mingdians. This was prevented largely through the fortitude of Fraser.
Without delay, on July third, the expedition started on its return trip, arriving at Fort George August sixth, without any remarkable experiences on the way. It seems somewhat strange that it took the party a longer time to go to the ocean than to return. Had Fraser known of the conditions he could have made his trip much easier by waiting until later in the season, after the summer freshet was over. But this fact does not in any way detract from, nor change the renown to which this intrepid band of sturdy Nor'westers, and especially its leader, is entitled.
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.
Those interested in this perilous expedition of Fraser should read his Journal, which is printed as a part of a work, in two volumes, written in French by L. R. Masson, entitled "Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest." The Journal of Fraser is printed in English. The first edition was published at Quebec in 1889. Although not an old work, it is now very difficult to obtain.
In preparing this address I have been given interesting and important information, personally, by Judge F. W. Howay, of New Westminster, British Columbia, particularly facts relating to the Spanish discovery of Fraser River. Notwithstanding his judicial duties, he has found time to become a diligent student and a scholarly writer of British Columbia history. I have, so far as possible, examined original sources of information in an endeavor to be accurate in statements of fact.
It may be of interest to add that Simon Fraser continued in the service of the Northwest Company until the coalition of that company with the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1821.
