The Canadian Rockies: Early Travels and Explorations

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Esther Fraser, who died in 1978, loved the mountains. Finding that there
was no general history of early exploration of the Rockies, she decided
to write one. This is a reissue of that classic book, first published in
1969.

Based on scripts written for radio, the book is an engaging and
readable compilation, which works its way through the European
exploration up to 1913. Fraser takes in the travels of David Thompson,
George Simpson, Captain John Palliser, Dr. James Hector, Viscount
Milton, Dr. W.B. Cheadle, and many others. She also includes the guides,
packers, and people met along the way. In addition to commentary, she
provides quotations from the explorers’ notes, diaries, and
journals—for example, from Dr. Cheadle’s journal: “The corpse was
in a sitting posture, legs crossed, arms clasped over knees, bending
forward over the ashes of a miserable fire of small sticks.” The book
is not heavily illustrated; there are a few photographs, mostly
individual portraits.

The first edition of The Canadian Rockies was in print for 20 years and
sold over 20,000 copies. This reissue is recommended for libraries and
interested readers that do not already own that edition.