There is a new online website available -- a sort of Wikipedia but for British Columbia history only.
It is a beginning project, and it is an attempt to make permanent things of value posted on the web, that may disappear or are hard to find -- websites that disappear when owners become too ill to manage them, etc. etc.
This site is found at http://bchistoryonline.com/wiki/Main_Page
If you have a site that you think is of interest to British Columbians, you need to get in touch with the managers of British Columbia Historical Federations's new online Encyclopedia of B.C. History website, at above address.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Alexander Caulfield Anderson's maps
As you have heard before, I was invited to speak in front of the Historical Map society, which meets at UBC, in Vancouver.
My sister and I met some of the members of the group for supper, and proceeded to UBC.
I had been told there would be about 12 to 15 persons in the group, but when we arrived in the room we found there were more like twenty-five people waiting for us.
Many of the younger members of the group, who do not often come to the meetings, attended this meeting.
Of course I was pleased to see the crowd, but what it meant was that I had not brought nearly enough books to sell, and quickly ran out.
For those of you who were unable to purchase a book at the meeting, you should find copies of it at the UBC bookstore just down the road, and my publisher is ensuring there are sufficient copies.
The People's Co-op bookstore has copies, and you can purchase e-books through Chapters (if you have a Kobo), and other sources.
Anyway, we set up quickly and listened as they held their meeting, and I was introduced to the crowd. For those of you who want to do further research on Anderson's maps in British Columbia archives, I am adding further information to the talk that I gave on his maps.
I am also including a little history, which on looking back I think I should have included in the talk to make the speak easier to follow.
Here we go:
"Good evening, everybody. Thank you for coming. As you may or may not know, I am the author of "The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson's Journeys in the West, published by Heritage House in Fall, 2011. Anderson's full name is Alexander Caulfield Anderson and, in the mid-1840's, he was a Hudson's Bay Company fur trader, explorer, and map-maker.
"In order to write Alexander's biography, I had to access his many maps for stories written on them that appear nowhere else. Even now I am not certain I have all the answers -- or even that I have discovered all the questions.
"People ask me why Anderson drew his maps; I can only guess the reason. All fur traders drew maps of the territory they lived in, which they left behind for the next person in charge of the post. But often they kept a copy for themselves. Both Alexander, and his brother James -- also an HBC fur trader -- had a collection of maps when they retired. But I think that Alexander had an artistic bent that James did not have, and map-making was just an extension of that natural interest in art.
"Both Alexander and James received a liberal education that centered around culture and the arts; their relatively rich father had even paid for elocution and dancing lessons for his sons. They probably received art lessons; both brothers read widely though Alexander studied Latin while James quoted poetry in later letters to his brother.
"Alexander's first map-making experiment began, I believe, at Fraser's Lake, when he took charge of this small post in the winter of 1835-36. So this is where we will begin:
"His first map is numbered CM/13703A, and the archives lists it under the name, "Northern Interior of British Columbia." During the time he was at Fraser's Lake, Anderson copied down information from maps that would have existed at the post. This map, drawn in the 1870's, contained information taken from an old map and formed the basis of his finished map of the New Caledonia area that surrounded Fort George, Fraser's Lake, Fort St. James, and McLeod Lake.
"The map numbered CM/13665A, "Guide Map to the Peace River Mines," was drawn to show gold miners at Victoria north to the Omineca District east of Fraser's Lake -- where a new gold rush was just beginning. By the time Alexander drew this map, he was the only person in Victoria that was known to have spent any time in this region.
"The writing on the edge of the map begins with: "N.B. The route from Quesnel to Fraser's Lake is so well traced as not to be mistaken. (It was almost certainly the old horse road between Fort Alexandria and Fraser's Lake). From Fraser to Stuart Lake more care is necessary. The route strikes up from the village of Nantley (on Fraser Lake), a little to the eastward of North, and follows the same general course throughout...." The instructions continue, and are clear enough that an outdoorsman could, even today, follow Anderson's description of this trail, making his way from the old fort at Fraser's Lake to Fort St. James.
(For those of you who are outdoorsmen and who live in the area, I am writing out the complete description of this trail here -- those of you who don't want to hike through the bush with the bears can ignore this paragraph:
"The route strikes up from the village of Nantley (on Fraser Lake), a little to the east of North, and follows the same general course throughout. After passing the small stream called the "Beaver Dam," the pass narrows generally till a few miles further on the first height of land is crossed. This is the head of Hootsan River. Following down the Grand Boulee[?] a short distance, the trail strikes to the left and the second rise is ascended. Crossing it obliquely, Stuart's Lake is seen, and the hill is descended to Quaw Lake. [Quaw was an important Native chief in the area, and this note might indicate where Quaw had his village.] This part of the road takes care, as the path is indistinct in the mossy land. Pass around the right or east end about a miles and a half, the trail will be perceived crossing the point of wood to the second small lake, at the further end of which is a bridge over the small issuing stream. Thence the road is well marked, passing along the hills bordering the right of the river leading to the lake. There is only one trail to be avoided, that is, shortly after leaving Fraser's L., a fishing path striking to the left. There was formerly a good deal of fallen woods in parts, the result of fire, else the rail was on the whole good.")
"Two other old trails are marked on Map CM/13665A, "Guide Map to the Peace River Mines." One was the horse-road that existed between Fort Alexandria and Fraser's Lake, mentioned in the Fort Alexandria journals in mid-1840's -- Fort Alexandria stood on the Fraser River north of Soda Creek and south of Quesnel. Also, Alexander Mackenzie's 1793 route along the Black Water River to the coast is marked. In fact you will find Alexander Mackenzie's route noted on any A.C. Anderson map that covers this part of the world.
"The double-sided map, "Upper Fraser River; map and notes submitted to Marcus Smith," CM/13699A, [drawn in January 1874], shows, in various portions and inserts, the entire Upper Fraser River north of Fort George [Prince George], all the way to Tete Jaune Cache at the base of the Rocky Mountains. When I was writing the Leather Pass story in "The Pathfinder," I had to read all the notes on this map to complete the tale of that adventurous and frightening mid-winter journey across the snow-bound Rockies to Edmonton House.
When you look on the reverse side you will understand what I mean by "notes."
"Note, too, that opposite the location of Fort George, Anderson indicated an "old fort" that apparently stood across the river from where Fort George was. Bob Campbell of the Exploration Place, Prince George, told me that: "it is probably a mistake, as there is a description of the sun rise at Fort George in the morning from the early 1840's, which describes how the sun is blocked by the hills. This would fit the traditional west bank location."
"But Anderson spent the winter of 1840 trapped at dreary Fort George, and he was bored, active, and curious enough to have explored the area; it is likely that all the fur traders of the time were familiar with this "old fort." The ruins of an earlier post could easily have stood in that location, especially as the chimneys of these fur trade buildings were so well constructed that they stood for many years after the fort itself had disappeared. That is true, at least, of old Flathead House of David Thompson, which stood for many years after the post was abandoned."
After the meeting was finished, fur trade historian Bruce McIntyre Watson approached me to introduce himself. He agreed with me in the possible existence of an old fort and suggested it was Simon Fraser's post, called Chala-oo-chek. (I looked up the name of the fort in his "Lives Lived;" it had taken him a few minutes to remember the post's name.)
To continue: "Here is the first of three travelling maps that reached the archives -- rough maps, drawn whilst travelling on horseback or in the boats. This is identified in Anderson's handwriting, at the top, as "A travelling sketch not reduced to scale: Chilcotin River, 1844," and is found under CM/13703A. In "The Pathfinder," you will see a portion of this map at the top of page 100 -- Chapter 14, The Fur Trade, 1845-46. How many of you have realized that every chapter heading contains a map or illustration relevant to the chapter which it heads?
"In the early 1840's Anderson, now at in charge at Fort Alexandria on the Fraser River north of William's Lake, suggested to Governor Simpson that the difficult Chilcotin post south west of the fort be closed down, and a new post built at Kluskus Lake, on Alexander McKenzie's West Road River.
"In 1844, Anderson and his men travelled on horseback over one of the uncleared Dakelh footpaths, from Fort Alexandria to a lake he said the Natives called "Thleuz-uz-cuz." The Thleuz-cuz post was built later that summer and proved very successful, and is often mentioned in the Fort Alexandria journals during Anderson's time there.
"If you look closely at Anderson's 1867 map (and I am sorry to say you will have little opportunity to do that, as it is not available for viewing), you will see he named the lake "Pelican Lake." It is likely that Anderson discovered a healthy breeding colony of American White Pelicans at Kluskus Lake, They are no longer there -- the only place that pelicans now breed in British Columbia is at another Pelican Lake, north-east of Kluskus Lake.
"Anderson drew his second travelling map -- Arrow Lakes and the Columbia River to Kettle Falls, 18[42], CM/13671A -- as he journeyed up the Columbia River in the boats, leading out the York Factory express in spring 1842. The map consists of two lines, one line almost on top of the other -- but each line represents a different part of the journey. The line at the left side begins at Fort Colvile and continues north up the Columbia, through the Arrow Lakes to the north end of the northernmost lake. On the east shore of that lake, Anderson marked the place where they camped on the night of their 4th day of travel.
"The right hand line shows the next morning's travel, and leads north from the campsite through Death Rapids, to the Boat Encampment at the junction of Canoe and Wood Rivers.
"I happened to turn over this travelling map and stumbled on a treasure. In 1842, Anderson drew pencil portraits of two of the voyageurs who travelled upriver with him. One is French Canadian, the second clearly Iroquois [or Bruce Watson suggests, Abenaki, I believe]. It is unusual to rare to find images of voyageurs in the fur trade records, and I hope that with a great deal of photo-shopping this image might eventually be made reproducible.
"From this first rough travelling map came Anderson's finished map, Sketch of the Upper Columbia, Fort Colvile to Jasper's House," CM/13662B -- and you will find a piece of this map in "The Pathfinder," on the top of page 76, Chapter 10 -- the York Factory Express, 1842. Anderson must also have drawn a travelling map of the traverse from Boat Encampment via Athabasca Pass to Jasper's House, and he attached the information that map contained to the top of his finished Columbia River map. The interesting part of this map -- at least to fur trade researchers -- is that Anderson showed how many times the fur traders waded through the chest deep waters of the Wood River on their way to the height of the pass."
I will here add the history of the time, that will explain the many changes the fur traders west of the mountains would experience over the next few years. In the early 1840's everyone was aware the British and American governments were negotiating the placement of the boundary line west of the Rocky Mountains. Most traders assumed the line would follow the Columbia River south, but Anderson believed it might continue west, along the 49th parallel. He wrote to Governor Simpson, offering to explore for a new route to Fort Langley, and the Governor accepted his offer. In 1846 and 1847, Anderson made four expeditions across the mountains that separated the forts in the interior from Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser, by which the fur traders in New Caledonia and Kamloops could carry their furs to the coast.
To continue: "The Sketch Map of the Thompson River District," HBCA B.5/z/1, fo.2, by Alexander Caulfield Anderson, has been published in Derek Hayes' "Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest -- Maps of Exploration," on page 130. In 1846, Anderson started on the first of four expeditions across country between Kamloops and Fort Langley, and this is the drawing he made of the expected route of his first journey -- it shows an easy route down the Lillooet River to Fort Langley.
"The information contained in this map would have come as a result of the exploration that boisterous, fast-talking Francis Ermatinger made in 1827. From the Thompson River post (early Kamloops), Ermatinger and another man explored the Pesaline or Pishaleor or Pasilico Lakes (Anderson and Seton Lakes) and travelled across the range of hills to the Li-li-what River. Like Anderson, they were looking for a route to Fort Langley, but they turned back when they saw the roughness of the Lillooet River.
"When Anderson arrived at the mouth of the Seton River almost twenty years later, he noted that it "had a name so cacophonous that I scarcely dare write it, 'Pap-shil-qua-ka-meen,' or River of the Lakes. Unlike Ermatinger, Anderson tried to come close to the Native pronunciation, and though he often shortened names for convenience in writing his reports, he often also included the longer phonetic spelling of Native names for places and rivers.
"I looked at Sam Black's map, CM/B2079, which was found amongst Anderson's papers at his death. I thought that John Tod of Kamloops, and Alexander Anderson might have consulted Black's map, in 1846, in order the choose Anderson's route. But that map now shows both Anderson and Seton Lakes and the Lillooet Lake and River all the way to Fort Langley. So I think this was a working map, and that John Tod added new information about the Lillooet River route to Sam Black's old map on Anderson's return to Kamloops.
"Anderson's "Original Sketch of Explorations," CM/B1094, is contained in the book in the section of maps following page 95. Kamloops is in the top right hand corner, and Fort Langley in the bottom left. This might be the first map that Anderson drew in Victoria, after being encouraged in his map-making by the Royal Engineers, many of whom he knew. Anderson's four cross country expeditions took place in 1846 and 1847 -- but this map also shows Peers Creek and the Coquihalla River, places he would not have seen before late summer 1849.
"Not too many people have seen the map contained in Anderson's original journal of exploration in 1846 -- Return Journey, found is the BC archives under Accessioned Map18941A. Yet it might be the most important of all. The map shows the route that Anderson and his men took, from the mouth of the Coquihalla River, through the Nicolum and Sumallo River valleys and up the south side of the Coquihalla. It continues through his descent of the Tulameen River to the Similkameen chief Blackeye's Camp, and it also indicates where he though Blackeye's Trail across the plateau would lead -- that is, to Rhododendron Flats on the south side of the mountain.
"The coloured lines and numbers are referred to in his journal, and historians who did not uncover this map when they read Anderson's journal on microfilm had no idea what the numbers referred to, and where the coloured lines he talked of were. Thus, lack of access to this map confounded Harley Hatfield and those many other brigade trail researchers over the years, and I am not certain that any of them ever found this map.
"This is probably the map mentioned in Richard Ruggles' book, "A Country So Interesting," as the "Sketch Map from Fort Hope to Otter Lake (Tulameen); copy apparently at BCARS.""
Again, I am going to insert a little history to help explain the occurrences over the next few years -- that is the brigades of 1848 and 1849. In 1847 Anderson learned that the boundary line now followed the boundary line to the coast, but the fur traders all thought they could use their old brigade trail down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver for a few more years. But in late 1847, measles and the resultant massacre of the missionaries at Wailatpu, and the Native wars that followed, forced the fur traders of New Caledonia, Kamloops, and Fort Colvile (on the Columbia River), to bring their furs out by one of Anderson's unfinished trails. The trail the fur traders at Forts Vancouver and Victoria chose led from Kamloops through the Nicola Valley and followed the Coldwater River to the range of hills that separated the Nicola Valley from modern-day Boston Bar and the Fraser River. If you visit Hell's Gate and Boston Bar, and look at the hills on the east side of the river -- those are the mountains that Anderson's trail led over.
They came to Fort Langley and returned, with many difficulties and a huge loss of horses and trade goods. At Kamloops the gentlemen sent Henry Newsham Peers south with Edouard Montigny south to Blackeye's Camp, to have that Native chief show them over his trail to Rhododendron Flats and the Sumallo River valley. In the end the trail didn't quite run the route that Anderson expected it would, but the fur traders decided to open up the new trail over the Coquihalla.
To make a long story short, a heavy snowfall that winter buried the Coquihalla River valley and prevented any work from being done on the new brigade trail. The fur traders came out, one my time, over the trail that led up the Coldwater River, and on their return journey they opened the new Coquiahalla trail. The next few maps which I will be discussing show the routes of many of the trails that Anderson and other brigaders followed on the way from Kamloops to Fort Langley in 1848 and 1849.
To continue: "A rough map called "Kamloops Region, Nicola Valley and Upper Similkameen Valley," CM/13664A, shows much of the history of the Nicola Valley and the trails that the fur traders used in the mid-1840's and before. The fact that Kamloops stands on the west bank of the North Thompson River means this map was drawn after 1843.
"From the west end of Kamloops Lake is the trail that Anderson followed in 1846. It led through Marble Canyon to the Fraser, and ended at "the Fountain," just north of Fountain Ridge on the Fraser River. There the Natives had a fishery that supplied the Kamloops fort with salmon.
"In 1847, Anderson set out from Kamloops on his second journey to Fort Langley. He crossed the hills to the Nicola Valley and, unable to cross by the normal portage, followed that river north. I had a strong feeling that he intended to reach the banks of the Thompson River by one of several trails on the other side of the Nicola River -- one of which ended up at the mouth of the Nicoamen River. He was looking for a brigade trail, and as he followed the Nicola to its mouth he noted that the sharp rocks on the Nicola's east bank would prevent it from being used as a path for horses. So, I think it was important to him that he crossed the rain-swollen river.
"Also marked on the map is the Anderson River route that he explored in 1847, on his return journey to Kamloops, and the route the brigades took out in 1848. If you take a look at Sam Black's map mentioned above -- this route passed through the "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts" that Black marked on his map -- and for the brigades it proved to be true.
"The fur-traders' Similkameen River is marked at the bottom of the map, as is Blackeye's trail to the top of the plateau. You will remember that when discussing earlier maps I said that Blackeye's trail led southward to Rhododendron Flats. In this map, Blackeye's trail now connects to the brigade trail, which indicates that it was drawn in 1849 or later.
"In the case of the "Shuswap Okanagan District," CM/B104, the archives suggests the map was drawn earlier, I am certain that Anderson worked on it as late as 1877, when he returned from Shuswap Lake as Dominion Indian Reserve Commissioner. You can see how the Shuswap Lake overlay covers up the section of the Columbia River that would certainly have appeared on this map.
