Born 1776, Bennington, Vermont
Died April 19, 1862, St. Andrew’s, Ontario

In the early nineteenth century both Great Britain and the United States competed for rights to the Pacific Northwest. In 1804, Americans Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) and William Clark (1770–1838) claimed much of the Northwest for the United States in the first government-sponsored expedition across North America to the Pacific Ocean. British North American settlers hurried to establish their own claims in the area, the movement led by fur-trading companies. Simon Fraser, part-owner of the North West Company, set up fur-trading posts and settlements in what would become central British Columbia and explored west of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find an easy water route to the Pacific. In his unsuccessful attempts to find the Columbia—the largest North American river that flows into the Pacific Ocean—he discovered a great river of western...