NORTHERN INTERIOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Meantime, Fraser was laying plans for his projected
expedition to the westward, and in April, 1806, he had five
bales of goods made up and carried to the western end of
the portage, there to remain ready for the early spring.

Moreover, fully realizing the importance and difficulty of
that undertaking, he was feeling his ground in advance and
studying the geography of the country he intended to
endow with its first trading establishments. His text-book
was no other than the Indians, not always quite reliable or
properly understood, who occasionally called at his place.
Thus, under date of 23rd April, 1806, he records in his Jour-
nal the arrival of natives from the Finlay River, near the
source of which he is told that there is “a large lake called
Bear Lake, where the salmon come up, and from which there
is a river that falls intoanother .. . that glides in a north-
west direction. . . . It isin that quarter they get their
iron works and ornaments; but they represent the naviga-
tion beyond that lake as impracticable, and say there are
no other Indians excepting a few of their relations that
ever saw white men thereabout, and to get iron works they
must go far beyond it, which they perform in long journeys
on foot.”

“We cannot understand what river this is,’ adds the
chronicler, who thereby confesses his ignorance as to the
lake itself. Bancroft is not so self-diffident. Ina foot-note
he peremptorily solves the problem. “It is Babine Lake
here referred to,” he says.*

We are sorry to contradict so voluminous a writer, but
the lake above mentioned is simply Bear Lake, sometimes
called Connolly by a few strangers, and the river that
exercises the mind of Fraser is the Skeena. Bear Lake is
within Sekanais territory, and is frequently visited to this
day by the Finlay River Indians. The source of their

1. ** History of the North-West,” Vol. II., p. 96.
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