"On this map, as on others, Anderson omits any mention of the old trail that once led up the North Thompson River to Little Fort, but as it was not used after 1843, he probably considered it was overgrown. He does show the replacement for that old trail -- the new brigade trail, opened in 1843, that led up Copper Creek to Loon Lake and Green Lake, joining the old trail just south-east of the fur traders' Lac la Hache.
"On the bottom half of this map we can see the old brigade trail south of Kamloops and Okanagan Lake. With the exception of his 1867 map of British Columbia, and his 1858 Map (discussed next), all of Anderson's maps stop at the boundary line.
"The map also indicates the brigade trail through the Kettle and Similkameen valleys to the foot of the Coquihalla Mountains, first used by the Fort Colvile men in 1849. I suggest that Blackeye's son guided them through this trail the first year they used it, on their return journey. East of modern day Princeton, this trail was buried when the Dewdney Trail was constructed over virtually the same route in the 1860's.
"Finally, the trail north from Blackeye's Camp to Kamloops is shown; a little bit of the 1848 brigade trail along the Coldwater River is drawn in.
"Next we will talk about Anderson's "Map showing the different routes of communication with the gold region on Frazer's River," CM/A78 -- a map familiar to anyone who writes about the 1858 gold rush. About 1854, Anderson retired from the fur trade and settled at Cathlamet, WA. -- but because so many gold miners were approaching him for information on routes into the new goldmines being discovered on the Thompson River, he wrote his book, "Guide to the Goldfields," which included this map. The book sold well; copies are in archives in Australia and elsewhere -- and publication of this book might have been Anderson's only money-making project after he left the fur trade.
"Anderson drew the base-map, but the finished map is not his. Probably the publisher provided it; alternatively it might have been drawn by his new brother-in-law, artist William Henry Tappen -- a "most superior gentleman" who had just married Anderson's spinster sister, Margaret.
"An interesting and historic map is, I think, being overlooked. It is the Lands and Forests Hope-Princeton sheet of 1939, CM/C724, drawn specifically to show all the area's historic trails -- the brigade trails once again opened by Harley Hatfield and his friends; the Dewdney Trail, and many others. Firstly, it is a fascinating map that you should know about, if you are interested in British Columbia history; secondly, on this map Outram Lake -- the lake named by Alexander Caulfield Anderson for his cousin General Sir James Outram, is the lake at the end of the Nicolum River system.
"I believed this was true, too, until I really looked at Anderson's 1867 Map of the Colony of British Columbia, CM/F9 -- and you can see this section of the map of BC on the top of page 113, in "The Pathfinder."
"To me, the most interesting section of Anderson's 1867 map is the area south of the Coquihalla, which shows a portion of his 1846 exploration from Fort Langley to Kamloops. On this map, Anderson's Outram Lake is clearly indicated as part of the Sumallo River system. But sometime after Anderson drew this 1867 map, surveyors or settlers moved the lake's name westward, to another lake later buried under the massive Hope Slide of 1965. Anderson's Outram Lake is just east of the Hope Slide.
"Anderson's Tree, which sits southeast of Council's Punch Bowl Lake, on the top of the Coquihalla, was another total mystery to me. It appears first in Anderson's 1858 map to the Gold regions; next on his map of Four Explorations drawn in 1860 some-odd; and finally on his 1867 map of British Columbia.
"In 1846, Anderson's party of voyageurs and Native guides continued their walk past his Outram Lake, through the steep sided mountain valley. Just past Manning Park's Rhododendron Flats they climbed the mountain to reach the little lake at the top. Anderson named the lake, "Council's Punch Bowl." Years later [about 1820], Alexander's son James wrote that Council's Punch Bowl Lake was commemorated by a marked tree -- a story he must have heard from his father.
"When I picked up Carolyn Podruchny's book, "Making the Voyageur World; Travellers and Traders in the North American fur trade," I ran across a section on Maypole Trees, sometimes called lobsticks:
""Theatre and Maypoles -- the quotation that begins this chapter illustrates a striking performance of the master and servant relationship in the fur trade... Voyageurs selected a tall tree standing out on a lake, "lobbed" off all its branches except those at the very top, carved into the trunk's base the name of the bourgeois, clerk, or passenger to be honoured, and gathered around the maypoles to cheer and fire muskets. The honouree then provided regales, or treats to all the brigade...."
"From this I came to realize that Anderson's Tree might be a Maypole Tree -- an honour granted to very few men west of the Rocky Mountains. No fur trader ever saw Anderson's Tree after he and his men walked away from it. But Anderson knew it was there, and I believe he marked the tree on his maps so that he, if no one else, would remember the honour."
At this time I showed an image of Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia as it hangs in the archives, with some descendants on a visit.
I quote from "The Pathfinder" here: "Fourteen of Anderson's hand-drawn maps are preserved in the British Columbia archives, but the map that historians consider most significant is his 1867 Map of British Columbia. This massive map measures 4.5 feet by 6 feet and is drawn at a scale of approximately 10 miles per inch. It shows all of modern day British Columbia south of Fort St. James; it extends eastward as far as the HBC's Edmonton House and shows the route Anderson's party took through Leather Pass in the winter of 1835. When he drew the area around Fort Colvile, Anderson indicated his interest in NWC explorer David Thompson's earlier presence in the area when he drew in "David Thompson's River" and the location of Saleesh House.
""In all his finished maps, Anderson used good-quality rag paper that aged to a warm cream colour. The black ink contained iron that rusted to a rich reddish-brown. He used watercolours to paint the larger bodies of water blue, and in red indicated the many trails the fur traders of his time travelled. His signature appears everywhere. Handwritten notes on the map indicate events in his personal life such as his journey from Fort Colvile to Kamloops in the winter of 1842. At times he recorded information he obtained from post journals that no longer exist, as when he drew the route of a trading party led by Fraser's Lake clerk John McDonnell to Salmon River in 1828."
"Curator Derek Swallow tells me this about the map: "According to my informants, the map was in pieces when we received it. Our conservation department treated it, put it together, and mounted it on an acid-free backing, then encapsulated it between two sheets of mylar. Mylar is a type of plastic that doesn't break down over time, as other plastics do.
""It was mounted to a vertical rack to prevent stress on it if people came to view it... To prevent light damage we keep the front covered so if we enter the storage area and switch on the overheads it won't be illuminated. This is very critical since many of the First Nations territorial boundaries and some of the written inscriptions were done in coloured, light-sensitive, fugitive ink. In other words, light will fade the colours. To mitigate fading when we do show the map, our flourescent lights are low UV yield and the tubes are covered in secondary UV filters -- UV is the primary source of colour fading....
""The map... is of huge significance to the province and the people of B.C. so we have put a great deal of resources into preserving it and storing it in conditions that will guarantee its longevity. If exhibited, the map would be subject to strict handling, environment conditions, lighting and security."
"I visit the map on occasion, and I always enjoy turning around and looking at Tsilaxitsa's portrait [see page 203 of "The Pathfinder"] which hangs directly behind the person who is viewing Anderson's map. Tsilaxitsa was the nephew of Chief Nkwala after whom the Nicola Valley is named, and he became the most powerful Okanagan chief of his time. He and his close relative, Blackeye's son, accompanied Anderson on his 1847 exploration up and down the Fraser River, and almost certainly they both worked for the brigades, taking out the furs and bringing in the trade goods. In 1877, Anderson met Tsilaxitsa again, as Dominion Indian Reserves Commissioner. In his journal of that time, Anderson wrote that he had ridden many miles with this man. I find it eminently suitable -- and very romantic --that Tsilaxitsa's portrait faces Anderson's map in the archives store-room.
"There are many stories written into Anderson's 1867 map of the Colony of British Columbia:
"From early days Anderson was fascinated by Alexander Mackenzie, and in later years he own an 1802 version of Mackenzie's "Voyages from Montreal.." Mackenzie's journals were always more accessible to Anderson than those of the other explorers. In 1876, Dr. Israel Wood Powell loaned Anderson Simon Fraser's original journals to read. But Anderson had no access to David Thompson's journals, as they were never published while he was alive. But, when he was in charge of Fort Colvile, Anderson identified both David Thompson's River and location Saleesh House on it -- and he also drew in the location of the HBC fur trader Joseph Howse's House.
"In a PhD thesis called "Historical Cartography of British Columbia," written in 1960 and stored in the archives under Mss. 1104, student Albert Leonard Farley says this of Anderson's map:
""All sections of the manuscript map represent generally improved configurations, though, as one might expect, some are rendered in greater detail than others. The Kootenay-Columbia drainage, for example, is shown in the greatest detail since Thompson's day, though still lacking the mark of precision so characteristic of the great geographers' maps..."
"So, if Anderson had help in drawing this section of his map, I assumed there would be a map somewhere that would indicate that. Amongst the listing of documents that his son, James, gave to the provincial librarian, is listed, "Original map of the Flathead River."I looked for this map and finally realized, as I leafed through the file, that James' notes changed to indicated that this Flathead map was the Royal Engineers' Map of the British North American Exploring Expedition's route, under John Palliser [CM/A335, BCA] through the Fort Colvile district, which Anderson must have owned.
"The historic Collin's Telegraph Trail is located on the map, because there is a family connection to the trail. American businessman, Perry McDonough Collins, hoped to run a telegraph trail from San Francisco through British Columbia, Alaska and Russia, all the way to London, completing this before Cyrus Field managed to lay his line across the Atlantic Ocean. The Collin's Trail was as far north as the Skeena District when Field's Atlantic line was successfully laid, and Collin's gradually abandoned his project. But one of the men who worked on the trail was James McKenzie Anderson, son of Alexander's brother James. He was in the area around Fraser's Lake when George Mercer Dawson hired two men as axemen -- one was James Anderson, almost certainly Alexander Anderson's nephew. When the Collin's trail was finally abandoned, James came to Victoria to visit his uncle, and Alexander obtained as much information as he could on the location of the trail -- which is why it is not accurately located on his map.
"Just southeast of Lac la Hache is "Peter Ogden's camp" south-east of Lac la Hache on the 1843 brigade trail. I have always looked at this and wondered what it meant. In the Fort Victoria letters in HBCA, James Douglas reported that, in 1851, "a party of ten men, under the direction of Mr. Peter Ogden, were employed upon the new road for nearly two months... They cleared the points of wood on the whole route between Alexandria and Fort Hope...." So here's a little bit of history explained -- this is where Peter Ogden, son of Peter Skene Ogden, set up camp to cut a trail that cut off the long loops of brigade trail that diverted the fur traders miles out of their way, eastward toward Drowned Horse Lake (Horse Lake) rather than west toward Lac la Hache.
"The 1843 brigade trail through Loon Lake is shown on this map, and there is only one other map in British Columbia that has this trail marked on it; it is also an A.C. Anderson map. There are at present two historical-geographers geo-mapping the trail, and one of these men is a descendant of fur-trader Donald Manson. The trail actually passes through creeks and lakes that carry names that indicate this was an old brigade trail -- for example: Fly Creek, Brigade Lake, Carabine Creek.
"This is also the only map that shows the brigade trail past Okanagan Lake, and it shows all the other trails in the area. I have been puzzling as to where the brigade trail passed in the years after 1843, and I learned as the book was going through the presses that the brigades continued to follow the old trail, via Monte creek, all the way through 1849, when Anderson brought his men north to Kamloops.
"In the Fort Colvile area to the south east, modern day Curlew Lake bears the name, Eliza Lake. Obviously this is Anderson's name for the lake, named for his daughter or perhaps his wife. Jack Nisbet tells me that the trails that Anderson had drawn onto his map run along the same paths that the modern days follow -- almost nothing has changed.
"In this same area I find "Flying Squirrel Camp," and while I connect this with the botanist John Jeffries coming through Fort Colvile in 1851 (I think), I have absolutely no idea whether this is so. It could simply be named by the voyageurs for the flying squirrels in the area... Sooner or later I hope I will uncover this story.
"Albert Leonard Farley, author of the aforementioned thesis, "Historical Cartography of British Columbia," finished his essay with the words: "Aside from its understandable shortcomings, Anderson's manuscript map was a remarkable achievement. It was a great forward step towards a comprehensive map of all of southern British Columbia. The innumerable statements and explanatory notes... provide a valuable summary of geographic knowledge at the time, as well as offering clues to the sources of information which Anderson used in compiling the map. In a very real sense, Anderson's manuscript [map] represents a culmination of the cartographic accomplishments attributable to the fur-trade in British Columbia. It goes beyond this, however, by including liberal additions to knowledge of the country as a result of mining activities, and as a result of official explorations and surveys undertaken up to 1866."
"As we are going chronologically through his maps, I will quickly discuss his two Saanich maps -- the first, "Approximate Sketch showing the line of road [North Saanich]; the second his "Sketch of two Roads, etc." One of these maps is shown in "The Pathfinder" on page 187, and both -- once difficult to find -- are now stored under their new number, C/B/30.7K/An2.
Another interesting set of maps is Anderson's "Course from McK's travels, 1793," CM/12709A. You can see from these two maps that Anderson was reading Mackenzie's journals and trying to figure out his location. (On one of these maps Prince George is clearly shown, by its Native name). I suspect that Anderson's copy of Mackenzie's Journal might be found in the Rare Book Room of the Legislative Library, identifiable because I will have Anderson's name and the date he purchased the book written on the first blank page of the book.
"The map titled "Northwestern North America," CM/13666C, is by far my favorite map, and the one that hangs on my living room wall. Anderson drew this map about 1870-74. In the summer of 1875, geographer George Mercer came to Victoria and saw the finished copy of this map. He asked Anderson to lend it to him; Dawson displayed the map in the Canadian log-cabin exhibit at the massive 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. When that world's fair closed, the map itself returned to Montreal and hung on the walls of the Geological Survey of Canada for many years-- and then it disappeared. No one knows where the map is, and it probably no longer exists.
"The map was clearly drawn by Anderson to connect the New Caledonia and Columbia district, where he had spent his lifetime, with the Mackenzie and Athabasca districts where his old brother, James, had spent a few years.There is no other reason for Alexander to have drawn this map, other than to find where James had worked. It's a very personal map; and not one of interest to anyone that Alexander knew in British Columbia.
"This is what Alexander Anderson said of his brother: "James Anderson, my elder brother, born near Calcutta in 1812, educated in England, and entering the Service in 1831, co-temporaneously with myself -- After wintering for some years at Moose Factory in Hudson's Bay, and other stations in the Southern Department, he was transferred to the Northern Department and succeeded Dr. Rae in the charge of Mckenzie's River district in 1850.
""In 1854 he was appointed by the Company to descend the Tleu-e-cho Dozeth, or Back's River, in quest of intelligence respecting the fate of Sir John Franklin's party. On this expedition he proceeded with two well-manned birch bark canoes early in 1855 -- returning late the same Autumn, after having performed a most expeditious journey, and having discovered what appeared to be the last relics of at least a portion of the party of Dr. Stanley, namely, and others of the crew of the Terror."
"James Anderson retired in Canada and died of tuberculosis in 1867. this map was drawn after James' death, and to draw in the Northwest Territories, Alexander copied the map contained in Thomas Simpson's book, "Life & Travels of Thomas Simpson," listed in [son] James Robert Anderson's fonds [CM/13680A) and published in London by Richard Bentley in 1845.
"Anderson also wrote an essay to go with the Map of Northwestern North American, and it was printed in a magazine called "The Naturalist," or "Canadian Naturalist," as well as being published by Mitchell & Wilson [Montreal] in 1876. Anderson requests reprints of his essay, which are preserved in the BC Archives under NW971M A545n, "Notes on North-Western America."
"George Mercer Dawson was a sinkhole of Anderson maps: In a letter that James Mackenzie Anderson (son of Alexander's brother James) wrote to his cousin, James Robert Anderson (son of A.C. Anderson) on January 30, 1914, he said: "I had some maps of your late father's, which I lent to Mr. [George Mercer] Dawson to copy, which I cannot now find, and they may have not returned them..." I find no evidence that Dawson ever returned the Anderson maps to their owner.
"The last map that I am going to discuss is this one: Sam Black's map of the Thompson's River district, CM/B2079 -- and a very confusing map it can be. It was found in Anderson's papers by son, James, after Alexander's death in 1884, and in 1915, James wrote in the top corner of this map: "I have no means of ascertaining by whom this unique map was made, certainly not by my father...." The map was re-discovered and written up in BC Studies some years ago, by Bob Harris, but the location of the map was never given. It should be listed in James Anderson's fonds, Mss. 1912, where it belongs.
"The Royal Engineers saw a copy of this map in James Douglas' hands when they were in Victoria; I think Anderson probably received it from Douglas when he was drawing his 1867 map of British Columbia. Is it possible there are two copies of this map? It's hard to know.
"So these are Anderson's maps, and as you can see there is history written into every one of these maps. Finding all the stories has been a long and interesting project and continues to be so -- some of the stories I told you I only learned two or three weeks ago. Some stories I have yet to uncover. There may also be new discoveries of maps stored in other archives, and I believe there are a number of maps that will probably never turn up.
"But it has been an interesting project, following Alexander Caulfield Anderson's life from his early days on the Northwest Coast and at Fraser's Lake -- through the many changes to the fur trade and through his later days at Fort Colvile and Fort Vancouver. In a way, Anderson remained stuck in the fur trader throughout his entire life, and it was his knowledge of the fur trade districts in which he had lived and worked that made him the perfect person to draw all these maps for the new immigrants that were flooding into British Columbia. It was, of course, an interest; but because Anderson proved able to incorporate new information on his old maps, he proved to be a valuable -- if underappreciated -- asset to the new colony.
"So I am sure that Alexander Caulfield Anderson would be the first persona who would courteously and warmly thank you for your appreciation of his maps. And I thank you, too, for your interest in the stories contained in these maps, and hope you have more stories to add to them."
