Captain James Herrick McGregor
CVWM

Previous to 1915 this river was known as the Fraser River North Fork (or South Branch of North Fork Fraser River, and also formerly known as Big Salmon River.

Surveyor James Herrick McGregor [1869–1915] was born in Montreal and received his early education in the east. He obtained his commission as a British Columbia Provincial Land Surveyor 1891. He practiced his profession for a few years in the Kootenays and subsequently settled in Victoria.

McGregor was involved in the 1891-98 triangulation and photo-topographic surveys of the southern Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Alberta-British Columbia boundary.

McGregor did much of the exploration and survey work in the area around the confluence of the Fraser River and McGregor River upstream of Prince George.(1)

He enlisted in World War I and was killed in the Battle of Ypres.

Hugh Drummond Allan [1887–1917] was born in Scotland and came to Canada around 1907. He became a British Columbia land surveyor in 1912. His professional work was carried on mainly in the Kamloops district and the North Thompson valley. In 1913 he surveyed in the Canoe River area. “From Mile 49 on the Grand Trunk Pacific I proceeded with my party by wagon and reached the Canoe River in one day,” he reported.

After the start of the first World War Allan returned to Scotland and enlisted. In 1916 he was wounded, and in 1917 he was killed leading his company at Croiselles, France. Lieutenant Allan was shortly predeceased by his wife and infant child.

(There is another Hugh Allan [1810-1882], a Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate, apparently unrelated.)