Carpenter, a Toronto lawyer, was one of the Overlanders who came into B.C. from Winnipeg and points east in 1862, in search of Cariboo gold. On Tuesday, September 30th, the group he was with arrived at the Grand Canyon rapids on the Fraser River, eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of Prince George. While assessing the rapids Carpenter wrote in his diary, “Arrived this day at the canyon at 10 a.m. and drowned running the canoe down: God keep my poor wife”.