For those of you who want to view all of Anderson's maps in the archives, and perhaps discover how he copied and re-copied them, I will include now a list of maps that I have not spoken of. All of these are simple black and white maps of the finished maps we have discussed.
I also haven't spoken of one map: "Map to accompany road tax assessment roll, Lake and Saanich district," found under number CM/13672B with a copy under CM/13712B. An expert in Saanich history has given the date for this map as 1869.
Northwestern North America, CM/13666C, has a rough copy under CM/13714C -- stored offsite to arrangements must be made to bring it to the archives to view. That is probably true of many of Anderson's maps, so be prepared to stay a few days in Victoria.
Sketch Map of the Upper Columbia..., CM/13662B, has copies: a copy of this map is in Land & Titles, Legal Surveys Vault 25T; but the handwriting is not Anderson's. I also have a copy listed under number CM/B246. Because I haven't seen these maps for years my numbers might not be accurate and you might have to search around a little.
The upper Fraser River map has two copies: Anderson's copy, a rough drawing, is under CM/13702B, while a Royal Engineers' copy is under CM/13705B [Mss. 1912].
Guide Map to the Peace River Mines, CM/13665A, has a copy under CM/A1412.
The Arrowsmith copy of Anderson's Map to the Gold Regions, CM/A78, is under CM/A283. It is not as attractive as Anderson's map.
Some of these maps apparently have copies in Lands and Titles office, but I have not seen them.
Thank you, everyone. For those of you who want to hear me talk a bit more about the history behind these maps, I will be back in Burnaby about May 9th or 10th, to speak in front of that historical group.
I might also be in Steveston (which sounds like a fascinating place to visit) but this is still being arranged.
In April I will be guiding people through the South Saanich cemetery, at St. Stephens Church, where both Alexander Caulfield Anderson, and his wife Betsy, are buried.
My sister and I met some of the members of the group for supper, and proceeded to UBC.
I had been told there would be about 12 to 15 persons in the group, but when we arrived in the room we found there were more like twenty-five people waiting for us.
Many of the younger members of the group, who do not often come to the meetings, attended this meeting.
Of course I was pleased to see the crowd, but what it meant was that I had not brought nearly enough books to sell, and quickly ran out.
For those of you who were unable to purchase a book at the meeting, you should find copies of it at the UBC bookstore just down the road, and my publisher is ensuring there are sufficient copies.
The People's Co-op bookstore has copies, and you can purchase e-books through Chapters (if you have a Kobo), and other sources.
Anyway, we set up quickly and listened as they held their meeting, and I was introduced to the crowd. For those of you who want to do further research on Anderson's maps in British Columbia archives, I am adding further information to the talk that I gave on his maps.
I am also including a little history, which on looking back I think I should have included in the talk to make the speak easier to follow.
Here we go:
"Good evening, everybody. Thank you for coming. As you may or may not know, I am the author of "The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson's Journeys in the West, published by Heritage House in Fall, 2011. Anderson's full name is Alexander Caulfield Anderson and, in the mid-1840's, he was a Hudson's Bay Company fur trader, explorer, and map-maker.
"In order to write Alexander's biography, I had to access his many maps for stories written on them that appear nowhere else. Even now I am not certain I have all the answers -- or even that I have discovered all the questions.
"People ask me why Anderson drew his maps; I can only guess the reason. All fur traders drew maps of the territory they lived in, which they left behind for the next person in charge of the post. But often they kept a copy for themselves. Both Alexander, and his brother James -- also an HBC fur trader -- had a collection of maps when they retired. But I think that Alexander had an artistic bent that James did not have, and map-making was just an extension of that natural interest in art.
"Both Alexander and James received a liberal education that centered around culture and the arts; their relatively rich father had even paid for elocution and dancing lessons for his sons. They probably received art lessons; both brothers read widely though Alexander studied Latin while James quoted poetry in later letters to his brother.
"Alexander's first map-making experiment began, I believe, at Fraser's Lake, when he took charge of this small post in the winter of 1835-36. So this is where we will begin:
"His first map is numbered CM/13703A, and the archives lists it under the name, "Northern Interior of British Columbia." During the time he was at Fraser's Lake, Anderson copied down information from maps that would have existed at the post. This map, drawn in the 1870's, contained information taken from an old map and formed the basis of his finished map of the New Caledonia area that surrounded Fort George, Fraser's Lake, Fort St. James, and McLeod Lake.
"The map numbered CM/13665A, "Guide Map to the Peace River Mines," was drawn to show gold miners at Victoria north to the Omineca District east of Fraser's Lake -- where a new gold rush was just beginning. By the time Alexander drew this map, he was the only person in Victoria that was known to have spent any time in this region.
"The writing on the edge of the map begins with: "N.B. The route from Quesnel to Fraser's Lake is so well traced as not to be mistaken. (It was almost certainly the old horse road between Fort Alexandria and Fraser's Lake). From Fraser to Stuart Lake more care is necessary. The route strikes up from the village of Nantley (on Fraser Lake), a little to the eastward of North, and follows the same general course throughout...." The instructions continue, and are clear enough that an outdoorsman could, even today, follow Anderson's description of this trail, making his way from the old fort at Fraser's Lake to Fort St. James.
(For those of you who are outdoorsmen and who live in the area, I am writing out the complete description of this trail here -- those of you who don't want to hike through the bush with the bears can ignore this paragraph:
"The route strikes up from the village of Nantley (on Fraser Lake), a little to the east of North, and follows the same general course throughout. After passing the small stream called the "Beaver Dam," the pass narrows generally till a few miles further on the first height of land is crossed. This is the head of Hootsan River. Following down the Grand Boulee[?] a short distance, the trail strikes to the left and the second rise is ascended. Crossing it obliquely, Stuart's Lake is seen, and the hill is descended to Quaw Lake. [Quaw was an important Native chief in the area, and this note might indicate where Quaw had his village.] This part of the road takes care, as the path is indistinct in the mossy land. Pass around the right or east end about a miles and a half, the trail will be perceived crossing the point of wood to the second small lake, at the further end of which is a bridge over the small issuing stream. Thence the road is well marked, passing along the hills bordering the right of the river leading to the lake. There is only one trail to be avoided, that is, shortly after leaving Fraser's L., a fishing path striking to the left. There was formerly a good deal of fallen woods in parts, the result of fire, else the rail was on the whole good.")
"Two other old trails are marked on Map CM/13665A, "Guide Map to the Peace River Mines." One was the horse-road that existed between Fort Alexandria and Fraser's Lake, mentioned in the Fort Alexandria journals in mid-1840's -- Fort Alexandria stood on the Fraser River north of Soda Creek and south of Quesnel. Also, Alexander Mackenzie's 1793 route along the Black Water River to the coast is marked. In fact you will find Alexander Mackenzie's route noted on any A.C. Anderson map that covers this part of the world.
"The double-sided map, "Upper Fraser River; map and notes submitted to Marcus Smith," CM/13699A, [drawn in January 1874], shows, in various portions and inserts, the entire Upper Fraser River north of Fort George [Prince George], all the way to Tete Jaune Cache at the base of the Rocky Mountains. When I was writing the Leather Pass story in "The Pathfinder," I had to read all the notes on this map to complete the tale of that adventurous and frightening mid-winter journey across the snow-bound Rockies to Edmonton House.
When you look on the reverse side you will understand what I mean by "notes."
"Note, too, that opposite the location of Fort George, Anderson indicated an "old fort" that apparently stood across the river from where Fort George was. Bob Campbell of the Exploration Place, Prince George, told me that: "it is probably a mistake, as there is a description of the sun rise at Fort George in the morning from the early 1840's, which describes how the sun is blocked by the hills. This would fit the traditional west bank location."
"But Anderson spent the winter of 1840 trapped at dreary Fort George, and he was bored, active, and curious enough to have explored the area; it is likely that all the fur traders of the time were familiar with this "old fort." The ruins of an earlier post could easily have stood in that location, especially as the chimneys of these fur trade buildings were so well constructed that they stood for many years after the fort itself had disappeared. That is true, at least, of old Flathead House of David Thompson, which stood for many years after the post was abandoned."
After the meeting was finished, fur trade historian Bruce McIntyre Watson approached me to introduce himself. He agreed with me in the possible existence of an old fort and suggested it was Simon Fraser's post, called Chala-oo-chek. (I looked up the name of the fort in his "Lives Lived;" it had taken him a few minutes to remember the post's name.)
To continue: "Here is the first of three travelling maps that reached the archives -- rough maps, drawn whilst travelling on horseback or in the boats. This is identified in Anderson's handwriting, at the top, as "A travelling sketch not reduced to scale: Chilcotin River, 1844," and is found under CM/13703A. In "The Pathfinder," you will see a portion of this map at the top of page 100 -- Chapter 14, The Fur Trade, 1845-46. How many of you have realized that every chapter heading contains a map or illustration relevant to the chapter which it heads?
"In the early 1840's Anderson, now at in charge at Fort Alexandria on the Fraser River north of William's Lake, suggested to Governor Simpson that the difficult Chilcotin post south west of the fort be closed down, and a new post built at Kluskus Lake, on Alexander McKenzie's West Road River.
"In 1844, Anderson and his men travelled on horseback over one of the uncleared Dakelh footpaths, from Fort Alexandria to a lake he said the Natives called "Thleuz-uz-cuz." The Thleuz-cuz post was built later that summer and proved very successful, and is often mentioned in the Fort Alexandria journals during Anderson's time there.
"If you look closely at Anderson's 1867 map (and I am sorry to say you will have little opportunity to do that, as it is not available for viewing), you will see he named the lake "Pelican Lake." It is likely that Anderson discovered a healthy breeding colony of American White Pelicans at Kluskus Lake, They are no longer there -- the only place that pelicans now breed in British Columbia is at another Pelican Lake, north-east of Kluskus Lake.
"Anderson drew his second travelling map -- Arrow Lakes and the Columbia River to Kettle Falls, 18[42], CM/13671A -- as he journeyed up the Columbia River in the boats, leading out the York Factory express in spring 1842. The map consists of two lines, one line almost on top of the other -- but each line represents a different part of the journey. The line at the left side begins at Fort Colvile and continues north up the Columbia, through the Arrow Lakes to the north end of the northernmost lake. On the east shore of that lake, Anderson marked the place where they camped on the night of their 4th day of travel.
"The right hand line shows the next morning's travel, and leads north from the campsite through Death Rapids, to the Boat Encampment at the junction of Canoe and Wood Rivers.
"I happened to turn over this travelling map and stumbled on a treasure. In 1842, Anderson drew pencil portraits of two of the voyageurs who travelled upriver with him. One is French Canadian, the second clearly Iroquois [or Bruce Watson suggests, Abenaki, I believe]. It is unusual to rare to find images of voyageurs in the fur trade records, and I hope that with a great deal of photo-shopping this image might eventually be made reproducible.
"From this first rough travelling map came Anderson's finished map, Sketch of the Upper Columbia, Fort Colvile to Jasper's House," CM/13662B -- and you will find a piece of this map in "The Pathfinder," on the top of page 76, Chapter 10 -- the York Factory Express, 1842. Anderson must also have drawn a travelling map of the traverse from Boat Encampment via Athabasca Pass to Jasper's House, and he attached the information that map contained to the top of his finished Columbia River map. The interesting part of this map -- at least to fur trade researchers -- is that Anderson showed how many times the fur traders waded through the chest deep waters of the Wood River on their way to the height of the pass."
I will here add the history of the time, that will explain the many changes the fur traders west of the mountains would experience over the next few years. In the early 1840's everyone was aware the British and American governments were negotiating the placement of the boundary line west of the Rocky Mountains. Most traders assumed the line would follow the Columbia River south, but Anderson believed it might continue west, along the 49th parallel. He wrote to Governor Simpson, offering to explore for a new route to Fort Langley, and the Governor accepted his offer. In 1846 and 1847, Anderson made four expeditions across the mountains that separated the forts in the interior from Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser, by which the fur traders in New Caledonia and Kamloops could carry their furs to the coast.
To continue: "The Sketch Map of the Thompson River District," HBCA B.5/z/1, fo.2, by Alexander Caulfield Anderson, has been published in Derek Hayes' "Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest -- Maps of Exploration," on page 130. In 1846, Anderson started on the first of four expeditions across country between Kamloops and Fort Langley, and this is the drawing he made of the expected route of his first journey -- it shows an easy route down the Lillooet River to Fort Langley.
"The information contained in this map would have come as a result of the exploration that boisterous, fast-talking Francis Ermatinger made in 1827. From the Thompson River post (early Kamloops), Ermatinger and another man explored the Pesaline or Pishaleor or Pasilico Lakes (Anderson and Seton Lakes) and travelled across the range of hills to the Li-li-what River. Like Anderson, they were looking for a route to Fort Langley, but they turned back when they saw the roughness of the Lillooet River.
"When Anderson arrived at the mouth of the Seton River almost twenty years later, he noted that it "had a name so cacophonous that I scarcely dare write it, 'Pap-shil-qua-ka-meen,' or River of the Lakes. Unlike Ermatinger, Anderson tried to come close to the Native pronunciation, and though he often shortened names for convenience in writing his reports, he often also included the longer phonetic spelling of Native names for places and rivers.
"I looked at Sam Black's map, CM/B2079, which was found amongst Anderson's papers at his death. I thought that John Tod of Kamloops, and Alexander Anderson might have consulted Black's map, in 1846, in order the choose Anderson's route. But that map now shows both Anderson and Seton Lakes and the Lillooet Lake and River all the way to Fort Langley. So I think this was a working map, and that John Tod added new information about the Lillooet River route to Sam Black's old map on Anderson's return to Kamloops.
"Anderson's "Original Sketch of Explorations," CM/B1094, is contained in the book in the section of maps following page 95. Kamloops is in the top right hand corner, and Fort Langley in the bottom left. This might be the first map that Anderson drew in Victoria, after being encouraged in his map-making by the Royal Engineers, many of whom he knew. Anderson's four cross country expeditions took place in 1846 and 1847 -- but this map also shows Peers Creek and the Coquihalla River, places he would not have seen before late summer 1849.
"Not too many people have seen the map contained in Anderson's original journal of exploration in 1846 -- Return Journey, found is the BC archives under Accessioned Map18941A. Yet it might be the most important of all. The map shows the route that Anderson and his men took, from the mouth of the Coquihalla River, through the Nicolum and Sumallo River valleys and up the south side of the Coquihalla. It continues through his descent of the Tulameen River to the Similkameen chief Blackeye's Camp, and it also indicates where he though Blackeye's Trail across the plateau would lead -- that is, to Rhododendron Flats on the south side of the mountain.
"The coloured lines and numbers are referred to in his journal, and historians who did not uncover this map when they read Anderson's journal on microfilm had no idea what the numbers referred to, and where the coloured lines he talked of were. Thus, lack of access to this map confounded Harley Hatfield and those many other brigade trail researchers over the years, and I am not certain that any of them ever found this map.
"This is probably the map mentioned in Richard Ruggles' book, "A Country So Interesting," as the "Sketch Map from Fort Hope to Otter Lake (Tulameen); copy apparently at BCARS.""
Again, I am going to insert a little history to help explain the occurrences over the next few years -- that is the brigades of 1848 and 1849. In 1847 Anderson learned that the boundary line now followed the boundary line to the coast, but the fur traders all thought they could use their old brigade trail down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver for a few more years. But in late 1847, measles and the resultant massacre of the missionaries at Wailatpu, and the Native wars that followed, forced the fur traders of New Caledonia, Kamloops, and Fort Colvile (on the Columbia River), to bring their furs out by one of Anderson's unfinished trails. The trail the fur traders at Forts Vancouver and Victoria chose led from Kamloops through the Nicola Valley and followed the Coldwater River to the range of hills that separated the Nicola Valley from modern-day Boston Bar and the Fraser River. If you visit Hell's Gate and Boston Bar, and look at the hills on the east side of the river -- those are the mountains that Anderson's trail led over.
They came to Fort Langley and returned, with many difficulties and a huge loss of horses and trade goods. At Kamloops the gentlemen sent Henry Newsham Peers south with Edouard Montigny south to Blackeye's Camp, to have that Native chief show them over his trail to Rhododendron Flats and the Sumallo River valley. In the end the trail didn't quite run the route that Anderson expected it would, but the fur traders decided to open up the new trail over the Coquihalla.
To make a long story short, a heavy snowfall that winter buried the Coquihalla River valley and prevented any work from being done on the new brigade trail. The fur traders came out, one my time, over the trail that led up the Coldwater River, and on their return journey they opened the new Coquiahalla trail. The next few maps which I will be discussing show the routes of many of the trails that Anderson and other brigaders followed on the way from Kamloops to Fort Langley in 1848 and 1849.
To continue: "A rough map called "Kamloops Region, Nicola Valley and Upper Similkameen Valley," CM/13664A, shows much of the history of the Nicola Valley and the trails that the fur traders used in the mid-1840's and before. The fact that Kamloops stands on the west bank of the North Thompson River means this map was drawn after 1843.
"From the west end of Kamloops Lake is the trail that Anderson followed in 1846. It led through Marble Canyon to the Fraser, and ended at "the Fountain," just north of Fountain Ridge on the Fraser River. There the Natives had a fishery that supplied the Kamloops fort with salmon.
"In 1847, Anderson set out from Kamloops on his second journey to Fort Langley. He crossed the hills to the Nicola Valley and, unable to cross by the normal portage, followed that river north. I had a strong feeling that he intended to reach the banks of the Thompson River by one of several trails on the other side of the Nicola River -- one of which ended up at the mouth of the Nicoamen River. He was looking for a brigade trail, and as he followed the Nicola to its mouth he noted that the sharp rocks on the Nicola's east bank would prevent it from being used as a path for horses. So, I think it was important to him that he crossed the rain-swollen river.
