[261] Paul, son of Simon Fraser the explorer (for whom see Farnham’s Travels, ante, p. 43, note 52), was born in Glengarry, Ontario, in 1799. He entered the Hudson’s Bay Company as early as 1827, or before, and in the following year was chief clerk in charge at Fort Vermillion, when Sir George Simpson passed that way. In 1833 he was a senior clerk at Fort McLeod, giving his principal attention to New Caledonia where he was a chief trader before 1844. He built Fort Umpqua in Oregon, and was stationed there for some time. In 1850 he resigned from the Northern department and was sent to Fort Kamloops, where not long afterwards he was killed by the fall of a tree.—Ed.
[262] There is an Island Lake on the Sturgeon River chain, not far from Lake Ann, but De Smet’s topography is too indefinite to insure identification.—Ed.
[263] La Fourche du Trou (Fork of the Hole), better known as Whirlpool River, is that branch of the Athabasca that descends from the Committee’s Punch Bowl on the summit of Athabasca Pass. The first appellation is given because of a peculiar rock formation by which it enters the other branch of the Athabasca through a rocky channel or hole. See our volume vi, p. 353.—Ed.
[264] By reference to Letter iii, ante, pp. 170-172, it will be seen that all the succeeding letters to this point were enclosed with that accompanying them, and forwarded by the usual Columbia brigade, which De Smet met at this point of his journey.—Ed.
[265] For a brief sketch of York Factory see our volume vi, p. 377, note 191.—Ed.
[266] For Francis Ermatinger see our volume xxvii, p. 235, note 108.—Ed.
[267] This river has various names, by some called Portage, and by others Little Canoe, since it enters the Columbia at its great northern bend, just where the Canoe River coming from the north also joins it. This westward-flowing mountain torrent—first discovered by David Thompson in 1810-11—issues from a small lake at the summit of the pass, within a few rods of the Committee’s Punch Bowl.—Ed.
[268] So named from Thompson’s camp, where he stopped to build canoes to descend the Columbia. It became a noted site on the upper Columbia, where horses or snow-shoes were exchanged for canoes or vice versa.—Ed.
[269] For the two peaks here mentioned, see Farnham’s Travels, ante, pp. 29, 30, notes 22, 23.—Ed.
[270] The Dalles of the Dead was an especially dangerous place on the upper Columbia. Probably they took their name from the sad fate of a party who turned back from Boat Encampment in 1817. See Ross Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River (New York, 1832), p. 245.—Ed.