Fraser River

“ Fraser Fort on another lake southward; Fort St. George on the main Fraser River. Then, in May of 1808, with four canoes Fraser descends the river named after him, accompanied by Stuart and Quesnel and nineteen voyageurs. This was the river where the rapids had turned MacKenzie back, canyon after canyon tumultuous with the black whirlpools and roaring like a tempest. Before essaying the worst runs of the cascades Fraser ordered a canoe lightened at the prow and manned by the five best voyageurs. It shot down the current like a stone from a catapult. ”

“ In this one hundred years since Simon Fraser's exploration of the Fraser River, the whole Pacific Northwest has grown Wonderfully in population and in civilization. The days of centennials, beginning with that of Gray's discovery of the Columbia River, show that while the long ago of this part of the continent is comparatively new, its traditions are those of a hardy, a brave, and an intrepid people. ”

“ As the railway emerges from the mountains, the gleaming white dome of the isolated snow-capped Mount Baker is seen glistening under the sunlight sixty miles away just beyond the United States border. The Fraser River finally flows into the Gulf of Georgia, after a course of six hundred miles through the mountains from the northward, the chief river of British Columbia. It was named for Simon Fraser of the Northwest Fur Company, who explored it to its source amid incredible hardships and difficulties in 1808. The finest timber grows throughout this region. ”

“ There is no other large river on the Pacific Slope so terrible or so dangerous to follow as the Fraser, unless it be that part of the Snake River between Huntington, Oregon, and Lewiston, Idaho, along which Wilson Price Hunt and his party wandered so helplessly and almost hopelessly in the fall and winter of 1811. ”

“ There are many alluring drives in this neighborhood; few anywhere can compare with them. A more romantic trip than that to the Upper and Lower Falls of the Fraser River could hardly be imagined. Leaving the carriage, exploring the wood and descending into the ravine, a beautiful view is seen. The upper fall descends in two drops to a depth of two hundred and ninety feet, and the lower fall has a descent of one hundred and fifty feet. The Thou, Chute, Desbiens, and the Nearn Fall with its salmon leap, are favorite objectives for enjoyable driving excursions. ”

“ Boats, canoes, and every species of small craft, are continually employed in pouring their cargoes of human beings into Fraser River, and it is supposed that not less than one thousand whites are already at work and on the way to the gold districts. Many accidents have happened in the dangerous rapids of that river; a great number of canoes have been dashed to pieces, and their cargoes swept away by the impetuous stream, while of the ill-fated adventurers who accompanied them many have been swept into eternity. ”

“ Te' Jaune, as it is familiarly called in the North, is situated on the Fraser River. Because of the snow melting on the mountains, the Fraser is swollen as if the waters surged from underneath. While we wait, swart, husky-looking men are putting off to Fort George in primitive craft built of squared logs. These boats are called scows. ”

“ Small villages are passed, straggling farms, Indian camps, mining lodges, and Chinese “hives,” where these people congregate after working all day at placer mining, and gamble half the night, sacrificing their laboriously acquired means. The grand winding valley of the Fraser River—a watercourse as large as the Ohio—is followed for over two hundred miles in a northeasterly direction, affording glimpses of most charming and vivid scenery, leading through cañons fully equaling in grandeur of form and beauty of detail anything of the sort in Colorado. ”

“ The Fraser River was full of camps of men engaged in the business of catching, drying and canning the salmon of that stream. The timber along this river is of great importance. The Canadian fir and other indigenous trees line the banks and mountain sides in a quantity sufficient to supply the demand of the people of that great country for many years to come. ”

“ In the spring the Fraser rolled to the sea a swollen flood. Against the turbid current worked tipsy rafts towed by wheezy steamers or leaky old sailing craft, and rickety row-boats raced cockle-shell canoes for the gold-bars above. Ashore, the banks of the river were lined with foot passengers toiling under heavy packs, wagons to which clung human forms on every foot of space, and long rows of pack-horses bogged in the flood of the overflowing river. By September ten thousand men were rocking and washing for gold round Yale. ”

“ Fraser River is about as famous a point as there is today on the earth’s surface—as famous as were the Californian diggings in 1848, or the Australian gold mines in 1853. It is now the centre of attraction for the adventurous of all countries. The excitement throughout the Canadas and Northern States of America is universal. In fact, the whole interior of North America is quite in a ferment—the entire floating population being either “on the move,” or preparing to start ”

“ A few miles of the lower part of this creek, including its mouth, are on the Canadian side of the line: the head-waters—on which the gold is chiefly found—are, for the most part, on the American side. In this vicinity the first substantial deposits were discovered, many of which are still worked. ... "The site of the new diggings—which have produced an excitement recalling the 'Fraser River rush' of 1857—is on a stream tributary to the Yukon from the northeast, wholly in Canadian territory, and entering the main river about fifty miles eastward from the boundary. ”

“ They were often obliged to work their way around falls and long, foaming rapids, but they did the work cheerfully, and took all the more comfort in smooth stretches of water when they came to them. Below Gold creek the valley widens to the west, and a high plateau presents a vast area of growing timber. Only a short range of mountains divides this fertile stretch of country from the high plains drained by the Fraser river. ”

“ Fraser, as we have seen, was already busy exploring the region between M'Leod Lake and Stuart Lake, and had laid his plans to descend the great river which he thought was Gray's Columbia. Now, while Thompson spent the winter of 1806-7 between the Peace and the North Saskatchewan, trading and exploring, he doubtless learned of Fraser's explorations west of the Rockies and of the vast extent of New Caledonia; and June 1807 saw him over the mountains on the Kootenay plains, where to his infinite delight he came upon a turbulent river, whose swollen current flowed towards the Pacific. ”

