8 



The favorable message from the Governor but urged on the 

 youthful explorer to new fields of discovery. In going to 

 Dease's Lake Campbell had taken the more southerly of the 

 mountain affluents making up the Upper Liard River. Under a 

 new order he started in 1840 to explore the northern branch of 

 the Liard. For this purpose he left Fort Halkett, his mountain 

 rendezvous, in May, and journeyed northward, thinking that 

 perhaps, though starting below 60^ N, he might come upon the 

 river discovered by Dease and Simpson two years before, run- 

 ning into the Arctic ocean about 70° N. and called by them the 



DEASE'S LAKE POST 



Colville. Ascending the mountain gorge through which the 

 swift Liard flows Campbell came to a beautiful lake, to which, 

 in honor of Lady Simpson, he gave the name Lake Frances. 

 The lake was divided by a promontory called by him " Simpson's 

 Tower," and leaving the lake he ascended one of its tributaries, 

 clambe-'^-ing along its rocky banks, which in turn came from a 

 small mountain reservoir called by him Finlayson's Lake, as its 

 affluent was also named. This lake at high water gives one part 

 of its waters to the Pacific and the other to the Arctic ocean. 

 Campbell, with the hardiest of his seven trusty companions, who 

 were some of them whites and others Indians, now made an 