"Also marked on the map is the Anderson River route that he explored in 1847, on his return journey to Kamloops, and the route the brigades took out in 1848. If you take a look at Sam Black's map mentioned above -- this route passed through the "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts" that Black marked on his map -- and for the brigades it proved to be true.
"The fur-traders' Similkameen River is marked at the bottom of the map, as is Blackeye's trail to the top of the plateau. You will remember that when discussing earlier maps I said that Blackeye's trail led southward to Rhododendron Flats. In this map, Blackeye's trail now connects to the brigade trail, which indicates that it was drawn in 1849 or later.
"In the case of the "Shuswap Okanagan District," CM/B104, the archives suggests the map was drawn earlier, I am certain that Anderson worked on it as late as 1877, when he returned from Shuswap Lake as Dominion Indian Reserve Commissioner. You can see how the Shuswap Lake overlay covers up the section of the Columbia River that would certainly have appeared on this map.
"On this map, as on others, Anderson omits any mention of the old trail that once led up the North Thompson River to Little Fort, but as it was not used after 1843, he probably considered it was overgrown. He does show the replacement for that old trail -- the new brigade trail, opened in 1843, that led up Copper Creek to Loon Lake and Green Lake, joining the old trail just south-east of the fur traders' Lac la Hache.
"On the bottom half of this map we can see the old brigade trail south of Kamloops and Okanagan Lake. With the exception of his 1867 map of British Columbia, and his 1858 Map (discussed next), all of Anderson's maps stop at the boundary line.
"The map also indicates the brigade trail through the Kettle and Similkameen valleys to the foot of the Coquihalla Mountains, first used by the Fort Colvile men in 1849. I suggest that Blackeye's son guided them through this trail the first year they used it, on their return journey. East of modern day Princeton, this trail was buried when the Dewdney Trail was constructed over virtually the same route in the 1860's.
"Finally, the trail north from Blackeye's Camp to Kamloops is shown; a little bit of the 1848 brigade trail along the Coldwater River is drawn in.
"Next we will talk about Anderson's "Map showing the different routes of communication with the gold region on Frazer's River," CM/A78 -- a map familiar to anyone who writes about the 1858 gold rush. About 1854, Anderson retired from the fur trade and settled at Cathlamet, WA. -- but because so many gold miners were approaching him for information on routes into the new goldmines being discovered on the Thompson River, he wrote his book, "Guide to the Goldfields," which included this map. The book sold well; copies are in archives in Australia and elsewhere -- and publication of this book might have been Anderson's only money-making project after he left the fur trade.
"Anderson drew the base-map, but the finished map is not his. Probably the publisher provided it; alternatively it might have been drawn by his new brother-in-law, artist William Henry Tappen -- a "most superior gentleman" who had just married Anderson's spinster sister, Margaret.
"An interesting and historic map is, I think, being overlooked. It is the Lands and Forests Hope-Princeton sheet of 1939, CM/C724, drawn specifically to show all the area's historic trails -- the brigade trails once again opened by Harley Hatfield and his friends; the Dewdney Trail, and many others. Firstly, it is a fascinating map that you should know about, if you are interested in British Columbia history; secondly, on this map Outram Lake -- the lake named by Alexander Caulfield Anderson for his cousin General Sir James Outram, is the lake at the end of the Nicolum River system.
"I believed this was true, too, until I really looked at Anderson's 1867 Map of the Colony of British Columbia, CM/F9 -- and you can see this section of the map of BC on the top of page 113, in "The Pathfinder."
"To me, the most interesting section of Anderson's 1867 map is the area south of the Coquihalla, which shows a portion of his 1846 exploration from Fort Langley to Kamloops. On this map, Anderson's Outram Lake is clearly indicated as part of the Sumallo River system. But sometime after Anderson drew this 1867 map, surveyors or settlers moved the lake's name westward, to another lake later buried under the massive Hope Slide of 1965. Anderson's Outram Lake is just east of the Hope Slide.
"Anderson's Tree, which sits southeast of Council's Punch Bowl Lake, on the top of the Coquihalla, was another total mystery to me. It appears first in Anderson's 1858 map to the Gold regions; next on his map of Four Explorations drawn in 1860 some-odd; and finally on his 1867 map of British Columbia.
"In 1846, Anderson's party of voyageurs and Native guides continued their walk past his Outram Lake, through the steep sided mountain valley. Just past Manning Park's Rhododendron Flats they climbed the mountain to reach the little lake at the top. Anderson named the lake, "Council's Punch Bowl." Years later [about 1820], Alexander's son James wrote that Council's Punch Bowl Lake was commemorated by a marked tree -- a story he must have heard from his father.
"When I picked up Carolyn Podruchny's book, "Making the Voyageur World; Travellers and Traders in the North American fur trade," I ran across a section on Maypole Trees, sometimes called lobsticks:
""Theatre and Maypoles -- the quotation that begins this chapter illustrates a striking performance of the master and servant relationship in the fur trade... Voyageurs selected a tall tree standing out on a lake, "lobbed" off all its branches except those at the very top, carved into the trunk's base the name of the bourgeois, clerk, or passenger to be honoured, and gathered around the maypoles to cheer and fire muskets. The honouree then provided regales, or treats to all the brigade...."
"From this I came to realize that Anderson's Tree might be a Maypole Tree -- an honour granted to very few men west of the Rocky Mountains. No fur trader ever saw Anderson's Tree after he and his men walked away from it. But Anderson knew it was there, and I believe he marked the tree on his maps so that he, if no one else, would remember the honour."
At this time I showed an image of Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia as it hangs in the archives, with some descendants on a visit.
I quote from "The Pathfinder" here: "Fourteen of Anderson's hand-drawn maps are preserved in the British Columbia archives, but the map that historians consider most significant is his 1867 Map of British Columbia. This massive map measures 4.5 feet by 6 feet and is drawn at a scale of approximately 10 miles per inch. It shows all of modern day British Columbia south of Fort St. James; it extends eastward as far as the HBC's Edmonton House and shows the route Anderson's party took through Leather Pass in the winter of 1835. When he drew the area around Fort Colvile, Anderson indicated his interest in NWC explorer David Thompson's earlier presence in the area when he drew in "David Thompson's River" and the location of Saleesh House.
""In all his finished maps, Anderson used good-quality rag paper that aged to a warm cream colour. The black ink contained iron that rusted to a rich reddish-brown. He used watercolours to paint the larger bodies of water blue, and in red indicated the many trails the fur traders of his time travelled. His signature appears everywhere. Handwritten notes on the map indicate events in his personal life such as his journey from Fort Colvile to Kamloops in the winter of 1842. At times he recorded information he obtained from post journals that no longer exist, as when he drew the route of a trading party led by Fraser's Lake clerk John McDonnell to Salmon River in 1828."
"Curator Derek Swallow tells me this about the map: "According to my informants, the map was in pieces when we received it. Our conservation department treated it, put it together, and mounted it on an acid-free backing, then encapsulated it between two sheets of mylar. Mylar is a type of plastic that doesn't break down over time, as other plastics do.
""It was mounted to a vertical rack to prevent stress on it if people came to view it... To prevent light damage we keep the front covered so if we enter the storage area and switch on the overheads it won't be illuminated. This is very critical since many of the First Nations territorial boundaries and some of the written inscriptions were done in coloured, light-sensitive, fugitive ink. In other words, light will fade the colours. To mitigate fading when we do show the map, our flourescent lights are low UV yield and the tubes are covered in secondary UV filters -- UV is the primary source of colour fading....
""The map... is of huge significance to the province and the people of B.C. so we have put a great deal of resources into preserving it and storing it in conditions that will guarantee its longevity. If exhibited, the map would be subject to strict handling, environment conditions, lighting and security."
"I visit the map on occasion, and I always enjoy turning around and looking at Tsilaxitsa's portrait [see page 203 of "The Pathfinder"] which hangs directly behind the person who is viewing Anderson's map. Tsilaxitsa was the nephew of Chief Nkwala after whom the Nicola Valley is named, and he became the most powerful Okanagan chief of his time. He and his close relative, Blackeye's son, accompanied Anderson on his 1847 exploration up and down the Fraser River, and almost certainly they both worked for the brigades, taking out the furs and bringing in the trade goods. In 1877, Anderson met Tsilaxitsa again, as Dominion Indian Reserves Commissioner. In his journal of that time, Anderson wrote that he had ridden many miles with this man. I find it eminently suitable -- and very romantic --that Tsilaxitsa's portrait faces Anderson's map in the archives store-room.
"There are many stories written into Anderson's 1867 map of the Colony of British Columbia:
"From early days Anderson was fascinated by Alexander Mackenzie, and in later years he own an 1802 version of Mackenzie's "Voyages from Montreal.." Mackenzie's journals were always more accessible to Anderson than those of the other explorers. In 1876, Dr. Israel Wood Powell loaned Anderson Simon Fraser's original journals to read. But Anderson had no access to David Thompson's journals, as they were never published while he was alive. But, when he was in charge of Fort Colvile, Anderson identified both David Thompson's River and location Saleesh House on it -- and he also drew in the location of the HBC fur trader Joseph Howse's House.
"In a PhD thesis called "Historical Cartography of British Columbia," written in 1960 and stored in the archives under Mss. 1104, student Albert Leonard Farley says this of Anderson's map:
""All sections of the manuscript map represent generally improved configurations, though, as one might expect, some are rendered in greater detail than others. The Kootenay-Columbia drainage, for example, is shown in the greatest detail since Thompson's day, though still lacking the mark of precision so characteristic of the great geographers' maps..."
"So, if Anderson had help in drawing this section of his map, I assumed there would be a map somewhere that would indicate that. Amongst the listing of documents that his son, James, gave to the provincial librarian, is listed, "Original map of the Flathead River."I looked for this map and finally realized, as I leafed through the file, that James' notes changed to indicated that this Flathead map was the Royal Engineers' Map of the British North American Exploring Expedition's route, under John Palliser [CM/A335, BCA] through the Fort Colvile district, which Anderson must have owned.
"The historic Collin's Telegraph Trail is located on the map, because there is a family connection to the trail. American businessman, Perry McDonough Collins, hoped to run a telegraph trail from San Francisco through British Columbia, Alaska and Russia, all the way to London, completing this before Cyrus Field managed to lay his line across the Atlantic Ocean. The Collin's Trail was as far north as the Skeena District when Field's Atlantic line was successfully laid, and Collin's gradually abandoned his project. But one of the men who worked on the trail was James McKenzie Anderson, son of Alexander's brother James. He was in the area around Fraser's Lake when George Mercer Dawson hired two men as axemen -- one was James Anderson, almost certainly Alexander Anderson's nephew. When the Collin's trail was finally abandoned, James came to Victoria to visit his uncle, and Alexander obtained as much information as he could on the location of the trail -- which is why it is not accurately located on his map.
"Just southeast of Lac la Hache is "Peter Ogden's camp" south-east of Lac la Hache on the 1843 brigade trail. I have always looked at this and wondered what it meant. In the Fort Victoria letters in HBCA, James Douglas reported that, in 1851, "a party of ten men, under the direction of Mr. Peter Ogden, were employed upon the new road for nearly two months... They cleared the points of wood on the whole route between Alexandria and Fort Hope...." So here's a little bit of history explained -- this is where Peter Ogden, son of Peter Skene Ogden, set up camp to cut a trail that cut off the long loops of brigade trail that diverted the fur traders miles out of their way, eastward toward Drowned Horse Lake (Horse Lake) rather than west toward Lac la Hache.
"The 1843 brigade trail through Loon Lake is shown on this map, and there is only one other map in British Columbia that has this trail marked on it; it is also an A.C. Anderson map. There are at present two historical-geographers geo-mapping the trail, and one of these men is a descendant of fur-trader Donald Manson. The trail actually passes through creeks and lakes that carry names that indicate this was an old brigade trail -- for example: Fly Creek, Brigade Lake, Carabine Creek.
"This is also the only map that shows the brigade trail past Okanagan Lake, and it shows all the other trails in the area. I have been puzzling as to where the brigade trail passed in the years after 1843, and I learned as the book was going through the presses that the brigades continued to follow the old trail, via Monte creek, all the way through 1849, when Anderson brought his men north to Kamloops.
"In the Fort Colvile area to the south east, modern day Curlew Lake bears the name, Eliza Lake. Obviously this is Anderson's name for the lake, named for his daughter or perhaps his wife. Jack Nisbet tells me that the trails that Anderson had drawn onto his map run along the same paths that the modern days follow -- almost nothing has changed.
"In this same area I find "Flying Squirrel Camp," and while I connect this with the botanist John Jeffries coming through Fort Colvile in 1851 (I think), I have absolutely no idea whether this is so. It could simply be named by the voyageurs for the flying squirrels in the area... Sooner or later I hope I will uncover this story.
"Albert Leonard Farley, author of the aforementioned thesis, "Historical Cartography of British Columbia," finished his essay with the words: "Aside from its understandable shortcomings, Anderson's manuscript map was a remarkable achievement. It was a great forward step towards a comprehensive map of all of southern British Columbia. The innumerable statements and explanatory notes... provide a valuable summary of geographic knowledge at the time, as well as offering clues to the sources of information which Anderson used in compiling the map. In a very real sense, Anderson's manuscript [map] represents a culmination of the cartographic accomplishments attributable to the fur-trade in British Columbia. It goes beyond this, however, by including liberal additions to knowledge of the country as a result of mining activities, and as a result of official explorations and surveys undertaken up to 1866."
"As we are going chronologically through his maps, I will quickly discuss his two Saanich maps -- the first, "Approximate Sketch showing the line of road [North Saanich]; the second his "Sketch of two Roads, etc." One of these maps is shown in "The Pathfinder" on page 187, and both -- once difficult to find -- are now stored under their new number, C/B/30.7K/An2.
Another interesting set of maps is Anderson's "Course from McK's travels, 1793," CM/12709A. You can see from these two maps that Anderson was reading Mackenzie's journals and trying to figure out his location. (On one of these maps Prince George is clearly shown, by its Native name). I suspect that Anderson's copy of Mackenzie's Journal might be found in the Rare Book Room of the Legislative Library, identifiable because I will have Anderson's name and the date he purchased the book written on the first blank page of the book.
"The map titled "Northwestern North America," CM/13666C, is by far my favorite map, and the one that hangs on my living room wall. Anderson drew this map about 1870-74. In the summer of 1875, geographer George Mercer came to Victoria and saw the finished copy of this map. He asked Anderson to lend it to him; Dawson displayed the map in the Canadian log-cabin exhibit at the massive 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. When that world's fair closed, the map itself returned to Montreal and hung on the walls of the Geological Survey of Canada for many years-- and then it disappeared. No one knows where the map is, and it probably no longer exists.
"The map was clearly drawn by Anderson to connect the New Caledonia and Columbia district, where he had spent his lifetime, with the Mackenzie and Athabasca districts where his old brother, James, had spent a few years.There is no other reason for Alexander to have drawn this map, other than to find where James had worked. It's a very personal map; and not one of interest to anyone that Alexander knew in British Columbia.
"This is what Alexander Anderson said of his brother: "James Anderson, my elder brother, born near Calcutta in 1812, educated in England, and entering the Service in 1831, co-temporaneously with myself -- After wintering for some years at Moose Factory in Hudson's Bay, and other stations in the Southern Department, he was transferred to the Northern Department and succeeded Dr. Rae in the charge of Mckenzie's River district in 1850.
""In 1854 he was appointed by the Company to descend the Tleu-e-cho Dozeth, or Back's River, in quest of intelligence respecting the fate of Sir John Franklin's party. On this expedition he proceeded with two well-manned birch bark canoes early in 1855 -- returning late the same Autumn, after having performed a most expeditious journey, and having discovered what appeared to be the last relics of at least a portion of the party of Dr. Stanley, namely, and others of the crew of the Terror."
"James Anderson retired in Canada and died of tuberculosis in 1867. this map was drawn after James' death, and to draw in the Northwest Territories, Alexander copied the map contained in Thomas Simpson's book, "Life & Travels of Thomas Simpson," listed in [son] James Robert Anderson's fonds [CM/13680A) and published in London by Richard Bentley in 1845.
"Anderson also wrote an essay to go with the Map of Northwestern North American, and it was printed in a magazine called "The Naturalist," or "Canadian Naturalist," as well as being published by Mitchell & Wilson [Montreal] in 1876. Anderson requests reprints of his essay, which are preserved in the BC Archives under NW971M A545n, "Notes on North-Western America."
"George Mercer Dawson was a sinkhole of Anderson maps: In a letter that James Mackenzie Anderson (son of Alexander's brother James) wrote to his cousin, James Robert Anderson (son of A.C. Anderson) on January 30, 1914, he said: "I had some maps of your late father's, which I lent to Mr. [George Mercer] Dawson to copy, which I cannot now find, and they may have not returned them..." I find no evidence that Dawson ever returned the Anderson maps to their owner.
"The last map that I am going to discuss is this one: Sam Black's map of the Thompson's River district, CM/B2079 -- and a very confusing map it can be. It was found in Anderson's papers by son, James, after Alexander's death in 1884, and in 1915, James wrote in the top corner of this map: "I have no means of ascertaining by whom this unique map was made, certainly not by my father...." The map was re-discovered and written up in BC Studies some years ago, by Bob Harris, but the location of the map was never given. It should be listed in James Anderson's fonds, Mss. 1912, where it belongs.
