1906-7. TRANSACTIONS. 17 



The Southern Trail in British Columbia. 



By J. M. Macoun, Assistant Naturalist, Geological Survey. 



[Read November SOth, 1906. 



Within five years one, or probably two railways will cross 

 British Columbia close to the international boundary, and as 

 happened elsewhere in that province many of the old trails will 

 then be abandoned. Some of them, indeed, follow the only 

 available routes and the building of a railway means their des- 

 truction. There was room for only one road up the Fraser, for 

 example, and the Canadian Pacific Railway replaced the old 

 Cariboo trail which was the main route from the coast to the 

 mines and trading posts of northern British Columbia. Some 

 account of the early history of the fur-trading companies and of 

 the discovery of gold is necessary in order to understand the 

 causes which lead to the development of Southern British 

 Columbia. 



Fraser and Stuart crossing from the east side of the moun- 

 tains descended the Fraser in 1808. Thompson came down the 

 Columbia in 1811, and in 1813 the Pacific Trading Co. — Astor's 

 company — sold out to the Northwest Trading Co. This company 

 and the Hudson's Bay Co., after years of confiict, joined forces in 

 1821, thus leaving all the routes from the Pacific coast into the 

 interior in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Co. It was not until 

 1826, however, that all the goods for the northern parts were 

 taken from the west northwestward. In July of that year the 

 first brigade left Fort Vancouver with supplies for the northern 

 posts and dispatches for York Factory. 



Though several histories of the Hudson's Bay Company have 

 been published in recent years none of them begins to do justice 

 to the men who were the pioneers in British Columbia. Chosen 

 for their courage and strength to withstand hardsh'p they were 

 for the most part men who under other conditions would have 

 made great generals or statesmen. The diplomacy necessary to 



Much of the historical matter which follows has been gleaned from 

 Bancroft's "History of the Northwest Coast." 

 2 



