B.C. journalist Stephen Hume has said that fur trader and explorer Simon Fraser should be celebrated as the founder of British Columbia. Certainly, the achievements of the Scottish-descended United Empire Loyalist adventurer were impressive. During three extraordinary years, 1805-1808, Fraser undertook the third major expedition (after Alexander Mackenzie’s and Lewis and Clark’s) across North America, culminating in his famous journey down the river in British Columbia that now bears his name.

Employed by the Montreal-based North West Company, Fraser was responsible for building many of British Columbia’s first trading posts. His exploratory efforts helped lead to Canada’s boundary later being declared at the 49th parallel. In this new volume, librarian and archivist W. Kaye Lamb provides a detailed introduction as well as illuminating annotations to Fraser’s journals, which were originally published by Macmillan of Canada in 1960.

W. KAYE LAMB (1904-1999) had a long and distinguished career as an archivist and librarian in Canada. He was instrumental in setting up Canada's National Library in 1953.

W. Kaye Lamb's profile page

Michael Gnarowski co-edited The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada, compiled The Concise Bibliography of E nglish Canadian Literature, and edited the Critical Views on Canadian Writers Series for McGraw-Hill Ryerson. He has written for Encyclopedia Americana, The Canadian Encyclopedia, The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography, and The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry. Gnarowski is professor emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Michael Gnarowski's profile page