Misplaced Pages

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37-543: While the famed Cariboo Wagon Road from Yale north to the gold fields was completed in 1865, it was years before a Lower Mainland road was completed to Hope and Yale. To move men and supplies to the gold fields, service by river steamers was inaugurated in 1858. The navigable sections of the Fraser River proved the easiest and cheapest route of travel. As late as 1873, the Hudson's Bay Company foot trail ( "Fur Brigade Trail" )

74-627: A 50-mile-long trail through heavy forest with the help of a relative and a native local. Construction began in 1874 for a wagon road between New Westminster and Hope roughly paralleling the route of the Telegraph Trail of 1865. On maps it was called the New Westminster and Yale (Wagon) Road , but known locally as Yale Road . The route of Yale Road ran from New Westminster in a southeasterly direction through Langley Prairie and Aldergrove to Abbotsford. The road proceeded to curve south to follow

111-558: A path along the south shore of Sumas Lake and along the north base of the Vedder Mountains through Yarrow , Vedder Crossing, north to Sardis and Chilliwack. From Chilliwack, the road followed Reece's old trail through Rosedale and Bridal Falls, then northeasterly along the south shore of the Fraser River through Cheam View and Laidlaw to Hope and Yale. Reports during 1876–77 by the road superintendent, George Landvoight, described how

148-812: Is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia , which grew in importance during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush . Located on the Fraser River , it is generally considered to be on the dividing line between the British Columbia Coast and the Interior regions of the British Columbia Mainland. Immediately north of the town, the Fraser Canyon begins and the river is generally considered unnavigable past this point. Rough water

185-519: Is common on the Fraser anywhere upstream from Chilliwack and even more so above Hope , about 32 km (20 mi) south of Yale. However, steamers could make it to Yale, good pilots and water conditions permitting, and the town had a busy dockside life as well as a variety of bars, restaurants, hotels, saloons and various services. Its maximum population during the gold rush era was in the 15,000 range. More generally, it housed 5,000-8,000. The higher figure

222-414: Is the lowest main destination for the Fraser River rafting expedition companies; several have waterfront campgrounds and facilities near town. All Hallows is now a campground and hostel. Not much of gold rush-era Yale survives, as the docks vanished long ago. The railway was built in the 1880s down the main street of what had been the waterfront town. The Yale Museum is located on old Front Street, adjacent to

259-735: The Cariboo Wagon Road , the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway ) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia , James Douglas . It was built in response to the Cariboo Gold Rush to facilitate settlement of the area by miners. It involved a feat of engineering stretching from Fort Yale to Barkerville, B.C. through extremely hazardous canyon territory in

296-587: The Fraser Canyon War and McGowan's War . The Governor came to Yale during the first crisis, and government officials Matthew Baillie Begbie , Chartres Brew and Richard Clement Moody during the second, to address American miners and take control of matters. The unrest threatened the rule of the Crown over the Mainland (or " New Caledonia " as it was called before the creation of the mainland colony . (New Caledonia

333-489: The Interior of British Columbia . Between the 1860s and the 1880s the Cariboo Road existed in three versions as a surveyed and constructed wagon-road route. The first established road was Cariboo Wagon Road surveyed in 1861 and built in 1862 followed the original Hudson's Bay Company 's Harrison Trail ( Port Douglas ) route from Lillooet to Clinton , 70 Mile House , 100 Mile House , Lac La Hache , 150 Mile House to

370-804: The Old Cariboo Road , when the Lakes Route from Port Douglas to Lillooet had not yet been superseded by the Fraser Canyon route of the Cariboo Wagon Road proper. The mile-house names (e.g. 100 Mile House ), in the Cariboo are derived from measurements taken from the Mile '0' of this road, which is in the bend in the Main Street of Lillooet and commemorated there by a cairn erected in the 1958 Centennial Year. It

407-618: The “401” Freeway (constructed 1960–64). Until recently, the Fraser Highway (to Abbotsford) and Chilliwack-Rosedale (Yale Road East) sections were designated as B.C. Highway 1A . In 2005, the City of Chilliwack designated the Yale Road East section as the “Trans-Canada Parallel Route” . Sections of Yale Road and Old Yale Road continue to exist in the Fraser Valley as local roads. Some of