“ In Fraser River they are said to be very numerous, but not so large ; they are unable to get above the falls, some 80 miles from the sea. In the rivers and sounds are found several kinds of salmon, salmon trout, sturgeon, cod, carp, sole, flounders, ray, perch, herring, lamprey eels, and a kind of smelt called sprow in great abundance ”

“ Mackenzie had turned back because he had found the river so dangerous to navigate. The Indians along the river below he knew were of a treacherous and warlike character. Fraser had no guide. He made very careful preparations for his journey. The expedition consisted of twenty-one men besides himself, in four canoes. The exact day that the expedition started is in doubt, but it is not material. It probably left Fort George on the Tacoutche, which I shall hereinafter call the Fraser, on May 28, 1808. At the outset one of his canoes was almost wrecked at Fort George Canyon. ”

“ A single incident will serve to throw some light on the perils and toils that were encountered. At the time of the incident in question, they had crossed the watershed by following the south branch of the Peace River to its source, and were now descending a mad torrent which runs westward, and is tributary to the Fraser River, which latter Mackenzie mistook for the Columbia. ”

“ The mountains are always here, and I know where there is a bunch of bear and a colony of beaver, and I can get along out here, and live like a prince while those poor millionaires are lying awake at nights, lest someone come and steal their money."
Two other guides were engaged to pole the travelers' raft down the Fraser River. Nearly every day the cold rain fell in torrents, but [54] the men were unmoved. "All day long they would stand in their wet clothes, their hands numb and blue from the cold as they handled their dripping poles; yet not a comment indicating discomfort is recalled. ”

“ It is built on the banks of Fraser River, in about latitude 53 degrees north. The country in its immediate vicinity presents a beautiful and picturesque appearance. The banks of the river are rather low; but a little distance inland some rising grounds are visible, partially diversified by groves of fir and poplar. This country is full of small lakes, rivers, and marshes. It extends about ten days’ march in a north and north-east direction. To the south and south-east the Atnah, or Chin Indian country, extends about one hundred miles ”

“ What troubled Fraser most was the fact that the river lay many miles north of the known latitude of the Columbia. It daily grew on him {97} that this could not possibly be the Columbia. The tide rose and fell in the river. The Indian guide begged the white men not to go on; he was afraid, he said, of the Indians of the sea-coast. The river channel divided. Natives along the shore began singing war-songs and beating the war-drum; then they circled out threateningly round the white men's boats. ”

“ Simon Fraser was one of the intrepid explorers and hardy pioneers of the Pacific Northwest, men who found the way and showed others where and how to follow. The armies of occupation and of civilization followed slowly on. In a few years he was succeeded by the great leaders and successful furtraders of the Hudson's Bay Company. At the old, the original Vancouver, on the Columbia River, came and ruled. Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon, James Douglas, afterwards knighted, and Peter Skene Ogden, all held in grateful memory in Oregon and Washington. ”

“ Indians warned the white men to desist from their undertaking. Better, they advised, go overland eastward to a great peaceful river and descend that to the sea. Fraser, of course, did not know that the peaceful river they spoke of was really the Columbia. He thought the river he was following was the Columbia. With the help of Indians the canoes were pulled up-hill, and horses were hired from them to carry the provisions overland. Below this portage, as they continued the descent, an enormous crag spread {93} across the river, appearing at first to bar the passage ahead. ”

“ April in Venice is made for kissing, it is the only suitable occupation for any one with a spark of life in his soul, and one can imagine the boats on the slow-moving river, as the evening came on, and the lovers’ moon came out over the water—music, love, youth, and fire. ”

“ Now, what man does here in a small way, and with infinite labour and pains, Nature has been doing on a grand scale for unnumbered centuries. Let us, for instance, take the Fraser River and its tributary the Thompson, which is again made up of the North and South Forks, which unite at Kamloops, as the main rivers do at Lytton. The whole of the vast extent of mountainous country drained by these streams is known to be more or less auriferous. Many places, such as Cariboo, are, or were, richly so ”

“ Again the Indians waited at the end of the rapids and again they drew maps on Fraser’s oilcloth coverings for baggage, showing which way the river flowed and that canoes could not pass down. The 10th of June, Fraser places his canoes on a shaded scaffolding where the gummed seams will not be melted and hides his baggage in a cache. At five A. M. on the 11th, all the crews set out on foot, each [107] man carrying a pack of eighty pounds. ”

“ Hunsa was shaken by his drop of a dozen feet, but the soft sand of the river bed had broken the shock of his fall. He picked himself up, and crouching in the hiding shadow of the bank hurried along for fifty yards; then he clambered up cautiously to the waste of white sand that was studded with the tents of the Pindari horsemen. On his right, floating up the hill in terraces, its marble white in the moonlight, was the palace where Amir Khan lay dead. ”

“ Fraser remarks that nothing of the mangrove appears along the banks of the Swan River, the usual situation of this plant being here occupied by the genus Metrosideros. The first plain, or flat, as it is called, contiguous to the river, commencing at Point Fraser, is formed of a rich soil, and appears, by a deposit of wreck, to be occasionally flooded to a certain extent. Here are several extensive salt marshes, which Mr. Fraser thinks are admirably adapted for the growth of cotton. The hills, though scanty of soil, are covered with an immense variety of plants ”

“ A'tim answered nothing as they journeyed down along the steep, heavily wooded river bank, its soft shale sides slid into mighty terraces, but in his heart was a murder thought, as he eyed the great bulk of his Brother Outcast, that he would also eat him. ”