The life-work of the discoverer of the Fraser River illustrates the pioneer spirit which animated the early settlers of Canada. There was the pluck, the love of adventure, the endurance, the prompt response to the call of duty, the expansive idea which kept abreast of ever opening possibilities, and the rare tact displayed in new, embarrassing and important transactions. Simon Fraser was in many respects a great man and one of whom his clansmen may well feel proud. His grandfather was William Fraser, of Culbokie, whose wife Margaret Macdonell, of Glengarry, was the possessor of the famous _Balg Solair_ in which was stowed away a manuscript of Ossianic poetry, which figures in the dissertations on the authenticity of MacPherson's Ossian, and regarding which the following interesting passage occurs in the correspondence of the late Bishop Alexander Macdonell: "I myself saw a large MS. of Ossian's poems in the possession of Mrs. Fraser of Culbokie, in Strathglass, which she called "_am Balg Solair_" (a bag of fortuitous goods). This lady's residence being between my father's house and the school where I used to attend with her grandchildren, at her son's, Culbokie House, by way of coaxing me to remain on cold nights at her own house, she being cousin to my father, she used to take up the _Balg Solair_, and read pieces of it to me. Although a very young boy at the time, I became so much enraptured with the rehearsal of the achievements of the heroes of the poem, and so familiar with the characters, especially of Oscar, Cathmor, and Cuthchullin, that when MacPherson's translation was put into my hands in the Scotch college of Valladolid in Spain, many years afterwards, it was like meeting old friends with whom I had been intimately acquainted. Mrs. Fraser's son, Simon, who had a classical education, and was an excellent Gaelic scholar, on emigrating to America in the year 1774, took the _Balg Solair_ with him as an invaluable treasure. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, Mr. Fraser joined the Royal Standard, was taken prisoner by the Americans and thrown into jail, where he died."