APPOINTED ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 257 



Dr. Whiteaves only when it would be wanted to place in the 

 museum. 



In the summer of 1888, my son, James, was commissioned to 

 proceed with Thomas Fawcett, who was going to make a survey 

 down the Athabasca River, and my son was to look after the 

 natural history. On this expedition, William Spreadborough was 

 employed as cook and my son was skinning birds for the museum 

 and he taught W. S. to do likewise. He found that he was an 

 expert and an exceedingly valuable man as a natural history 

 collector. On his return, my son advised me to employ William 

 S. on my projected trip to British Columbia. This I did and, we 

 three, started in the latter part of March, 1889, but I was so poor- 

 ly at the time that it was doubtful whether I could reach Van- 

 couver or not ; but I persevered and, when I arrived at Hastings, 

 I could walk and my son and William pitched the tent (I lived 

 at the hotel), and commenced to make collections of plants, birds, 

 mammals and snakes. We remained at Hastings and then 

 moved, after a few weeks, to Agassiz, then to Yale, then to Lyt- 

 ton and Spence's Bridge, with a long stop at Kamloops, after 

 which we moved to Sicamous and made large collections at all 

 these places. I made a side trip down Lake Okanagan and saw 

 the country that has now become the "Garden of British Colum- 

 bia." In my report, I showed the great value of the country and 

 the beauties of the Lake. 



After our stay at Sicamous, we moved up to the Gold Range. 

 My son, James M., and William S. carried provisions on their 

 backs up to the summit of the range and, after they had arranged 

 for a camp, I went up and we lived a week just at the snow line, 

 and made extensive collections there and shot mountain goats 

 and buried them in the snow so that they would remain in cold 

 storage until we were ready to take them down. We left one in 

 the snow and I said that, possibly in coming years, it would be 

 found and do good service to some hunter who was short 

 of food. 



After this, we returned eastward, and reached home in due 

 time. We soon settled down in the office and I commenced to put 

 things in shape; skins, eggs, snakes and fish, and had cases made 