"The Royal Engineers saw a copy of this map in James Douglas' hands when they were in Victoria; I think Anderson probably received it from Douglas when he was drawing his 1867 map of British Columbia. Is it possible there are two copies of this map? It's hard to know.
"So these are Anderson's maps, and as you can see there is history written into every one of these maps. Finding all the stories has been a long and interesting project and continues to be so -- some of the stories I told you I only learned two or three weeks ago. Some stories I have yet to uncover. There may also be new discoveries of maps stored in other archives, and I believe there are a number of maps that will probably never turn up.
"But it has been an interesting project, following Alexander Caulfield Anderson's life from his early days on the Northwest Coast and at Fraser's Lake -- through the many changes to the fur trade and through his later days at Fort Colvile and Fort Vancouver. In a way, Anderson remained stuck in the fur trader throughout his entire life, and it was his knowledge of the fur trade districts in which he had lived and worked that made him the perfect person to draw all these maps for the new immigrants that were flooding into British Columbia. It was, of course, an interest; but because Anderson proved able to incorporate new information on his old maps, he proved to be a valuable -- if underappreciated -- asset to the new colony.
"So I am sure that Alexander Caulfield Anderson would be the first persona who would courteously and warmly thank you for your appreciation of his maps. And I thank you, too, for your interest in the stories contained in these maps, and hope you have more stories to add to them."
For those of you who want to view all of Anderson's maps in the archives, and perhaps discover how he copied and re-copied them, I will include now a list of maps that I have not spoken of. All of these are simple black and white maps of the finished maps we have discussed.
I also haven't spoken of one map: "Map to accompany road tax assessment roll, Lake and Saanich district," found under number CM/13672B with a copy under CM/13712B. An expert in Saanich history has given the date for this map as 1869.
Northwestern North America, CM/13666C, has a rough copy under CM/13714C -- stored offsite to arrangements must be made to bring it to the archives to view. That is probably true of many of Anderson's maps, so be prepared to stay a few days in Victoria.
Sketch Map of the Upper Columbia..., CM/13662B, has copies: a copy of this map is in Land & Titles, Legal Surveys Vault 25T; but the handwriting is not Anderson's. I also have a copy listed under number CM/B246. Because I haven't seen these maps for years my numbers might not be accurate and you might have to search around a little.
The upper Fraser River map has two copies: Anderson's copy, a rough drawing, is under CM/13702B, while a Royal Engineers' copy is under CM/13705B [Mss. 1912].
Guide Map to the Peace River Mines, CM/13665A, has a copy under CM/A1412.
The Arrowsmith copy of Anderson's Map to the Gold Regions, CM/A78, is under CM/A283. It is not as attractive as Anderson's map.
Some of these maps apparently have copies in Lands and Titles office, but I have not seen them.
Thank you, everyone. For those of you who want to hear me talk a bit more about the history behind these maps, I will be back in Burnaby about May 9th or 10th, to speak in front of that historical group.
I might also be in Steveston (which sounds like a fascinating place to visit) but this is still being arranged.
In April I will be guiding people through the South Saanich cemetery, at St. Stephens Church, where both Alexander Caulfield Anderson, and his wife Betsy, are buried.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Historical Maps Society Talk
I am just finishing off my talk for the Historical Maps Society, and have learned that the meeting is open to the public -- anyone can come. I had thought it was a private group, but not so.
The meeting is held in a boardroom in the Barber Learning Centre, at UBC; the talk can be from three-quarters of an hour to one hour and I see I can actually bring some of my maps with me.
It begins at 7pm. in the evening, Monday Feb. 6 -- tomorrow, in fact.
I am bringing a dozen or so books to sell at the meeting, but if you are unable to come the books are for sale at People's Co-op Bookstore. I will be at the Commercial Avenue/Street branch to sign the copies they have on hand -- this is not a formal event, I will just drop in to do it.
We'll see you tomorrow.
The meeting is held in a boardroom in the Barber Learning Centre, at UBC; the talk can be from three-quarters of an hour to one hour and I see I can actually bring some of my maps with me.
It begins at 7pm. in the evening, Monday Feb. 6 -- tomorrow, in fact.
I am bringing a dozen or so books to sell at the meeting, but if you are unable to come the books are for sale at People's Co-op Bookstore. I will be at the Commercial Avenue/Street branch to sign the copies they have on hand -- this is not a formal event, I will just drop in to do it.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
"Killing Fish by Explosion"
A good title, and one that is found in the papers of James Robert Anderson, son of Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
Why I am speaking of this now is a long story, and here it is:
When I spoke at Hope last week, two of the attendees were re-enactors for the Royal Engineers.
I had met them previously at Fort Langley, when these flintlock gun enthusiasts -- the Royal Engineers and the Victoria Voltigeurs -- demonstrated their flintlock guns and told us how they worked.
One of these Royal Engineers read my book, and noticed the caption of the picture on page 61.
The picture shows men standing on the fish weir at the outflow of Fraser Lake (with the post in the background); the caption read: "Anderson was amazed to learn that Natives who fished at the salmon weir on Fraser's Lake, shown here, also killed fish by submerging the barrel of a flintlock gun up to the breach in the water and pulling the trigger.
"The resulting explosion stunned the fish, which floated to the surface, and the gun never burst as it would have done if only the muzzle was submerged."
You who are not sportsmen/fishermen would not have paid much attention to this caption -- but this flintlock gun aficionado perked up.
"I was most amused by your anecdote re: the Natives "fishing" with their flintlock guns."
Now the scary sentence .... "I mentioned that to [his contact] suggesting that some of his Trade Gun writers give it a go."
Well, at first I thought it would be interesting to hear how it worked -- then I thought about liability.
What would happen if one of these guys actually attempted this, and in that attempt blew off their hand or face?
The Royal Engineer assured me their guns were far too expensive to blow up for an experiment like this, and finished with a story about shooting fish in a shallow stream with a .22 rifle. "It works! The concussive force made them rise to the surface momentarily, and we were able to grab a few."
I hope that if anyone reads that line and is silly enough to try it with their flintlock gun, that they will do it safely and from a distance -- a la Mythbusters!
Flintlock guns are not toys!
By the way, if anyone of you wants to catch up on my article re: flintlock guns, you will find it in this blog under "Flintlock Guns and Percussion Guns," Sunday, February 7, 2010.
I just about cried when my editor cut this from my manuscript.
This where this caption was sourced -- James heard many of his father's stories, and wrote some of them down.
This is one:
"My father who was for many years situated in the Upper Country in great part of which was then known as New Caledonia in the service of the Hudsons Bay Co. relates how he found the Indians obtaining fish by exploding their guns in the water.
"This was done by submerging the barrel of the gun up to the breach otherwise the gun would certainly burst.
"How the Indians discovered that fish would be stunned by the explosion or that the gun would certainly burst if only the muzzle were immersed, could not be discovered." [Mss. 1912, vol. 13, file 6, BCA]
Anyway, if the Natives were catching fish by exploding their guns in the water, these are the fish they would have caught -- in Alexander Caulfield Anderson's writing.
I leave it up to you to figure out which fresh and salt-water fish he is speaking of....
"As may be surmised from the enormous coast-line, and the great extent of the inland water, the fish of British Columbia enter largely into the consideration of her resources. Of the former the Salmon may be regarded as the chief in place; but as it will require a more extended notice than the rest, I shall first proceed to mention the other varieties frequenting the lakes and rivers. Trout of many different kinds, varieties of Carp and other Cyprindidae; the Methy or Loche; and many others, including that Prince of fresh-water fishes, the White-fish (Coregonus), are generally distributed.
"The varieties of Trout, in the next place, demand attention; and for want of more legitimate nomenclature, they will in most cases be distinguished by the native names, adopting those of the Ta-Cully [Dakelh] of the Upper Fraser, to the writer the more familiar.
"A variety of excellent Trout frequent the upper waters; and the Carp-fishery in Spring is a great resource for the support of the native population. Two varieties of Trout, called by the Carriers [Dakelh] Peet and Sha-pai, are taken in the great lakes.
"Trout differ from each other materially in size and quality; those in the principal lakes are much larger than the varieties found in the smaller. All the different kinds (chiefly varieties of the Salmo Ferox) have distinctive names applied to them by the natives of the Upper District.
"The Peet [Rainbow Trout] is a red-fleshed trout frequenting large lakes, such as Stuarts, and Fraser's. They grow to an great size, frequently weighing between twenty and thirty pounds, and in some positions, I have been assured, weighing as much as forty, though I have never myself seen any so large.
"They are usually caught with hooks baited with a small fish during the season of open water, in the winter or early spring, by making holes in the ice and roofing them over with pine boughs so as to exclude the surface light. In this way the fish, attracted by a lure, is readily detected as it swims below, and the fisherman dexterously spears it. This is a modification merely of the Water-telescope used by the Norwegian fisherman, and tends to show how readily man, in exigency, arrives through different processes at a common end.
"The Sha-pai is another variety, equal in all respects to the first named. It differs, however, in appearance; its skin being studded with light orange-coloured spots and the flesh having a yellowish tint.
"The Peet-yaz or Salmon-trout is of smaller size, resembling generally the ordinary trout caught elsewhere. There are, however, several varieties, differing in size and quality as well as appearance, according to their habitat.
"The Talo-yaz (ie. Little Salmon) is a peculiar variety of Trout, of excellent quality, which is not found in the lakes generally, but is confined to certain lakes of the upper District. They seemed to be very abundant in the Great Okinagan Lake; a sheet of water abounding also in the larger species.
"In addition to the hook and spear, weirs are used for catching the various descriptions of Trout as they enter the rivers from the lakes to spawn. The gill-net, too, set in favorable positions in the shallower places which the fish frequent, is employed for the small varieties. In most of the lakes there is excellent fly-fishing, but the artificial fly and the spoon-bait, which the angler bent on sport would employ, were of course unknown to the native fishermen, whose devices I have mentioned.
"The White-fish (Coregonus Alba of Richardson), by many esteemed the Prince of fresh-water fish, found generally throughout the northern continent, is common to most of the lakes in the upper part of British Columbia (though not common to all). It varies very much in size, and no less in quality, in different localities: a variation arising doubtless from the nature of their food. Those in Upper British Columbia rarely exceed from two to three pounds, but in the large lakes East of the Rocky Mountains they are caught more than twice as large. Thus the fish produced in Fraser Lake, though no larger, are in quality far superior to those of the neighbouring lakes of Stuart; while those of the small lake of Yoka, in the depression of the Coast range between the latter lake and Babine, are superior to both. Far excelling these again are the fish caught in a small lake near Jasper's House on the Athabasca, a little outside of the northern frontier of the Province. Eastward of the mountains it is a staple article of food at the different posts; and though a rich and succulent fish, it has the peculiar quality of not cloying the appetite like the salmon and other fish of a like description. The White-fish is, however, peculiarly a Northern fish; and I question whether it be found in any of the waters of British Columbia south of Alexandria. In the Atlantic waters, it is caught considerably farther to the south.
"The Common Loch (Gallus Barbatula) called also the "Fresh-water Cod," is found commonly in the lakes and rivers of the Central and Upper British Columbia, preferring dull, sluggish streams and the shoaler lakes. Its flesh is highly esteemed by some; and its liver, which appears to be its sole depositary of its fat, yields a fine well flavored oil, equal in all medicinal respects to that of the Sea-Cod, while far less nauseous. A fish, on the whole, of very little mark.
"The Pike (Esox Lucius) common to the eastern waters, is unknown in the western watershed -- and, I need not add, is not regretted. To the above list may be added, as frequenting the waters of Manitoba, the Cat-fish, the Sun-fish, and divers[e] others, some of which are found elsewhere.
"There are immense numbers of Carp of several varieties. These when they enter the rivers to spawn, commencing in April, are caught by means of ingenious weirs and sun-dried in large quantities. The natives dry the roes which, cooked, with berries, afford them an important addition to their summer fare. After the spring fisheries are over the Carp is caught in common with the smaller Trouts, the white-fish, and others, in the gill nets before mentioned -- and thus till the arrival of the Salmon."
I should here interrupt Alexander Caulfield Anderson's writing to let you know that the carp he saw in the Fraser River are not the common carp [cyprinus carpio] that are in the upper Fraser River today. The fish Anderson saw were probably the Northern Pikeminnow, a bone-filled and edible member of the minnow family, or its close cousin, the Large-scaled Sucker.
"Two varieties of Sturgeon are found, one in the waters of Lake Winnipeg, the other a fish of enormous dimensions in the Columbia and the Fraser. The Sturgeon of British Columbia (Acipenser transmonanus of Richardson) differs widely in all respects from the common Sturgeon of the Atlantic (Acipenser Sturio) in size, quality and appearance. This noble fish is common both to the Columbia and Fraser River, but does not by the former stream penetrate to the British Columbia frontier -- interrupted, apparently, by the Kettle Fall at Colvile, near to which point some have been known to reach.
"The fish enters Fraser's River in February, following the shoals of a certain small fish, called by the natives Oola-han, as they resort to the lower parts to spawn. The Western Sturgeon attains an enormous size: in the upper parts of Fraser River about Stuart's and Fraser's Lakes, having been caught weighing as much as seven or eight hundred pounds. I was informed of one caught in Stuarts' Lake, the length of which was fourteen feet; but I never saw one nearly so large. These huge fish, I have reason to believe, do not return to the sea, but finding abundant food in the interior waters continue to dwell and propagate there. I do not, however, give this as an ascertain fact, but as an assumption, inferred chiefly from the following circumstances: --
"1st -- That they are caught until very late in the Autumn, and very early in the spring.
"2nd -- That the young fish (called by the voyageurs "Escargo"), a foot or two in length, are caught occasionally in nets set for other fish early in the summer. These doubtless descend to the sea, even admitting the grown fish to remain.
"3rd -- That Sturgeon of the size mentioned as inhabiting the Upper Lakes are rarely, if ever, caught in the lower Fraser. Be this, however, as it may, the Sturgeon, unlike the Salmon, continues to improve in condition as it ascends; for after the return of the Oola-han to the sea after spawning, the shoals of Salmon begin to ascend, yielding an abundant prey to their gigantic fellow travellers. Caught in the interior, the Sturgeon is extremely fat and, intrinsically a food fish, is on account of its fatness the more highly esteemed by the natives.
"There are several modes of taking the Sturgeon, varying accordingly to the locality. On the Lower Fraser, these fish are caught by the natives in a singular but very effacious manner.
"Two fishermen embark in a canoe; one merely steadying it with his paddle; the other crouched in the bow, provided with a long light rod -- a jointed staff -- which can be lengthened by the additional joints whenever the increased depth of water requires it. At the lower end of the rod a barbed harpoon, attached to a cord, is loosely affixed. The canoe is then suffered to drift down the centre of the channel; the harpooner carefully and constantly sounding so as to keep the point of his implement about a couple of feet from the bottom. The fish, slowly swimming upwards, is detected by the touch; and instantly struck. The rod is at once disengaged, and the fish is hauled in by means of the strong line attached to the harpoon.
"In the Columbia River, this plan is not available. The sturgeon is there caught with set lines, baited with a small fish or, what is better, a piece of Lamprey-eel.
"Throughout the remainder of Fraser River the bait is chiefly used; though in the large eddies strong nets are found very effective. In the shallows at the effluence of Lakes Stuart and Fraser, near which the Hudson's Bay Company's posts are situated, long stake-nets are set during Spring and Summer, by means of which a fish is occasionally caught, the more highly prized for its comparative rarity: for while the Sturgeon grows to larger dimensions in these vicinities, it is very much rarer than in the lower parts of the river. These nets are made, of course, of very strong twine, of the description called Maitres de Rets; and withal are frequently broken by the larger sturgeon. It is, however, a comparatively sluggish fish, and does not exhibit the spirited struggle of the captured salmon.
"A very valuable fish entering Fraser River to spawn in the early spring, is the Thalcicthys (or preferably Osmerus) Richardsonii -- locally known as the Oola-han. I was long under the impression that this fish was a variety of Pilchard (Chupandon Thrissa) peculiar to the Pacific; and am indebted to Dr. Robert Brown, of Edinburgh, formerly in command of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, for the correction adopted above.
"The Oola-han is, in the estimation of most people, one of the most delicious products of the sea. Smaller than the Herring, it is of a far more delicate flavor; and so rich that, when dried, it is inflammable -- so much so, indeed, that in Alaska, where it is likewise found, it is I believe called the "Candle-fish."
"The merits of this fish are peculiarly worthy of note both for its delicacy of flavour and the unctuous richness of its flesh. Equal, if not superior to the sardine of Europe, this fish must eventually become of great mercantile value. From the fact of its being strung on long lines for drying by the Chinooks, it was formerly called, by the Voyageurs, Poisson a la Brasse -- or Fathom fish; and under this name, sometimes varied by that of "Anchovy," it is mentioned by Franchere, in his account of the Columbia River, under the name of Outhelekane, from which its present designation is modified. They were formerly very abundant in Spring on the lower Columbia; but suddenly, about the year 1835, none frequented the river. I have been informed, however, that they have since reappeared, and that there is now a regular supply as formerly.
"The Oola-han does not ascend Fraser River far beyond its mouth. It enters this river, as well as other rivers along the Coast, and especially the Nass near Fort Simpson, in immense shoals at the spawning season in April. It appears in immense shoals, and is caught either with the scoop-net, or, like the Herring on the sea-board, with the rake. This simple device is merely a long light pole, flattened in one direction so as to pass readily through the water, with the edge set towards the lower extremity with a row of sharply pointed teeth. The fisherman, entering the shoal, passes the implement repeatedly through the water, with a rapid stroke, each time transfixing several fish. Thus a copious supply is soon secured.
