Overhead soared huge Californian condors (_Pseudogryphus_).
Henry was drowned in 1812 in the estuary of the Columbia River, through the capsizing of a boat.
The question of the identity of the great river flowing to the Pacific from near the headwaters of the Peace--the river which Mackenzie had discovered and been forced to leave--was finally decided by SIMON FRASER, one of the most celebrated among the North-west Company's pioneers.

Like Mackenzie, he believed this stream to be the upper Columbia.
Accompanied by John Stuart and Jules Quesnel, he left the Fraser River at its junction with the Nechaco on May 22, 1807, and, keeping as near as he could to the course of the river, found himself in the country of the Atna tribe, Amerindians of a diminutive size but active appearance, from whom he obtained an invaluable guide and faithful interpreter, Little Fellow, but for whose bravery, wise advice, and clever diplomacy the journey must have ended in disaster or disappointment--a remark which might be made about nearly all the Amerindian guides of the pioneers.
The Atna Indians were dressed in skins with the hair outside, and were armed with bows and arrows.

They besmeared their bodies with fish oil and red earth, and painted their faces in different colours.

Bison were quite unknown to them, being very seldom found in those latitudes on the western side of the Rocky Mountains.

The country of the Atna Indians on the upper Fraser abounded in elk, wapiti, reindeer, bighorn sheep, mountain goats,[2] and beaver.
[Footnote 2: This remarkable beast (_Oreamnus_) they called "Aspai", and wove from its white wool an excellent cloth for their clothing.] Here is a description by Fraser of some of the rapids in the upper part of the river named after him.
"The channel contracts to about forty yards, and is enclosed by two precipices of immense height, which bending towards each other make it narrower above than below.