
London, 1849, Vol. I., p. 241-42. . . Lake Stuart lies 2,250 feet above
sea level, instead of barely 1,800, as C. Horetzky would have it (“‘ Canada on
the Pacific,” p. 79), and his error is so much the less comprehensible as that
author was a land surveyor, who had several aneroids with his party.

2. Barret-Lennard wrongly says that Capt. Cook was responsible for that
name (‘‘ Travels in British Columbia,” p. 19).

While we may overlook the many geographical errors committed in
describing Fraser’s progress by the few authors (Bancroft, Masson, Bryce) who
have referred to it, we must be allowed to question the propriety of Mr.
Masson’s express statement to the effect that Fraser established a fort he
named New Caledonia about fifty miles from the mouth of the Stuart River.
Dr. Bryce reiterates that assertion, though in vaguer terms, on page 142 of his
own book, ‘‘ The Remarkable History of the Hudson’s Bay Company.”
Now, there has never been a vestige of such an establishment, and none of the
oldest aborigines has ever heard of it. Fraser’s limited personnel did not
warrant three foundations without receiving reinforcements. Stuart, the very
man who is credited with having been placed in charge of that mythical post,
was in reality sent to see and report on the region of Lake Fraser. Fraser

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