"Those caught at the mouth of the Nass are of a quality even richer than those of Fraser River. The natives, who assemble there in great numbers in Spring to prosecute the fishery, besides drying them in large quantities, extract from the surplus a fine oil, which is highly prized by them as a luxury, and forms a staple article of barter with the interior tribes. This oil, of a whitish colour, and approaching to the consistency of thin lard, is regarded by those of the faculty who are acquainted with its properties, as equally efficacious with the Cod-liver Oil so commonly prescribed, and it is said to have the great advantage of being far more palatable. With the exception of a few scores of casks salted annually for local sale, and a quantity prepared like the Red-herring, this fish has not yet, I believe, been systematically cured or become an article of exportation. There can be no question, however, than when more widely known and properly prepared, it will be the object of much extraneous demand.
"But we have dwelt sufficiently on them, and must proceed to notice the other products in which these waters are notably prolific. And first of the Herring. This valuable fish resorts in prodigious numbers at the spawning season in early spring, to the bays and inlets of the Gulf of Georgia and elsewhere along the coast. The method by which the natives capture them at this season, mentioned before while treating of the Oola-han, suggests an idea of their scarcely conceivable numbers. In appearance they do not perceptibly differ from the European variety, though rather smaller. At the period in question the quality of these fish is inferior; but when caught during their prime, with the net, on the banks which they permanently frequent, they are, to my conception, fully equal to their congeners of the Atlantic sea-board. This remark applies at least to some of the localities bordering on the Gulf of Georgia; and I fancy is generally true. The spawn, attached to sea-weed or to branches purposely sunk in the shallows for its reception, is gathered in large quantities by the natives, and dried for food.
"The Cod caught in the narrow waters are inferior to the Atlantic fish. There are, however, certain outlying banks upon which they are found abundantly, of a quality, it is said, approaching, if not fully equal to, the last.
"The Halibut attains upon this Coast a very high degree of perfection. On the outer shore of Queen Charlotte's Island, especially, it is found of a very large size; frequently exceeding 100 pounds in weight, and not unseldom, I am assured, of twice that size. Caught with the hook, these fish are dried in large quantities by the natives, especially of the more northerly parts of the Coast.
"To these may be added the Smelt, the Rock-cod, the Flounder, Whiting, and a host of others, with which, in season, the markets of Victoria are constantly supplied -- chiefly through the industry of Italian fishermen, who appear here to enjoy a prescriptive monopoly of the trade. Oysters are very abundant. those dredged near Victoria are of small size, but well flavoured; northward in the vicinity of Comox, a large sample is procured. Of Cockles, Mussels, and other shell-fish there is a copious supply.
"Crabs and prawns are not wanting; but there are no Lobsters, save a small kind found in fresh-water streamlets. Oil-producing fish such as the Ground-shark and the Dog-fish, are common to the whole Coast: the latter so abundant as to give lucrative employment to many fishermen and afford a boundless resource prospectively to others. Of the Phocidae, the Hair-seal is the most numerous; while the fur-seal, the Sea-lion, &c, are found chiefly on the outer shores.
"The Whale fishery has of late attracted much attention, and has been prosecuted with a certain degree of success; though, from want of experience, probably, less than one might have been justified in expecting. On the outer Coast Whales of the larges description are numerous; which, by the native inhabitants, who combine in parties for the purpose, are harpooned and captured by an ingenious process which it is unnecessary here to describe. In the inland waters of the archipelago a variety known as the Humpbacked Whale is very numerous. These yield from 30 to 50 barrels, or more, of oil; and so far have been killed by the whaling-parties with the harpoon-gun and shell. Many wounded victims, however, through some mismanagement of detail/ or perhaps unavoidably under the system, have thus escaped. The system, however, from its assumed wastfulness is, I am informed, declared illegal by the general laws of the Dominion: in which case it will of course be interdicted, and give place to other schemes less liable to objection. On the whole the pursuit of whales in these waters, vigorously prosecuted, with a competent knowledge of the business, will doubtless prove ere long a lucrative and extensive branch of the Provincial industries."
Anderson became the Dominion of Canada's Inspector of Fisheries in 1876, and continued in that position until his death in 1884. His fisheries reports are fascinating reading, filled with facts and descriptions of some of the fisheries. But those I will leave for future reports; you must be satisfied with this listing of fresh and salt water fish for now.
Why I am speaking of this now is a long story, and here it is:
When I spoke at Hope last week, two of the attendees were re-enactors for the Royal Engineers.
I had met them previously at Fort Langley, when these flintlock gun enthusiasts -- the Royal Engineers and the Victoria Voltigeurs -- demonstrated their flintlock guns and told us how they worked.
One of these Royal Engineers read my book, and noticed the caption of the picture on page 61.
The picture shows men standing on the fish weir at the outflow of Fraser Lake (with the post in the background); the caption read: "Anderson was amazed to learn that Natives who fished at the salmon weir on Fraser's Lake, shown here, also killed fish by submerging the barrel of a flintlock gun up to the breach in the water and pulling the trigger.
"The resulting explosion stunned the fish, which floated to the surface, and the gun never burst as it would have done if only the muzzle was submerged."
You who are not sportsmen/fishermen would not have paid much attention to this caption -- but this flintlock gun aficionado perked up.
"I was most amused by your anecdote re: the Natives "fishing" with their flintlock guns."
Now the scary sentence .... "I mentioned that to [his contact] suggesting that some of his Trade Gun writers give it a go."
Well, at first I thought it would be interesting to hear how it worked -- then I thought about liability.
What would happen if one of these guys actually attempted this, and in that attempt blew off their hand or face?
The Royal Engineer assured me their guns were far too expensive to blow up for an experiment like this, and finished with a story about shooting fish in a shallow stream with a .22 rifle. "It works! The concussive force made them rise to the surface momentarily, and we were able to grab a few."
I hope that if anyone reads that line and is silly enough to try it with their flintlock gun, that they will do it safely and from a distance -- a la Mythbusters!
Flintlock guns are not toys!
By the way, if anyone of you wants to catch up on my article re: flintlock guns, you will find it in this blog under "Flintlock Guns and Percussion Guns," Sunday, February 7, 2010.
I just about cried when my editor cut this from my manuscript.
This where this caption was sourced -- James heard many of his father's stories, and wrote some of them down.
This is one:
"My father who was for many years situated in the Upper Country in great part of which was then known as New Caledonia in the service of the Hudsons Bay Co. relates how he found the Indians obtaining fish by exploding their guns in the water.
"This was done by submerging the barrel of the gun up to the breach otherwise the gun would certainly burst.
"How the Indians discovered that fish would be stunned by the explosion or that the gun would certainly burst if only the muzzle were immersed, could not be discovered." [Mss. 1912, vol. 13, file 6, BCA]
Anyway, if the Natives were catching fish by exploding their guns in the water, these are the fish they would have caught -- in Alexander Caulfield Anderson's writing.
I leave it up to you to figure out which fresh and salt-water fish he is speaking of....
"As may be surmised from the enormous coast-line, and the great extent of the inland water, the fish of British Columbia enter largely into the consideration of her resources. Of the former the Salmon may be regarded as the chief in place; but as it will require a more extended notice than the rest, I shall first proceed to mention the other varieties frequenting the lakes and rivers. Trout of many different kinds, varieties of Carp and other Cyprindidae; the Methy or Loche; and many others, including that Prince of fresh-water fishes, the White-fish (Coregonus), are generally distributed.
"The varieties of Trout, in the next place, demand attention; and for want of more legitimate nomenclature, they will in most cases be distinguished by the native names, adopting those of the Ta-Cully [Dakelh] of the Upper Fraser, to the writer the more familiar.
"A variety of excellent Trout frequent the upper waters; and the Carp-fishery in Spring is a great resource for the support of the native population. Two varieties of Trout, called by the Carriers [Dakelh] Peet and Sha-pai, are taken in the great lakes.
"Trout differ from each other materially in size and quality; those in the principal lakes are much larger than the varieties found in the smaller. All the different kinds (chiefly varieties of the Salmo Ferox) have distinctive names applied to them by the natives of the Upper District.
"The Peet [Rainbow Trout] is a red-fleshed trout frequenting large lakes, such as Stuarts, and Fraser's. They grow to an great size, frequently weighing between twenty and thirty pounds, and in some positions, I have been assured, weighing as much as forty, though I have never myself seen any so large.
"They are usually caught with hooks baited with a small fish during the season of open water, in the winter or early spring, by making holes in the ice and roofing them over with pine boughs so as to exclude the surface light. In this way the fish, attracted by a lure, is readily detected as it swims below, and the fisherman dexterously spears it. This is a modification merely of the Water-telescope used by the Norwegian fisherman, and tends to show how readily man, in exigency, arrives through different processes at a common end.
"The Sha-pai is another variety, equal in all respects to the first named. It differs, however, in appearance; its skin being studded with light orange-coloured spots and the flesh having a yellowish tint.
"The Peet-yaz or Salmon-trout is of smaller size, resembling generally the ordinary trout caught elsewhere. There are, however, several varieties, differing in size and quality as well as appearance, according to their habitat.
"The Talo-yaz (ie. Little Salmon) is a peculiar variety of Trout, of excellent quality, which is not found in the lakes generally, but is confined to certain lakes of the upper District. They seemed to be very abundant in the Great Okinagan Lake; a sheet of water abounding also in the larger species.
"In addition to the hook and spear, weirs are used for catching the various descriptions of Trout as they enter the rivers from the lakes to spawn. The gill-net, too, set in favorable positions in the shallower places which the fish frequent, is employed for the small varieties. In most of the lakes there is excellent fly-fishing, but the artificial fly and the spoon-bait, which the angler bent on sport would employ, were of course unknown to the native fishermen, whose devices I have mentioned.
"The White-fish (Coregonus Alba of Richardson), by many esteemed the Prince of fresh-water fish, found generally throughout the northern continent, is common to most of the lakes in the upper part of British Columbia (though not common to all). It varies very much in size, and no less in quality, in different localities: a variation arising doubtless from the nature of their food. Those in Upper British Columbia rarely exceed from two to three pounds, but in the large lakes East of the Rocky Mountains they are caught more than twice as large. Thus the fish produced in Fraser Lake, though no larger, are in quality far superior to those of the neighbouring lakes of Stuart; while those of the small lake of Yoka, in the depression of the Coast range between the latter lake and Babine, are superior to both. Far excelling these again are the fish caught in a small lake near Jasper's House on the Athabasca, a little outside of the northern frontier of the Province. Eastward of the mountains it is a staple article of food at the different posts; and though a rich and succulent fish, it has the peculiar quality of not cloying the appetite like the salmon and other fish of a like description. The White-fish is, however, peculiarly a Northern fish; and I question whether it be found in any of the waters of British Columbia south of Alexandria. In the Atlantic waters, it is caught considerably farther to the south.
"The Common Loch (Gallus Barbatula) called also the "Fresh-water Cod," is found commonly in the lakes and rivers of the Central and Upper British Columbia, preferring dull, sluggish streams and the shoaler lakes. Its flesh is highly esteemed by some; and its liver, which appears to be its sole depositary of its fat, yields a fine well flavored oil, equal in all medicinal respects to that of the Sea-Cod, while far less nauseous. A fish, on the whole, of very little mark.
"The Pike (Esox Lucius) common to the eastern waters, is unknown in the western watershed -- and, I need not add, is not regretted. To the above list may be added, as frequenting the waters of Manitoba, the Cat-fish, the Sun-fish, and divers[e] others, some of which are found elsewhere.
"There are immense numbers of Carp of several varieties. These when they enter the rivers to spawn, commencing in April, are caught by means of ingenious weirs and sun-dried in large quantities. The natives dry the roes which, cooked, with berries, afford them an important addition to their summer fare. After the spring fisheries are over the Carp is caught in common with the smaller Trouts, the white-fish, and others, in the gill nets before mentioned -- and thus till the arrival of the Salmon."
I should here interrupt Alexander Caulfield Anderson's writing to let you know that the carp he saw in the Fraser River are not the common carp [cyprinus carpio] that are in the upper Fraser River today. The fish Anderson saw were probably the Northern Pikeminnow, a bone-filled and edible member of the minnow family, or its close cousin, the Large-scaled Sucker.
"Two varieties of Sturgeon are found, one in the waters of Lake Winnipeg, the other a fish of enormous dimensions in the Columbia and the Fraser. The Sturgeon of British Columbia (Acipenser transmonanus of Richardson) differs widely in all respects from the common Sturgeon of the Atlantic (Acipenser Sturio) in size, quality and appearance. This noble fish is common both to the Columbia and Fraser River, but does not by the former stream penetrate to the British Columbia frontier -- interrupted, apparently, by the Kettle Fall at Colvile, near to which point some have been known to reach.
"The fish enters Fraser's River in February, following the shoals of a certain small fish, called by the natives Oola-han, as they resort to the lower parts to spawn. The Western Sturgeon attains an enormous size: in the upper parts of Fraser River about Stuart's and Fraser's Lakes, having been caught weighing as much as seven or eight hundred pounds. I was informed of one caught in Stuarts' Lake, the length of which was fourteen feet; but I never saw one nearly so large. These huge fish, I have reason to believe, do not return to the sea, but finding abundant food in the interior waters continue to dwell and propagate there. I do not, however, give this as an ascertain fact, but as an assumption, inferred chiefly from the following circumstances: --
"1st -- That they are caught until very late in the Autumn, and very early in the spring.
"2nd -- That the young fish (called by the voyageurs "Escargo"), a foot or two in length, are caught occasionally in nets set for other fish early in the summer. These doubtless descend to the sea, even admitting the grown fish to remain.
"3rd -- That Sturgeon of the size mentioned as inhabiting the Upper Lakes are rarely, if ever, caught in the lower Fraser. Be this, however, as it may, the Sturgeon, unlike the Salmon, continues to improve in condition as it ascends; for after the return of the Oola-han to the sea after spawning, the shoals of Salmon begin to ascend, yielding an abundant prey to their gigantic fellow travellers. Caught in the interior, the Sturgeon is extremely fat and, intrinsically a food fish, is on account of its fatness the more highly esteemed by the natives.
"There are several modes of taking the Sturgeon, varying accordingly to the locality. On the Lower Fraser, these fish are caught by the natives in a singular but very effacious manner.
"Two fishermen embark in a canoe; one merely steadying it with his paddle; the other crouched in the bow, provided with a long light rod -- a jointed staff -- which can be lengthened by the additional joints whenever the increased depth of water requires it. At the lower end of the rod a barbed harpoon, attached to a cord, is loosely affixed. The canoe is then suffered to drift down the centre of the channel; the harpooner carefully and constantly sounding so as to keep the point of his implement about a couple of feet from the bottom. The fish, slowly swimming upwards, is detected by the touch; and instantly struck. The rod is at once disengaged, and the fish is hauled in by means of the strong line attached to the harpoon.
"In the Columbia River, this plan is not available. The sturgeon is there caught with set lines, baited with a small fish or, what is better, a piece of Lamprey-eel.
"Throughout the remainder of Fraser River the bait is chiefly used; though in the large eddies strong nets are found very effective. In the shallows at the effluence of Lakes Stuart and Fraser, near which the Hudson's Bay Company's posts are situated, long stake-nets are set during Spring and Summer, by means of which a fish is occasionally caught, the more highly prized for its comparative rarity: for while the Sturgeon grows to larger dimensions in these vicinities, it is very much rarer than in the lower parts of the river. These nets are made, of course, of very strong twine, of the description called Maitres de Rets; and withal are frequently broken by the larger sturgeon. It is, however, a comparatively sluggish fish, and does not exhibit the spirited struggle of the captured salmon.
"A very valuable fish entering Fraser River to spawn in the early spring, is the Thalcicthys (or preferably Osmerus) Richardsonii -- locally known as the Oola-han. I was long under the impression that this fish was a variety of Pilchard (Chupandon Thrissa) peculiar to the Pacific; and am indebted to Dr. Robert Brown, of Edinburgh, formerly in command of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, for the correction adopted above.
"The Oola-han is, in the estimation of most people, one of the most delicious products of the sea. Smaller than the Herring, it is of a far more delicate flavor; and so rich that, when dried, it is inflammable -- so much so, indeed, that in Alaska, where it is likewise found, it is I believe called the "Candle-fish."
"The merits of this fish are peculiarly worthy of note both for its delicacy of flavour and the unctuous richness of its flesh. Equal, if not superior to the sardine of Europe, this fish must eventually become of great mercantile value. From the fact of its being strung on long lines for drying by the Chinooks, it was formerly called, by the Voyageurs, Poisson a la Brasse -- or Fathom fish; and under this name, sometimes varied by that of "Anchovy," it is mentioned by Franchere, in his account of the Columbia River, under the name of Outhelekane, from which its present designation is modified. They were formerly very abundant in Spring on the lower Columbia; but suddenly, about the year 1835, none frequented the river. I have been informed, however, that they have since reappeared, and that there is now a regular supply as formerly.
"The Oola-han does not ascend Fraser River far beyond its mouth. It enters this river, as well as other rivers along the Coast, and especially the Nass near Fort Simpson, in immense shoals at the spawning season in April. It appears in immense shoals, and is caught either with the scoop-net, or, like the Herring on the sea-board, with the rake. This simple device is merely a long light pole, flattened in one direction so as to pass readily through the water, with the edge set towards the lower extremity with a row of sharply pointed teeth. The fisherman, entering the shoal, passes the implement repeatedly through the water, with a rapid stroke, each time transfixing several fish. Thus a copious supply is soon secured.
