XX A Race for Empire
In this very December of 1805 while Lewis and Clark were struggling with the storms of ocean at the mouth of the Columbia, a thousand miles to the north of them the indefatigable and indomitable Simon Fraser was also building a fort, among the lochs and bens of New Caledonia, the British Columbia of to-day.
On the very day that Lewis and Clark left Fort Mandan, Simon Fraser and his men had faced toward the Rockies. While Lewis and Clark were exploring the Missouri, Fraser and his voyageurs were pulling for dear life up the Saskatchewan and over to Athabasca. On the very day that Lewis and Clark moved into Fort Clatsop, Simon Fraser, at the Rocky Mountain Portage, had men busily gathering stones “to get a chimney built for his bedroom.” The icy northern winter came down, but in January mortar was made to plaster his trading fort, the Rocky Mountain Portage at the Peace River Pass.
All that Arctic winter he traded with the natives, killed deer and moose, and made pemmican for an expedition still farther to the west.
All through the stormy, icy April, building his boats and pounding his pemmican, Fraser stamped and stormed and swore because the snows refused to melt—because the rivers yet were blocked with ice.
The boats were at the door, the bales of goods were tied, when the ice began to break in May.
The moment the river was clear all hands were roused at daybreak. Simon Fraser turned the Rocky Mountain Portage over to McGillivray, who had arrived on snow shoes, and pressed on west, discovering McLeod Lake and building Fort McLeod upon its shores. Then he portaged over to the Fraser, which he believed to be the Columbia, and going up the Stuart branch built Fort St. James on Stuart Lake. During the winter and summer, after Lewis and Clark reached home, he built Fort Fraser on Fraser Lake, and Fort George upon the Fraser River, still thinking it was the Columbia.
“Now will I reach the mouth of this Columbia,” said Fraser in the Spring of 1808, launching his boat, the Perseverance, upon the wildest water of the North.
“You cannot pass,” said the Indians, and they waved and whirled their arms to indicate the mad tumultuous swirling of the waters.
“Whatever the obstacle,” said Simon Fraser, “I shall follow this river to the end,” and down he went for days and days through turbulent gulfs and whirlpools, past rocks and rapids and eddies, under frowning, overhanging precipices in the high water of May.
The Indians spoke of white people.
“It must be Lewis and Clark,” groaned Fraser, redoubling his effort to win another empire for his king.
Daily, hourly, risking their lives, at every step in the Mountains the Indians said, “You can go no further.”
But the sturdy Scotchmen gripped their oars and set their teeth, turning, doubling, twisting, shooting past rocky points that menaced death, portaging, lifting canoes by sheer grit and resolution up almost impassable rockways, over cliffs almost without a foothold and down into the wave again. So ran the Northwesters down the wild river to the sea, and camped near the present site of New Westminster. And lo! it was not the Columbia.
Back came Simon Fraser to Fort William on Lake Superior to report what he had done, and they crowned his brow with the name of his own great river, the Fraser.
Travellers look down the frowning Fraser gorge to-day, and little realise why Simon Fraser made that daring journey.