58 • THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



of 1848 be regarded as an exception, it must be remembered that the 

 company had been forced by circumstances to act without delay. 



The trading post — Fort Hope — was built ; but despite the utmost 

 efforts the road was not sufficiently advanced to admit of the brigade's 

 being brought out over it in the spring of 1849; in consequence, the 

 terrible route by way of the canyons and Yale with its ferry and its 

 detour was utilized. " Its difficulties," says Anderson most modestly, 

 "were too harassing." On the return of the bateaux from Langley, 

 instead of proceeding to Yale, they stopped at the new fort, Hope. 

 There the whole party set to work to finish the trail so as to enable 

 the horse brigade, which had returned light from Fort Yale, to reach 

 Fort Hope and transport thence the trading goods that had been 

 brought up by the bateaux.-^ This was the end of Fort Yale, as a 

 factor in the company's transportation system, which, as has been 

 shown, was its only raison d'etre. It did, it is true, revive for a few 

 years during the golden days of the Fraser and of Cariboo, but by 

 that time the Hudson's Bay Company had ceased to be a power in 

 the land. Fort Hope grew up and waxed great, not as a trading post, 

 for it was never in that class, but as the terminus ad quern of the horse 

 brigade and the terminus a qiio of the bateaux. In 1850, as another 

 letter which is attached as an appendix hereto shows, the express 

 service of the company was directed through Fort Hope. So from 

 the day of its construction until the glory of the company had de- 

 parted, each June saw Hope one of the busiest places in the company's 

 whole system as the annual brigade arrived with its furs and departed 

 with its trading goods. 



^'Anderson's manuscript History of North West Coast. 