"Those caught at the mouth of the Nass are of a quality even richer than those of Fraser River. The natives, who assemble there in great numbers in Spring to prosecute the fishery, besides drying them in large quantities, extract from the surplus a fine oil, which is highly prized by them as a luxury, and forms a staple article of barter with the interior tribes. This oil, of a whitish colour, and approaching to the consistency of thin lard, is regarded by those of the faculty who are acquainted with its properties, as equally efficacious with the Cod-liver Oil so commonly prescribed, and it is said to have the great advantage of being far more palatable. With the exception of a few scores of casks salted annually for local sale, and a quantity prepared like the Red-herring, this fish has not yet, I believe, been systematically cured or become an article of exportation. There can be no question, however, than when more widely known and properly prepared, it will be the object of much extraneous demand.
"But we have dwelt sufficiently on them, and must proceed to notice the other products in which these waters are notably prolific. And first of the Herring. This valuable fish resorts in prodigious numbers at the spawning season in early spring, to the bays and inlets of the Gulf of Georgia and elsewhere along the coast. The method by which the natives capture them at this season, mentioned before while treating of the Oola-han, suggests an idea of their scarcely conceivable numbers. In appearance they do not perceptibly differ from the European variety, though rather smaller. At the period in question the quality of these fish is inferior; but when caught during their prime, with the net, on the banks which they permanently frequent, they are, to my conception, fully equal to their congeners of the Atlantic sea-board. This remark applies at least to some of the localities bordering on the Gulf of Georgia; and I fancy is generally true. The spawn, attached to sea-weed or to branches purposely sunk in the shallows for its reception, is gathered in large quantities by the natives, and dried for food.
"The Cod caught in the narrow waters are inferior to the Atlantic fish. There are, however, certain outlying banks upon which they are found abundantly, of a quality, it is said, approaching, if not fully equal to, the last.
"The Halibut attains upon this Coast a very high degree of perfection. On the outer shore of Queen Charlotte's Island, especially, it is found of a very large size; frequently exceeding 100 pounds in weight, and not unseldom, I am assured, of twice that size. Caught with the hook, these fish are dried in large quantities by the natives, especially of the more northerly parts of the Coast.
"To these may be added the Smelt, the Rock-cod, the Flounder, Whiting, and a host of others, with which, in season, the markets of Victoria are constantly supplied -- chiefly through the industry of Italian fishermen, who appear here to enjoy a prescriptive monopoly of the trade. Oysters are very abundant. those dredged near Victoria are of small size, but well flavoured; northward in the vicinity of Comox, a large sample is procured. Of Cockles, Mussels, and other shell-fish there is a copious supply.
"Crabs and prawns are not wanting; but there are no Lobsters, save a small kind found in fresh-water streamlets. Oil-producing fish such as the Ground-shark and the Dog-fish, are common to the whole Coast: the latter so abundant as to give lucrative employment to many fishermen and afford a boundless resource prospectively to others. Of the Phocidae, the Hair-seal is the most numerous; while the fur-seal, the Sea-lion, &c, are found chiefly on the outer shores.
"The Whale fishery has of late attracted much attention, and has been prosecuted with a certain degree of success; though, from want of experience, probably, less than one might have been justified in expecting. On the outer Coast Whales of the larges description are numerous; which, by the native inhabitants, who combine in parties for the purpose, are harpooned and captured by an ingenious process which it is unnecessary here to describe. In the inland waters of the archipelago a variety known as the Humpbacked Whale is very numerous. These yield from 30 to 50 barrels, or more, of oil; and so far have been killed by the whaling-parties with the harpoon-gun and shell. Many wounded victims, however, through some mismanagement of detail/ or perhaps unavoidably under the system, have thus escaped. The system, however, from its assumed wastfulness is, I am informed, declared illegal by the general laws of the Dominion: in which case it will of course be interdicted, and give place to other schemes less liable to objection. On the whole the pursuit of whales in these waters, vigorously prosecuted, with a competent knowledge of the business, will doubtless prove ere long a lucrative and extensive branch of the Provincial industries."
Anderson became the Dominion of Canada's Inspector of Fisheries in 1876, and continued in that position until his death in 1884. His fisheries reports are fascinating reading, filled with facts and descriptions of some of the fisheries. But those I will leave for future reports; you must be satisfied with this listing of fresh and salt water fish for now.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
The North Columbia Monthly, newspaper
Jack Nisbet has just sent me an email to let me know that his next column for the North Columbia Monthly is about Alexander Caulfield Anderson and The Pathfinder.
The article isn't on the newspaper's site yet, he says it will be posted in a few days time.
The newspaper's web-address is at www.northcolumbiamonthly.com, and Jack's articles are found under "Jack Nisbet's Boundaries," at the left hand side of the page.
The Royal Engineers who attended the Hope talk might also want to check out his series of articles, as there are a number written about Royal Engineers John Keist Lord, and a little more about Lieutenant Anderson.
Other articles are about David Thompson, of course, and David Douglas.
Here is the link: The North Columbia Monthly
The article isn't on the newspaper's site yet, he says it will be posted in a few days time.
The newspaper's web-address is at www.northcolumbiamonthly.com, and Jack's articles are found under "Jack Nisbet's Boundaries," at the left hand side of the page.
The Royal Engineers who attended the Hope talk might also want to check out his series of articles, as there are a number written about Royal Engineers John Keist Lord, and a little more about Lieutenant Anderson.
Other articles are about David Thompson, of course, and David Douglas.
Here is the link: The North Columbia Monthly
The Speech at Hope, British Columbia
I have been quiet for a while, partly because speeches take time to write, edit and time, and power-point.
For this talk I had a number of maps to show so that people could follow the story -- and they worked. They showed to the back of the room and everyone could see them!
That is an improvement over my talk at Victoria Historical Society, where Anderson's maps did not show well beyond the front row.
I have said many times that this whole experience is a learning experience, and learning what works on Power Point is part of the learning experience.
As you may or may not know, the original talk was scheduled for last week -- but we had snow.
We thought that we would never make it to the ferry and even if we did, how would we be able to drive up the Fraser Valley?
Well, the talk was postponed: Hope got a ton of snow that buried them and the upper Fraser Valley was also inundated.
This week the weather was fine, and the journey up the valley really easy.
The talk was held at the Blue Moose Cafe, and we set up the maps on easels so people could see them, and posted a copy (not the good copy) of Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia on the wall at the back of the room.
The lighting wasn't wonderful, but it did give people an opportunity to see some of his maps.
We began on time at 7pm., and the room was pretty full, but people kept coming in until the room was jammed. I think all the chairs were filled and staff brought out a few more chairs from the back.
So here is what I said:
"Thank you, I am glad to be amongst a group of people who know who Alexander Caulfield anderson was, and what part he played in your history.
He has been forgotten by many, and when I started to write this book some ten years ago, my reason for putting his story together was to have him remembered -- to tell his story.
Over the years my reasons changed, and when I was finished I realized that I wanted to know who he was -- what kind of man he was.
It had become a very personal project.
"I will try to show a little of who he was in this talk, but for the most part I will be talking about what he and the other fur traders did. You will have to read the book to find out what kind of man I discovered."
The image I showed at this time was Alexander Caulfield Anderson at the age of 60 some-odd years old. As I wrote the book this was the image I had in my head, and I always had to correct the image because when he was exploring the Fraser River, or riding over the brigade trails, he was a little over thirty years of age.
"Historians have always known who AC was -- he is the Hudson's Bay Company fur trader who, in the mid-1840's, threaded his way through mountain passes and down rapid filled rivers in search of a horse-friendly trail through the rugged country that separated the Kamloops fort from Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser River.
He uncovered two rough trails, both of which might be made suitable as a horse trail, to be used in a few years time and after a great deal of work was done to improve the trail bed.
"However, unbeknownst to the fur traders -- at the same time Anderson was exploring for a new route, a creeping illness sickened the Natives all along the lower Columbia River.
"The presence of this pestilence would, without warning, change the fur trade and force the traders to bring out their furs by one of Anderson's unimproved trails.
"The 1848 brigade over the first of Anderson's trails was an impossibly difficult journey, and that of 1849 little better. However, they attempted Anderson's second trail on their return journey and, to everyone's surprise, the trail worked reasonably well.
With a lot of work, that trail became the first good road into the interior of what would eventually become British Columbia -- as you know I am speaking of the Coquihalla brigade trail that runs east of Hope over the range of mountains behind us.
"In this talk I am going to tell you some of the stories of these difficult years, beginning with Anderson's cross-country expeditions in 1846 and 1847, and ending with the establishment of Fort Hope in winter, 1848, and the construction of the brigade trail you are so familiar with.
"The fur trade had an annual cycle that centered around the brigades, when furs gathered every winter were carried out to their headquarters on the coast -- that is, Fort Vancouver (Vancouver, WA) -- to be shipped to London and sold.
Every year between 1824 and 1860, the New Caledonia men brought out their furs by canoe of boat -- beginning at Fort St. James and coming downriver through Fort George [Prince George] to Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser River north of Williams Lake.
At Fort Alexandria the men paused to load their ninety pound packs of furs onto packhorses and crossed the rugged Thompson plateau to the North Thompson River. Crossing that river to its east bank, they rode south to their fort at Kamloops.
"South of Kamloops their trail led over the hills to Monte Lake, the north end of Okanagan Lake, down the west shore of that lake to the Okanagan River. It passed west of Osooyos Lake and down the American Okanogan valley, reaching the Columbia River at Fort Okanogan. This section of the trail was first used two hundred years ago, and remained in regular use until 1848 -- when everything changed.
"At Fort Okanogan, the fur traders loaded their furs into boats and headed downriver. Their first stop was at Fort Nez Perce [Walla Walla]. East of Fort Nez Perce was Waiilatpu -- a mission set up by American missionaries amongst the Natives. In 1848, the Waiilatpu Mission would play an important role in the history of the brigade trails.
"From Fort Nez Perce the fur traders continued south and west to their headquarters at Fort Vancouver, reaching it in early June. They departed in July for Fort Okanogan, carrying their trade goods into the interior forts. By August they approached Fort Alexandria and everyone rushed out of the fort to help them the last miles home. In September they reached Fort St. James, where they had begun their journey five months earlier.
"In 1842, Anderson entered New Caledonia for a second time, to take charge of Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser River. He travelled north over a newly opened trail that cut off the rocky traverse over the Thompson plateau.
The trail led from the Kamloops fort, across the north shore of the lake to Copper Creek, over various ridges to the Deadman River, and -- avoiding the bogs along the Bonaparte River -- continued north west to the north end of Loon Lake and the south end of Green Lake."
At this point I should have paused to explain that the illustrations I was showing were taken from Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia, and were not geographically accurate. Lakes appeared larger or smaller than they actually were, and streams might have flowed in different places that they actually ran. But I think it did not matter too much....
"Somewhere east off Lac la Hache it joined the old brigade trail that led west to Fort Alexandria. In 1842 Anderson might have been the first gentleman to ride the trail, and in 1843 he led the two hundred horses of the brigade out over the new trail to Kamloops.
"Now that we have covered the background of the trails, I will tell you of Anderson's four cross-country expeditions in 1846 and 1847, and explain the international forces that caused the fur traders such anxiety over these years.
Long before 1840, the boundary line between the United States and British territories had been established from Canada, along the 49th parallel to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains.
Now the British and American governments were negotiating the placement of the line west of the Rockies -- between what they called the Oregon Territory and the so-called British territory occupied by the fur traders [and Natives].
The HBC men hoped the line would follow the Columbia River to the Pacific, leaving everything north of the river in Hudson's Bay Company hands.
"Even at isolated Fort Alexandria, Anderson heard the rumours; he thought the line might continue to follow the 49th parallel west, and if it did, he knew the fur traders would eventually require a trail to Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser, from whence they could ship their furs to London.
He wrote a letter to the Governor of the Company offering to explore for a new route, and the Governor immediately accepted his offer.
"It was 1846. The fur traders already knew they could not reach Fort Langley by boat through the two rapid-filled canyons (Hell's Gate and Black Canyon) that blocked the Fraser River between Kamloops and Fort Langley.
But they also knew that the Natives from above Hell's Gate traded at Fort Langley, and that the Sto:lo on the lower Fraser travelled north past those canyons -- there must therefore be a trail around the two canyons, and Anderson was expected to find it.
"The fur traders had certain requirements for their trails. The country must provide good grass and water for the horses, and the trail bed must be solid enough underfoot that two hundred heavily laden packhorses could pass over in safety both ways. Switchbacks were needed on steep slopes to allow the horses to clamber safety up and down, and safe fords or bridges must be provided if the horses crossed deep creeks in the high waters of early summer. Nor can horses travel through deep snow -- though Anderson probably thought he would not have to worry about that problem this summer!
"In 1846 Anderson left Kamloops and followed well known Native trails to Marble Canyon, the Fraser River, and down the Fraser to the north side of Fountain Ridge. He left his horses behind at the Fountain and crossed the Fraser, walking down its west bank to the mouth of Seton River. He and his men followed the north shores of Seton and Anderson Lakes and crossed various heights of land until they reached Lillooet River, where they hired Native canoemen to bring him and his men downriver to Fort Langley.
"An anthropologist who does research among the Lil'wat people who live on today's Lillooet River, collected a story from one woman, who said her many-times-great-grandmother, as a child, had been hidden away by her parents because "strangers were coming downriver." He figured out the generations and thought the story had taken place about 1850 -- close enough to 1846 for it to have possibly been Anderson's descent of the Lillooet River."
The image I then was a photograph of the Coquihalla mountains from Fort Langley. "Picture, if you will, Chief Trader James Murray Yale, and Alexander Caulfield Anderson, standing on the edge of the Fraser and discussing a Native trail that ran through or around this range of mountains, ending in the area around the river that the fur traders called the Similkameen [the Tulameen River]. Within a day or so, Yale's guide led Anderson upriver to the mouth of the Coquihalla.
None of Anderson's maps show well on power point, and so I showed a map, which I drew, taken from the map in A.C. Anderson's original Journal of Exploration. "The red line leading from the left up the Coquihalla and Nicolum Rivers is Anderson's path.
From the mouth of the Coquihalla River, Anderson and his men followed the river east, up "a broad valley watered by a considerable stream, which we keep upon our right... pasture about the banks of the main river: wild pea, prele, etc., in moderate sufficiency for the temporary sojourn of the brigade. Burnt woods as we proceed; two small lakes...."
"Where the Coquihalla turned north they crossed the river on a logjam of driftwood, and followed the Nicolum east. He wrote: "The opposite mountains which bound the valley approach very closely here, and the Indian track (scarcely perceptible by the way) is very bad, though with a good deal of labour it might be rendered available..." Late in the day: "Fine pasture for horses and abundant... our Progress meanwhile very slow owing to the miserable travelling of our Indian assistants... the country from our encampment to this point has been very favourable for a horse-road; and since breakfast remarkably so for a woody country."
"In the Summalo River valley he wrote: "Fall in at the last crossing with an Indian from the Forks of Thompson's River who is hunting Beaver in this neighbourhood. As he appears to possess a knowledge of the country superior to our other pseudo-guides, who are miserably at a loss, I have engaged him under the promise of some ammunition and tobacco to accompany us for a day or two."
"Two days later they reached the place where the Thompson's River Native had indicated his trail up the mountain: "Breakfast at 6, at the spot where the Indian track from the lake [Council's Punch Bowl Lake] .. . descends. It is said to be very short and must evidently be so, but is at present thickly covered with snow, and the ascent appears, moreover, to be too steep for horses to go up with loads. A beautiful Rhododendron, with splendid crimson flowers now in bloom abounds in this vicinity..."
"They have reached the northernmost grove of the California Rhododendron, at Rhododendron Flats in Manning Park -- the only place in British Columbia where these flowers grow wild. When I was writing this part of the story I pictured a clump or clumps of garden-type rhododendron growing on an open mountainside slope, in the sunshine! You can imagine my surprise when I walked into the woods at Rhododendron Flats. Within short order I found a sort of salal-like plant growing quite tall and spindly, and eventually I realized that these bushes were the rhododendron I was looking for. It was early June when I was there, and the last few petals were still clinging to the branches -- when Anderson passed through this grove the flowers were still in full bloom.
"The place became even more magical when, out of curiosity, I sent an image of one of the pages of Anderson's Latin Bible, to see if my naturalist friend could identify the leaves that Anderson had stored in that Bible. The naturalist lived in Washington State, and he sent it on to other naturalist friends, and together they suggested that the leaves belonged to the rhododendron -- their state flower. None of these people had any idea that Anderson, in 1846, had walked through the northernmost grove of the California Rhododendron at Rhododendron Flats.
"I haven't been able to DNA test the leaves to confirm they are California Rhododendron, but I believe they are. I am confident that Anderson carried his Latin Bible with him everywhere -- and certainly on his 1846 exploration through Rhododendron Flats. I also believe that photographing all the flowers and leaves in his Bible might be an interesting project -- another chapter in the next book I will write about Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
"From somewhere near Rhododendron Flats, Anderson and his men climbed the south side of Coquihalla. Anderson's journal says this:
"We here leave the river; strike up East, bending round northward towards the height of land. The name of the little stream we have left is Sk-haist; implying, it is said, "A peak standing between two ridges." [He wrote this at the top of the mountains, after they left the stream they had followed up the wide mountain pass.]
"At noon reached the summit of the mountain pass. The ascent is very gentle, and perfectly clear of impediment throughout the greater part; frequent fires having destroyed the timber that heretofore encumbered the ground. Upon nearing the summit of the pass, a few occasional snowdrifts witnessed or elevated position, but up to that point there was nothing of the kind to impeded the passage of horses. But alas! On reaching the summit a dreary prospect met the view. The whole surface of the valley, as well as of the confining mountains, was white with accumulated snow...."
