FIRST FOUNDATIONS

McLeod were pioneers among the many fur-traders who
were to toil and die on the west side of the Rockies. They
might be considered the very first resident British Colum-
bians. Their first immediate superior was La Malice, who
was, however, soon to be replaced by James McDougall.
The trio may not have enjoyed their enforced solitude on
the shore of Lake McLeod. They certainly do not seem
to have pulled well together, and before many months had
elapsed, La Malice, who was a worthless kind of a fellow,
had left on the pretence that his men would not do their
duty.

Things were going more smoothly at the parent house,
immediately to the east of the mountains, where good
humor, if nothing of a less peaceful character, was main-
tained by means of copious libations of rum.

On the 28th of January, 1806, McDougall was sent on a
second expedition to McLeod Lake. Taking with hima
limited store of tobacco, beads and ammunition, he set out,
accompanied by two Canadians and an Indian, and that
time he even went so far as the site of the present Fort St.
James, near the outlet of Lake Stuart, which he was the
first white man to behold. Where the imposing structures
and dependencies of that establishment now stand was then
to be seen a thick forest of spruce. One of these trees he
blazed and adorned with an inscription whereby he claimed
the spot in the name of the Company he represented. One
of the few Indians he saw, a man apparently of little worth,
called Toeyen or Shaman, whom he wished to invest with
some sort of authority, he presented with a piece of red
cloth, thereby securing his good offices in a possible hour
of need. This done, he returned east.

On the oth of February, two Canadians, Farcier and
Varin, were sent to La Malice with an assortment of axes,
knives, and other articles most in demand at McLeod Lake.

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