On the morning of May 29, 1808, Simon Fraser with two clerks, two Indian guides, and nineteen voyageurs set out in four frail birch-bark canoes from Fort George on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains. Before them was the unnamed and unexplored river that led south and, Fraser hoped, west to the Pacific coast. Every bend threatened new dangers—impassable rapids, treacherous portages, unfriendly Indians. But in seventy-one days Fraser and his party fought their way to the mouth of the savage river and back to Fort George.

Fraser's journey on the savage river named for him is one of the most remarkable feats in the exploration of western Canada. Although Fraser failed to find the navigable canoe route to the Pacific desperately needed by the North West Company, his exploration had helped to secure for Great Britain—and for Canada—the vast territory that became British Columbia.

From the dust jacket