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444-608: The 1930s along with renaming as the Fraser Highway (designated as "Highway 'A'" on road maps). As the Trans-Canada Highway (designated Highway 1 in 1941), the old Yale Road route saw further abandonment as the main highway of the valley with the by-passing of the Chilliwack-Rosedale-Bridal Falls section (constructed circa-1958-60) and the Fraser Highway section between New Westminster and Abbotsford by

481-538: The Douglas-Lillooet Trail. The men were an integral part of Yale's life from the gold rush to the end of the 1870s. The town was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard , the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale , then Chief Factor of the Columbia District . In its heyday at the peak of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush , it

518-531: The contract end around Soda Creek and Alexandria at the doorstep of the Cariboo Gold Fields. The second Cariboo Wagon Road (or Yale Cariboo Road) operated during the period of the fast stage-coaches and freight-wagon companies headquartered in Yale : 1865 to 1885. From the water landing at Yale , the road ran north via the spectacular Fraser Canyon route over Hell's Gate and Jackass Mountain , connecting to

555-521: The earlier Cariboo Road at Clinton. The third Cariboo Road was the revised route following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. The railway station at Ashcroft became the southern end of the wagon road. Much of the Fraser Canyon wagon road was destroyed by the railway construction as well as by washouts and by the Great Flood of 1894 (interest in rebuilding this portion of

592-496: The early 1880s before construction in the Canyon was finished in 1885 – made Yale a popular excursion run. With construction ended, however, the population dropped dramatically in Yale by 1890, and continued to decline afterwards. Daily return service remained in effect until World War I. When Onderdonk moved on in 1886, he donated his estate for a girls' school, All Hallows. This

629-571: The headquarters and residence of the American railway contractor Andrew Onderdonk , who supervised its construction. The town boomed with population and new businesses because of railway spending and employment. Yale and nearby Emory City , in the vicinity of Hill's Bar , where the gold rush had begun, as well as all the major Fraser Canyon towns to Ashcroft , thronged with temporary residents and business of various kinds and legitimacy. Three-times daily rail service to Vancouver – begun in

666-576: The old road beds are now on private property. The road maintains much of its historic characteristics – winding sections, narrow pavement, avoidance of steep terrain, and usage as a route for local above ground telephone and electricity services. A section in Langley, (South of the Langley Municipal Airport) remains constructed of concrete panels dating from 1923. Notes References Cariboo Wagon Road The Cariboo Road (also called

703-483: The opening of the faster Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s, Yale's economy and population fell off as traffic bypassed it. In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada , Yale had a population of 162 living in 86 of its 118 total private dwellings, a change of 13.3% from its 2016 population of 143. With a land area of 3.38 km (1.31 sq mi), it had a population density of 47.9/km (124.1/sq mi) in 2021. The average age of Yale residents

740-606: The original waggon road and since upgraded to the Trans-Canada Highway . For a long time, this was the main route between the Interior Plateau and the Lower Mainland . After major reconstruction of the Cariboo Highway in the 1950s, involving the construction of several major tunnels, the difficult old canyon stretch of the route achieved highway quality (instead of in name only), and towns such as Yale boomed once again. With

777-481: The river was the Dewdney Trunk Road , built in the same period in advance of railway construction in the 1880s. That road ran only to Dewdney , just east of Mission City . Because of its unique role as a transshipment point for the Cariboo Road, Yale prospered for another twenty years after the gold rush. Although it declined in population, it retained some prestige and such sophistication as had grown up within

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814-513: The road 25 miles (40 km) west of Hope was impassable for months on end due to damage from river flood washouts. He also described other damage such as a destroyed bridge, caused by wild cattle driven over it. It was not until 1891 that the section of the Old Yale Road from Chilliwack to Hope could be considered in any sense permanent. During the automobile era after the First World War,

851-406: The road across the continental divide into Rupert's Land (modern day Alberta ) but this plan was abandoned when Douglas retired in 1864. The name Cariboo Road or Cariboo Trail is also informally applied to a toll road built by contractor Gustavus Blin-Wright in 1861–1862 from Lillooet to Williams Lake , Van Winkle and on to Williams Creek (Richfield, Barkerville). This route was known also as

888-475: The road cost nearly one and a quarter million dollars, and left a standing debt of £112,780 after its completion, one of many infrastructure costs in servicing the Gold Colony that forced its amalgamation first with Vancouver Island (1866), and then with Canada (1871 confederation). The Cariboo Road saw the transportation of over six and a half million dollars' worth of gold. Originally Douglas wanted to stretch

