At the headwaters of Smoky River and Robson River.
This local name for the Morkill River was in use before the surveyor Dalby Brooks Morkill [1880–1955] visited the area in 1913. Stanley Washburn [1878–1950] camped on the “Big Smoky” in 1909. It appears on the 1915 Provincial Pre-Emptors map as “Morkill (Little Smoky).”
In 1909 Stanley Washburn [1878–1950] said that Small River was one of the names “given by the trappers.”
Edward Willet Dorland Holway [1853–1923], an American banker and mycologist, approached the creek from its headwaters in 1915:
At the head of Horse Creek is a great glacier with several peaks about 10,500 feet, and between Horse Creek and Small River, on a branch of which we now were, is a very fine glacier-covered mountain around 10,500 feet.…
We followed Small River to a cabin on the Fraser, where we found flour and potatoes, crossed in the morning to an old construction camp, where there were just spikes enough to build a small raft, upon which we piled our things and floated down to Croydon, where we had left our trunks.
“[A] name already in local use, referring to a sleeper fire which burned part of the area some years ago…” (memo from BC Parks, file C.1.62)
Origin of the name unknown.
Named for Simon Fraser [1776–1862] by the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission in 1921.
In 1863 Milton and Cheadle encountered Shuswap people at Jasper House and Tête Jaune Cache. “The Shushwaps of Jasper House formerly numbered about thirty families, but are now reduced to as many individuals,” they wrote. [1]
The Texqakallt band of the upper North Thompson River were the earliest known inhabitants of the upper reaches of the Fraser River. They were almost completely nomadic. Lodges and fish drying racks were constructed in prime salmon fishing territory at the confluence of the McLennan River and Fraser Rivers in the vicinity of what is now Tête Jaune Cache. As well as salmon from the Fraser, trout were reportedly taken from Yellowhead Lake. They hunted bighorn sheep, mountain goats, moose, marmots, and other small mammals and birds. They also relied on edible plants in the area, especially berries.[2]
In 1914 Bill joined the railway as a conductor in Jasper. In 1934 they moved to a farm near McBride. In 1947 Shovar retired from his job as conductor. He was a Mason and was active in the Farmers’ Institute.
Lloyd Shovar assisted in the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Survey north of Yellowhead Pass in 1922. Relationship unknown.