Section II, 1922 [49] Trans. R.S.C. 



The Raison d'Etre of Forts Yale and Hope 



By His Honour Judge F. W. Howay, LL.B., F. R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1922) 



The traveller upon the Canadian Pacific Railway, on emerging 

 from the gloomy gorge of the Fraser canyons, finds the mountains 

 receding as the train turns to the westward. He is at Yale. Enquiry 

 elicits the information that, though now a typical Sleepy Hollow 

 where life moves slowly and grass grows in the only street, it was 

 originally a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. Twelve or 

 thirteen miles further he passes another abandoned establishment of 

 that company. The question at once naturally arises: Why were 

 two trading posts built by the same company so near to each other? 

 This paper is an effort to afford the answer. 



Until the North West Company purchased Astoria in 1813 the 

 goods for, and the produce of, its posts west of the Rocky Mountains 

 were transported along the regular route from and to Montreal. After 

 that purchase, by which they obtained complete control of the 

 Columbia River region, a ship was despatched annually to Astoria, 

 then known as Fort George, with the necessary trading goods. ^ 

 Having discharged her cargo the vessel took on board the furs collected 

 by the river forts and continued her voyage to China. It is clear 

 that the trade connection between these forts and the central depot 

 was along the natural line — -the river. But as regards the Thompson 

 River and New Caledonia divisions it seems probable that the old 

 route to Montreal continued during all the days of the Nor'Westers.^ 

 Alexander Ross records that in 1814 a scheme for diverting the trade 

 routes of these two sections into the channel of the Columbia was 

 arranged;^ but it would appear that it never came into operation. 

 Harmon does, indeed, mention the arrival, at Fort St. James in 

 October, 1814, of Mr. La Roque from the Columbia with "two canoes 

 laden with goods ; " ^ but this seems a mere isolated venture. Scattered 

 allusions, however, show that regular communication by express 



^See hereon generally : Correspondence of the Foreign Office and of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, Ottawa, 1899, part ii, p. 10. 



^Harmon's Journal, Andover, 1820. Entry of November 7, 1818, pp. 268-9; 

 and in the New York reprint, 1903, p. 229. 



^Alexander Ross, Fur Hunters of the Far West, London, 1855, vol. I, p. 73. 



^Harmon's Journal, 1820, ed. p. 242; 1903, ed. p. 204. 



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