925-434: The road saw improvements and new alignments to efficiently move cars and trucks through the Fraser Valley. After Sumas Lake was reclaimed and converted to farmland in 1925, the highway was re-routed off the old Yale Road route in a more direct alignment through the eastern Fraser Valley between Abbotsford and Chilliwack. Though unpaved, the road was deemed passable by automobile in the mid-1920s; Realignments and pavement came in

962-513: The road would not occur until the construction plans for the Fraser Canyon Highway for automobiles in the 1920s). The road was a reaction to the high concentration of gold in the Cariboo region and the dangerous "mule trail", which was a rough-hewn cliff-side trail - wide enough only for one mule - that ran along the approximate route of the Cariboo Road. In order to lower supply-costs to

999-494: The rough gold town. It was as familiar to early provincial high society as were New Westminster and distant Barkerville. During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway , construction ran directly through the village, built on flatland by the river. It destroyed the town's old commercial core and the connection of the town life to the waterfront. As Yale was handy for travel to and from New Westminster and Gastown (soon after named Vancouver ) on Burrard Inlet , it became

1036-472: The settlers in the Cariboo region, Douglas ordered the construction of a more viable and safe form of transportation to the gold-mining settlements. The colonial government employed locals as well as the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment ("sappers") who undertook amazing engineering feats, including the construction of toll bridges including the (original) Alexandra Suspension Bridge of 1863. Building

1073-515: The start of the 1870s, an overland route from New Westminster was finally built – the Yale Road along the south side of the river. It was formerly known as the Grand Trunk Road and in the 21st century as Old Yale Road ; it survives in sections from Surrey through Abbotsford and Chilliwack (though no longer entirely a continuous "highway"). Its counterpart on the north side of

1110-472: The steep climb over Pavilion Mountain to Clinton , where it merged with the newer Cariboo Road via Yale and Ashcroft (once the latter route was completed, that is). The River Trail continued along the Fraser Canyon as far as Big Bar and various routes spread towards Quesnel and Barkerville from there. The Cariboo Road was featured on the television historical series Gold Trails and Ghost Towns , season 2, episode 4. Yale, British Columbia Yale

1147-637: The tracks. Next to it is the Anglican Church of St. John the Divine , among the oldest in British Columbia. The town has its own natural landscape. Every summer, a historical reenactment group visits Yale to celebrate the Royal Engineers , who had served under Richard Clement Moody during McGowan's War . They also worked on the Cariboo Wagon Road (later improved as the Trans-Canada Highway) and

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1184-406: Was along this route that an attempt was made to use Bactrian camels purchased from the U.S. Camel Corps for freight (1862), and also a tractor-style Thomson Road Steamer known as a "road train", one of the earliest motorized vehicles. Most foot traffic from Lillooet to the Cariboo however, went by the " River Trail ", far below the wagon road, which departed the Fraser Canyon at Pavilion for

1221-513: Was counted at the time of evacuation of the Canyon during the Fraser Canyon War of 1858. Most of today's population are members of the self-governing Yale First Nation . Non-native businesses have included a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as a gas station, and automotive repair and rescue outfits. The town's only gas station closed in 2021 or 2022 and their general store closed in December 2023. The Yale area

1258-460: Was ranked as one of the main society schools in the colony and continued to operate for decades, into the 1920s. Construction of the railway destroyed parts of the Cariboo Wagon Road , which was severed between Yale and Boston Bar and between Lytton and Spences Bridge . A new highway north from Yale was not built until the Cariboo Highway in 1922, partly built using surviving roadgrades of

1295-455: Was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco . It also earned epithets such as "the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia" and "a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah" of vice, violence and lawlessness. Yale played an important role in certain events of the gold rush period which threatened British control in the region with annexation by the United States:

1332-453: Was the only land route between Fort Langley and Chilliwack . The section between Chilliwack and Yale dates back to 1862 as a rough trail, built over a primitive footpath. Credit for the trail has gone to Yale butcher Jonathan Reece who wanted to source his meat from a location closer than Oregon. After convincing some other men to invest in land for farming in Chilliwack, he proceeded to cut

1369-423: Was usually applied to the fur district northwest from present-day Prince George ). As Yale was the head of river navigation, it was the best location to be designated for the start of the Cariboo Wagon Road , as there were no usable roads between Yale and the settlements nearer the Fraser's mouth. The Cariboo Road, built in the early 1860s, ran from Yale to Barkerville via Lytton , Ashcroft and Quesnel . By

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