1906-7. TRANSACTIONS. 19 



would be sought for without finding in these days. Agriculture 

 was, as I have said, in a way forced upon the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany. According to the terms of an agreement between the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company and the Russian American Fur Company, 

 the former company was to supply the latter with all the agricul- 

 tural products the Russian posts and vessels might require. What ^ 

 little planting had been done around Fort Vancouver, Fort JUol- 

 ville and in some of the valleys of what is now the state of 

 Washington barely sufficed for the needs of the Company's 

 servants, so in 1839 it was decided to open up farms along the 

 banks of the Columbia, and in that year English and Scotch 

 farmers were brought across the mountains from Canada. Many 

 French-Canadians who had left the Company's service were also 

 encouraged to engage in agriculture so that the first agricultural 

 settlements in the Willamette and Columbia valleys were made 

 by Canadians. 



As the trade of the interior was developed, the traffic along 

 the northern route increased, and up to 1846 the whole trade of the 

 interior of British Columbia was done via the Columbia River. If 

 the British Columbian boundary had remained where it was 

 thought to be before 1846 it is not at all likely that a trans- 

 continental route through what is now Canada would be in 

 operation to-day. 



Before 1846 when the treaty of Oregon was signed, which 

 fixed the southern boundary of British Columbia, Fort Vancouver 

 150 miles from the mouth of the Columbia was the chief port of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company. The first effect of the moving north 

 of the International Boundary was to make it necessary that a 

 British company trading in British territory should establish a 

 new post from which supplies might be sent to the north and east. 

 What with the customs duties imposed by the U.S. Government 

 and the inconvenience and delay that might be caused by un- 

 friendly officials, to continue using Fort Vancouver as a port of 

 entry was not to be thought of if it could be avoided. The 

 Columbia river and the open country between Fort Colville and 

 Kamloops had afforded a comparatively easy and safe transport 

 route from the sea to the interior and before abandoning it an- 

 other must be sought. The Fraser valley was out of the question. 

 Its deep canyons and wild rapids presented difficulties thought 

 to be unsurmountable at that time. The trading posts through- 

 out northern British Columbia were nearly all supplied from 



