to the Columbia prior to 1807, but without leaving any written or dictated report. In the future something may be found to disclose who did actually set eye upon some of the physical conditions existing west of the Rockies and appearing on maps published before and during the time of Jonathan Carver (Flathead Lake, for instance), but the above references seem to include all of our present knowledge of the subject.
The writer of this introduction has twice visited the source of the Columbia river and has taken phonographs there. For the better understanding of the lay reader it may be well to indicate here a few of the names and locations appearing in this document with reference to present day geography. The lake region where the Columbia rises is now easily accessible by a fine auto highway, extending across the mountains to Banff; but is was no such pass as that by which David Thompson crossed.
In 1807, and years before, the fur traders of the Saskatchewan prairies and streams of Canada had been doing business with small bands of Indians, who had crossed the mountains and descended the Eastern slope to a prairie or meadow of the foothills known to them as the Kootenae plain. This prairie was situated considerably north of the present site of Banff and the Canadian Pacific railroad. These Indians were known as the Kootenaes and therefore the river which David Thompson came upon on the 30th of June, 1807, flowing to the North, was called by him the Kootenae river: he did not know that he had found the Columbia. And, in distinction, the river now called the Kootenay was named by him the Flatbow river: just why we do not know. The name Flathead, as applied to the Saleesh Indians, is equally mysterious.
The trading posts or forts of the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, located in the Saskatchewan country, were classed colloquially among the traders as Forts des Prairies, and the particular fort at which
