64 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

to try their luck. Later, when these belated
Overlanders decided to follow on to Cariboo,
they suffered terrible hardships.

The Overlanders were to enter the Rockies
by the Yellowhead Pass, which had been dis-
covered long ago by Jasper Hawse, of the
Hudson’s Bay Company. This section of their
trail is visible to the modern traveller from
the windows of a Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
train, just as the lower sections of the Cariboo
Trail in the Fraser Canyon are to be seen from
the trains of the Canadian Pacific and the
Canadian Northern. First came the fur-
trader, seeking adventure through these passes,
pursuing the little beaver. The miner came
next, fevered to delirium, lured by the siren of
an elusive yellow goddess. The settler came
third, prosaic and plodding, but dauntless too.
And then came the railroad, following the
trail which had been beaten hard by the
stumbling feet of pioneers.

At St Ann a guide was engaged to lead the
long train of pack-horses through the pass
from Jasper House on the east to Yellowhead
Lake on the west. Colin Fraser, son of the
famous piper for Sir George Simpson of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, danced a Highland
fling at the gate of the fort to speed the