MackeEnzie’s Granp DEsicn ISI

Certainly the new North West Company
was far more vigorous in expanding the area
of its operations than had been the old con-
cern under McTavish. At last others followed
the trail which Mackenzie had blazed. Thomp-
son, Fraser, Harmon, Henry, to name some of
the leading figures, pushed through the moun-
tain barriers and opened posts up and down
the interior of British Columbia; new passes
were discovered, new regions opened to trade.
Soon Thompson and Fraser both reached the
sea, Fraser in 1807 by the Fraser River,
Thompson in 1811 by the Columbia. Prob-
ably these activities of the North West Com-
pany alone prevented the Pacific coast from
becoming a part of the United States, even
though the Company was still hampered by
the restrictions which Mackenzie was labour-
ing to remove. Lewis and Clark in 1805
crossed the continent for the American gov-
ernment—a journey sometimes ignorantly
referred to as the first transcontinental expe-
dition; in 1811 Astor’s Pacific Fur Company
built a fort at the mouth of the Columbia.
The North West Company’s servants were