SIR GEORGE SIMPSON 165 



posing spectacle I had ever witnessed ; and, as its berg- 

 like appearance brought to mind associations of another 

 scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated 

 navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's 

 Falls." 



Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of 

 his expedition to the cordial help of the Governor of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company, George, afterwards Sir 

 George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the 

 north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe 

 voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, passing the 

 Rockies through canyons previously untried, and 

 slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown 

 rapids at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass 

 in sheer amazement ; and all his life he was dis- 

 tinguished for similar energy and celerity. When it 

 became clear that the British Government had no 

 immediate intention of completing the survey of the 

 northern coast, Simpson organised an expedition at the 

 Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted 

 the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent 

 work for Franklin ; and with Dease he associated his 

 own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way inferior to 

 his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character, 

 being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or 

 otherwise. 



Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a 

 winner of the Huttonian, began characteristically by 

 starting off to Fort Garry now Winnipeg with a 

 view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astro- 

 nomical practice which had for some years been inter- 

 rupted by avocations of a very different nature " ; and 



