THE SAVAGE RIVER

Macmillan, Toronto, 1968, 1^st.  Hard cover, 146 pages.  Very good; green boards with red lettering on front and spine; binding tight.  Dust jacket has edge and cover wear, a few short tears, age toning.  Illustrated end papers, small stain at top edge of first few pages; remainder of interior clean and unmarked; black & white map and illustrations by Lewis Parker.  #33 in the Great Stories of Canada series.  ‘On the morning of May 28, 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. … 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 front flap)