7

He sent his horses back overland to Hazelton, and proceeded down the
Finlay in a hastily constructed boat to Fort Grahame where he secured a
canoe for the trip up Parsnip and Pack Rivers to McLeod Lake.

Liard River was used by officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company about
1840 to gain access to northern British Columbia and the Yukon. In 1843,
Robert Campbell ascended Liard and Frances Rivers to Frances Lake, then
followed Finlayson Creek to Finlayson Lake and crossed over to the Pelly.
During the next few years a line of trading posts was extended from Fort
Simpson on the Mackenzie to Fort Selkirk at the junction of Lewes and
Pelly Rivers, Yukon. But, following the pillaging of the Selkirk post in
1852 by a band of Coast Indians and because of the long and difficult route,
most of the outlying posts were soon abandoned.

R. G. McConnell explored Liard River in 1887 for the Geological
Survey of Canada. He entered the country with G. M. Dawson by way of
Stikine and Dease Rivers, Dawson going north, following Campbell’s route
to the Pelly, while McConnell descended the Liard. His report (1891)
states that a few prospectors and miners had entered the country by this
route, the discoverers of the ‘Cassiar gold fields’, Messrs. McCullough and
Thibert, having ascended it from Fort Simpson to the mouth of the Dease
in 1871-72.

In 1884, the Legislature of British Columbia granted an area of 3,500,000
acres, known as the Peace River Block, to the Dominion Government for
development and settlement. This block runs west from the Alberta
boundary for 753 miles and north for 723 miles. Fort St. John lies near its
centre. The fertile prairie land attracted settlers very slowly at first, and
_ by 1911 a census showed a total population of less than 2,000 persons in the
\ district, including settlers, traders, missionaries, and Indians. Following
the penetration of the railway into the Peace River district in 1916 and its
subsequent extension westerly to Dawson Creek, there was a rush of land
seekers, as indicated by the census figures that follow: 9,100 in 1916,
18,600 in 1921, 16,600 in 1926, and 48,000 in 1931.

An investigation of the coal deposits near the south side of Peace River
Canyon was made by C. F. J. Galloway for the British Columbia Depart-
ment of Mines in 1912.

During the 1917 field season, F. H. McLearn examined the rocks along
Peace River from Twelvemile Creek, above Peace River Canyon, down to
Vermilion. His report (1918) mentions the discovery of oil that summer in
the No. 2 well of the Peace River Oil Company about 15 miles below
Peace River.

J. S. Stewart and J. C. Gwillim caried out geological explorations both
north and south of Hudson Hope during the summer of 1919. They relate
that several companies were drilling for oil during the years 1917-19 along
the valley of Peace River near the town of Peace River, and that although
some of the wells encountered small showings of gas and oil there was no
production and results on the whole were disappointing.

In 1920, the British Columbia Department of Lands sent out John
A. Dresser and Edmund Spieker to look for possible oil fields in the Peace
River region. Dresser (1921) investigated an area north of Peace River and
west of the Peace River Block, while Spieker worked south and southeast

60920—2