with horses and may have owned them at this time, and as seen by Simon Fraser and his men, they had guns of possibly Russian make in 1808. Fraser's journals describe also the town of Lillooet being heavily fortified and the men armoured, and their hosts full of anxiety about hostile neighbours and a state of war, but this would have been before the gift of ten guns (the temporary post on Okanagan Lake was started after Fraser's journey), so there may be no direct connection to Nicola's War. The date of the council which led to the death of Pelka'mulox is unknown - but certainly before Fraser came through the Lillooet area (as the context of the story is that Pelka'mulox was the first of all assembled to have seen white men, and this included upriver Shuswap as well as the Nlaka'pamux just down river, both of whom would have met Fraser and, in the case of the northerners, also known to Alexander Mackenzie). The Great Elk Hunts Nicola organized great hunts in the Nicola Valley of the once-vast elk herds that once roamed there, using techniques adapted from the buffalo hunt by driving them over cliffs, or simply driving them into enclosures. The efficiency of these hunting techniques is believed to have led to the extermination of elk in that region. Travels Like his father, Nicola travelled widely and was well-known and also visited the Prairie for buffalo hunts. He is credited with being on the winning side in a battle with the Blackfoot while there. It was also he who came to Nicola Lake to bury the Thompson and Stu'wix victims of a Shuswap raid on their settlement at Guichon. The Fur Trade and Fort Kamloops Nicola attempted to take over Fort Kamloops from Chief Trader John Tod, but was outwitted , but otherwise lived in harmony with and was highly respected by the fur traders. Among his own people and neighbouring peoples his word was law, and as with the fur traders he was known for "sagacity, honesty, prudence and fair dealing, and was rather a peacemaker than a fighting man". The Gold Rush, the Okanagan Trail and the Fraser Canyon War Before the discovery of the major placer gold find at the Nicoamen River, which enters the Thompson just a few miles upstream from Lytton, the Kamloops people under Nicola's dominion were already trading for