fact of his crossing has been cut into a rock at Bella
Coola with the words, “Alexander Mackenzie from
Canada by land, the twenty-second day of July, One
Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-three.”

Lured on by the competitive war between the fur
companies, Simon Fraser, a partner of the North
West Company, set out to trace a navigable course
to the coast — presumably the Columbia — and to
establish trading posts along the route. Having
passed Fort George he continued downstream to
Lillooet, until they approached the ‘’Big Canyon”
when all hope of navigation had to be abandoned.
He then resorted to the old Indian trails running along
the banks of the river, and from his memoirs he gives,
in a graphic manner, a description of these trails,
and of the ladders on which the party crawled around
the bluffs and up and down the rocks in his relentless
efforts to get through. Fraser now encountered evi-
dences of maritime trade, as the Indian forts dis-
played such European articles as brass work, rough
blankets and firearms. Having at last reached the
Strait of Georgia, he set about taking latitudinal
observations and found to his keen disappointment
that he had not traced the Columbia River, but,
instead, the mighty Fraser.

Before bringing to a conclusion the exploratory

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