The Nor’Wester is a work of fiction. While Simon Fraser and the men of the North West Company did embark on a journey to the Pacific in 1808, there is nothing in the historical record to indicate they did so as an official response to the journey of Lewis and Clark.
Simon Fraser, John Stuart, Jules Quesnel, Hugh Faries and the voyageurs that Duncan meets in Fort St. James are real, including the unpleasant La Malice, although his hatred of Duncan and his fate as described in this book are fiction.
Additionally, while there is no evidence to show that Duyunun accompanied Fraser down the river, he, Chief Kwah, and the other Indigenous people described in this book, including Little Fellow, were real historical figures. The journey is heavily based on Fraser’s own journal, and some of Fraser’s dialogue is taken from the very words he used in his own account. The village of Chunlac is a real place, and the massacre described in the book is an historical event that occurred around the year 1750.
There was a migrant ship called the Sylph that travelled the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool to Quebec in the early years of the 19th century, and although Tom and Francis are fictional characters, the description of the Atlantic crossing is based on first-hand accounts from both crew members and passengers who made the hazardous journey.
John Davis, Henry Mackenzie, Luc Lapointe, Callum Mackay and Louis and Louise Desjarlais are all fictional. William McGillivray was the head of the North West Company, and the descriptions of the North West Company headquarters, Lachine, Fort William and Fort St. James are historically accurate.
A word on the names of the Indigenous peoples used in this account: there was a conscious effort to respect and use the names preferred by the Native peoples themselves, instead of the names ascribed to them by Fraser and others, including “Indian.” For example, the Secwepemc (pronounced She-whep-m) were called the “Atnah” by Fraser and have, at various other times in history, been given other names. Nlaka’pamux is pronounced Ing-khla-kap-muh; in Fraser’s journal they were called the “Hacamaugh.”
Two books in particular were invaluable to the creation of this story. The first is Stephen Hume’s Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia (Harbour Publishing, 2008). The second is W. Kaye Lamb’s edition of The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser, 1806–1808 (reprinted by Dundurn Press, 2007). A third book, Bruce Hutchinson’s The Fraser (Irwin Publishing, 1982), is also an important resource for those seeking more information about this fascinating period of early British Columbia history.