"The men stopped on the shoreline of a little lake they found there -- a lake Anderson named Council's Punch Bowl. All the time I was looking at Anderson's maps, I did not know what Anderson's Tree was -- and yet Anderson's Tree [southeast of Council's Punch Bowl Lake] appeared on three of his maps. James, his son, also commented on the tree in his Memoirs -- when he wrote that the lake called Council's Punch Bowl was commemorated by a marked tree.
"Then I picked up Carolyn Poduchny's book, "Making the Voyageur Wold: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade." In this book, I ran across a section on Maypole Trees, sometimes called lobsticks. This is what the book says:
""Theatre and Maypoles -- the quotation that begins this chapter illustrates a striking performance of the master and servant relationship in the fur trade... Voyageurs selected a tall tree standing out on a lake, "lobbed" off all its branches except for those at the very top, carved into the trunk's base the name of the bourgeois, clerk, or passenger to be honoured, and gathered round the maypoles to cheer and fire muskets. The honouree then provided regales, or treats, to all the brigade.
"From this I came to realize that Anderson's Tree might be a Maypole tree. This was an honor granted to very few men west of the mountains; and no fur trader ever saw Anderson's Tree after he and his men walked away from it. But Anderson knew it was there, and I believe he marked the tree on his maps so that he, if no one else, would remember the honor."
At the end of the evening or in the break one gentleman told me that the fur traders often marked a height of land with a squared tree -- that is the bottom part of the tree blazed or hacked into a square. That might also be what Anderson's Tree is. We will never know because the tree is long dead, but it changes little. It is a variety of a maypole tree. I wonder if the Hope Mountain group has found squared trees on the top of the mountain????
"From Council's Punch Bowl Lake, the men left the height of land and encamped on the east bank of the stream which Anderson thought was a tributary of the Similkameen. From Anderson's journal: "The river bends round very gradually towards East, receiving several tributaries of some magnitude from left side; others of inferior consideration upon that on which we are travelling. Upon most of these we find drift trees to serve out purpose; but have occasionally to fell a tree for a bridge."
"Eventually they crossed the mainstream of the Tulameen on another logjam, and Anderson wrote: "Altogether our bridge was a tremulous and marvellously unsteady affair; and my mind was relieved of no small degree of anxiety when I saw the whole party safely across. The old proverb tells us to 'bless the bridge which carries us safe over,' and I say not do less than this, our friend in need, however dubious its pretension to security."
"From the north base of the Coquihalla, the party proceeded about six miles when the met "Old Blackeye, the Similkameen, and his son in law, on their way to visit their deer snares." Blackeye told Anderson of a Native trail that led across the mountains to the meadows where the Rhododendron grew -- or at least that is what Anderson understood. "He states that it is a wide and good road, with plenty of pasturage at the proper season; and that but for the depth of the snow we could not have missed seeing it after crossing the height of lands..."
"Anderson returned to Kamloops and Fort Alexandria. Early the next spring, Peter Skene Ogden sent clerk, Montrose McGillivray, north with a message for Anderson, and instructions to explore the banks of the Fraser River for a snow-free trail between Kamloops and Fort Langley.
"When he left Kamloops, Anderson already knew about the newly opened Similkameen trail from the Fraser River to the Nicola Valley; it had been arranged that Blackeye show him the trail. [We are not talking about the trail up the Coquihalla -- this was a different Similkameen trail.] Anderson had also viewed Sam Black's 1835 map of the Thompson's River district at Kamloops, and noted that Black had marked the range of hills the trail was supposed to cross, with the words: "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts."
"From the Nicola Valley, Anderson rode to the mouth of the Nicola River and, leaving his horses behind, crossed the river in borrowed canoes. He and his men walked down the south bank of the Thompson River toward modern-day Lytton, where they met their Sto:lo guide, Pahallak.
"Pahallak guided Anderson's party down the east bank of the Fraer, and one day later they reached the Native settlement that Anderson called Squa-zowm, about where Boston Bar stands today. This was where the newly opened Similkameen trail was supposed to begin, and Blackeye's son joined Anderson's party there (if he hadn't joined them earlier), and showed the fur traders his new trail up the mountains behind Squa-zowm.
"Somewhere up the mountainside, at a place suddenly familiar to two of Anderson's men, they paused. Anderson's employees assured him that, from this place, there already existed a trail that would take them all the way to the Nicola Valley.
"Now Anderson had only to find his way south to Fort Langley, past Hell's Gate and Black Canyons and the miles of rapid-filled river north of modern day Yale. From the mainstream of the Squa-zowm River, the Natives led Anderson's party up a cliff climbing trail that took them to the top of Lake Mountain, where another long sloping trail led them southward to a Native village called Kequeloose, on the Fraser River south of the two canyons.
"From there they crossed the Fraser and made their way downriver -- with some difficulties -- until they were able to borrow canoes to bring them to Fort Langley. Anderson's party of fur traders and Native guides immediately returned up the canyons bringing two unloaded boats to Kequeloose -- again with some difficulties -- and he followed his Natives guides up over Lake Mountain and up the trail to the Nicola Valley, on foot.
"As they reached the open grasslands of Nicola Valley, Anderson wrote a letter of instruction to Montrose McGillivray: "The chief part of our survey being now completed, I propose entrusting to your care the further charge of the party.... Therefore you will proceed to [Fort] Okanagan with the horses, accompanied by the men herein named -- Fallardeau, Lacourse, and Desautel remain with you. Also Nkwala's nephew, Blackeye's son, and Laronetumleun -- the last as interpreter.""
At this point I put up the colour image of Tsilaxitsa, which is black and white in the book. I don't know if anyone else enjoys this portrait as much as I do, but I think he is beautiful.
"In later years Anderson wrote that he rode many miles with Nkwala's nephew, Tsilaxitsa, who was to become the most prominent Okanagan chief of his time. Both Tsilaxitsa and Blackeye's son were on Anderson's expedition up and down the Fraser River to Fort Langley; and I suspect that both these Native men, and others who remain forever unnamed, regularly worked for the fur traders -- helping them to take out their furs and to bring in the trade goods.
[pause] "About the time Anderson was making his 1847 exploration down and up the Fraser River, measles, which had come north with Natives who traded for horses in California, began to spread through the district around Fort Nez Perce on the lower Columbia River. Measles is an illness that spreads in crowded conditions, and Natives gathered in large numbers around the Waiilatpu Mission, east of Fort Nez Perce. Many Natives died -- so many that the Cayuse chiefs became convinced that the missionary was intentionally killing them with poison.
"When the missionary failed a test they set for him, the Cayuse swarmed into the mission house, slaughtering fourteen residents and taking many hostages.
"When news of the massacre reached Fort Vancouver, Peter Skene Ogden travelled east up the Columbia River to purchase the hostages and settle the tribes. The end result of the massacre at Waiilatpu was the Cayuse Wars that erupted up and down the Columbia River, making it no longer safe for travel. The gentlemen at Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria instructed the men of New Caledonia, Kamloops and Fort Colvile (on the Columbia River near Spokane) to bring out their furs by one of Anderson's unimproved trails.
"It was 1848, and the trail they chose to use was the Squa-zowm River trail over Lake Mountain (through Sam Black's "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts"). James Douglas travelled to the Fraser to assess how easy it would be to travel downriver to the new Fort Yale. He was horrified by the river rapids, and discovering a rough passage that led through a rift in the rocks on the west side of the river, he ordered that a good road be built through it. This was the Douglas portage, north of modern day Yale. [I imagine the modern-day highway runs, more or less, through the old Douglas portage.]
"Before 1848, a typical brigade consisted of about 200 horses. The gentlemen rode at the head of the column, and behind them came the many individual brigades of heavily laden pack horses. In normal years, each string, or brigade, of seven to nine horses was in the care of two men responsible both for the horses and the loads they carried.
"But in 1848, close to four hundred horses -- including many unbroken animals -- came out in the hands of fifty men, many of whom would not be returning with the brigades. The outgoing brigade left Kamloops in late May and travelled over the hills south of the fort before following the Coldwater River west. They crossed the plateau and rounded the range of hills before dropping down the west side of the ridge to the Squa-zowm River, which they now called Anderson's River.
"Then up the cliffs to the top of Lake Mountain where they passed Hell's Gate and Black Canyon -- down the long sloping trail to the village at Kequeloose and downriver to Spuzzum Creek, where they crossed their loads in "barges" that were difficult to handle and drowned some of their horses. They arrived at Fort Yale in early June, and Anderson wrote: "It is needless to enumerate the difficulties which we had to encounter and surmount; suffice it to say that we continued to reach Fort Yale, which had meanwhile been established, and thence ran down speedily to Langley."
"The outgoing brigades had carried out packs of furs and castoreum -- the incoming brigades would now carry in trade goods such as packs of iron goods and axe heads, balls and black powder and flints for flintlock guns, salt, and tobacco in 90 pound rolls or in carrots.
"The brigades would also return with fewer men -- nine men sent out with the Fort Colvile crew returned to Fort Vancouver and three or more men deserted at Fort Langley. But a young gentleman named Henry Newsham Peers joined the brigade as Donald Manson's clerk, and he kept a journal of the trip in."
Peers' journal is full of information about the incoming brigade and quite delightful to read; it is found in the BC Archives somewhere. I inherited my copy from my uncle, Elton Anderson, one of the two people to whom this book is dedicated -- before he died Elton did a tremendous amount of research on his grandfather, A.C. Anderson, which I inherited. I guess that is what started me off on this project.....
"They started off from Fort Langley, and Anderson travelled in the first cluster of four boats, with five more to come under Donald Manson's command. Anderson later described the up-river journey to Yale: "Hitherto, bateaux of about three burthern have been employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, for transport below the Falls [at Yale] -- a slow method when the water is high, as the ascent can then be effected only by warping along shore, with the aid of Indian canoes to pass the lines. By this tedious process, an ascent was made during the freshet of 1848, to the foot of the Falls, in eight days; under ordinary circumstances, it would occupy five."
"From Peers' journal, on passing over the Douglas portage north of Fort Yale: "I and Mr. Manson left Ft. Yale on the 2nd August with the last trip 30 horses to rejoin Mr. Anderson at the other end; We got on very well on the portage with the exception of a couple of horses falling in the ascent of the big hill & some little confusion in a swampy part of the road rendered worse than its original state by the frequent passing & repassing of horses. There is a pretty gradual ascent (one stiff hill intervening) as far as Douglas' River where there is a steep descent of about 700 feet to a bridge & and somewhat steeper though shorter ascent on the opposite side of this ravine, thence a level road till within a miles of Spuzzum River or Simon's House where the road descends pretty gradually to that place -- we were about three hours coming across & encamped on the south side of the Fraser River."
"Peers tells us that they remained about three days at Simon's House, crossing horses and loads to the east bank of the Fraser. Then they started north, "with some 500 & upwards pieces of goods in 15 brigades, each brigade having 18 & some a greater number of horses to 2 men." [A normal brigade has seven to nine horses to two men.]
"They travelled about six miles up the banks of the Fraser and, as Peers says, "encamped at the foot of Big Hill where the road leaves Fraser River, many of brigades only arriving when pitch dark and consequently great confusion from horses straying with their loads and so fort; several fell down a steep hill on nearing the encampment... from weakness, threw their loads & a bale was swept off in the river before it could be seized & one animal killed." This was at Kequeloose, at the bottom of the big hill that led them up Lake Mountain.
"Peers' journal continues the next day: "Rainy weather -- this morning Jacob Ballenden was found dead near the encampment with his gun discharged by his side, shot through the heart. It is supposed he committed suicide. The day was spent in collecting strayed horses with their loads and all found but 6 pieces and another horse killed. A war party of the Chute Indians against those of Anderson's River passed the camp and created some little alarm... Nothing I may say here for the horses to feed on."
"The brigades climbed Lake Mountain and descended the cliffs on the other side to Anderson's River, and Peers records: "Some of the rear brigades got on very badly and 80 pieces were found deficient... Remained here today till the lost pieces should be brought in all of which were rendered but 2 bales."
"They began the climb from Anderson's River to the top of the hills via Utzlius Creek, eventually reaching "a small patch of thinly wooded ground in which had been constructed a miserable horse-park. Two or three of the rear brigades arrived when quite dark and many horses necessarily strayed away before they could be freed from their loads, passing the night with the rest in the woods under a heavy thunder storm with little or nothing to eat."
"Peers also makes mention of the work the Natives did, in helping the fur traders bring in their supplies: "The pieces all but two or three were recovered after much searching and order was again restored. The Indians who had been employed for the last four days in searching for and bringing lost goods to the camp were paid off and seemed satisfied although there is some doubt as to their honesty."
"The next day the fur traders camped five miles from the top of the hill, and men in the latter brigades went without supper [the provisioning brigades were at the head of the brigade]. On the following day Anderson rode ahead, while Manson sent Natives out to search for more packs. At the end of the day the fur traders found they were still missing: "six bags salt, two bags of ball and two rolls of Tobacco." [from this list you can perhaps understand the fur traders' suspicions, above] Each of these bags and rolls weighed ninety pounds.
"Anderson sent fresh horses back to Manson and Peers, and Peers reported that "the early part of today was devoted to catching and loading young horses, about which some time was wasted." The next afternoon Manson and Peers caught up to Anderson's brigades on the Coldwater River. They reached Kamloops on August 22nd, and the gentlemen held a meeting to discuss the trail.
"The hot-tempered Manson reported: "We have tested [the trail's] advantages and disadvantages thoroughly, and I have no hesitation in declaring it utterly impracticable for a large brigade such as ours. The rugged, rocky mountainous and thickly wooded country which lies between Fraser River and the plains, ... is, in my opinion, sufficient in itself to condemn this route." [I mentioned that there was a Donald Manson descendant in the room, who was probably enjoying this description of his bad-tempered ancestor.]
"This route was far too difficult, and the gentlemen agreed that the snow-covered trail over the Coquihalla must be tried. they sent Henry Peers with Edouard Montigny, one of Anderson's men, to Blackeye's camp, to ask that he show them his trail to the top of the Coquihalla.
"Historians have spent a lot of time puzzling over how Henry Newsham Peers chose the trail across the plateau, especially as it in no way followed Anderson's 1846 exploration. Anderson himself expected that Blackeye's trail would end up on the south side of the mountain, at Rhododendron Flats. But it did not.
"Peers' actual guide was Blackeye's son, who took them up his father's trail to the top of the plateau, and then guided them due west, across the mountaintop, to a stream he called So-aqua. He point out his trail down the west side of the mountain, by streams that immediately came to be called Peers' Creek and the Coquihalla River. Peers and Montigny followed the streams to the Fraser, where they borrowed canoes from the Natives and made their way to Fort Langley.
"In October 1848, James Douglas wrote to John Tod of Kamloops: "In consequence of the very unfavourable report we have received from Messrs. Manson and Anderson of their last Summer's route, we have come to the determination of opening a New Road recommended by Mr. Peers after a very careful survey. Leaving Fraser's River, it follows successively the valleys of the Quequealla, Peers and the Soaqua Rivers, from thence crossing the dividing ridge into the Similkameen valley, where it falls upon Mr. Anderson's track of 1846 and follows it to Thompson's River.
"Mr. Peers will be despatched with ten men in a few days hence to commence operations at the mouth of the Quequealla, where we intend to establish a small Post for the convenience of parties passing to and from Thompson's River and at the same time he will proceed in opening the road with the assistance of all the Indians that can be mustered, and we hope to have it made as far as the snowy region before the Winter sets in.... He is particularly desirous that Blackeye's son, the Indian who accompanied him a part of the way on his late Journey to this place and left him at the head of the Soaqua, should be sent to meet him at that point, as without such assistance he will not be able to find his way into the Similkameen Valley... With that Indian you will please despatch Montigny and as many whites and Indians as you can muster to open the road from the plains of the Similkameen to the Soaqua Valley, following the line of road Mr. Peers pointed out to Montigny as being the best adapted for horse-transport, as early in the spring as the snow will admit...."
"You will notice that Edouard Montigny is already on the north side of the mountain; I am also amused to notice that Peers, a relative newcomer to the fur trade, says he pointed out to the experienced Montigny the road "best adapted for horse-transport." Peers had almost no wilderness experience, having worked at Fort Vancouver in the mill and for a short time in charge at Fort George [Astoria].
"Peers was placed in charge of building Fort Hope, and the fort did get built. But no work was done on the trail over the winter of 1848-49, though that was not Peers' fault. Snow began to fall early in the season and it kept falling and the trail up the Coquihalla River was buried under deep drifts of snow and remained that way all winter. The heavy snow fell on the forts in the interior, too -- at Kamloops and Fort Colvile at least. Though the snowfall was good news for the fur trade, it killed so many horses in the interior that the fur traders now worried about having enough animals to carry out their furs in the spring. Still, the furs must go out -- but because the fur traders had no idea how much snow might lie on the top of the Coquihalla, they decided to go out, once more, by the Anderson River trail they had used in summer 1848.
"Alexander Caulfield Anderson was now in charge at Fort Colvile, and he rode north to Kamloops -- not through the Similkameen as I said in the book -- but by the old brigade trail up Okanagan Lake and through Monte Lake. As he waited for the brigades to load at Kamloops, he sat on the hilltop above the fort and sketched the unfinished watercolour and pencil drawing of Kamloops, contained in the book.
"From Kamloops, the combined brigades came out, once again, by the Anderson River trail, and it took them ten days to reach Fort Langley. At the fort, Anderson quickly loaded his goods into the boats and pushed his men upriver to Fort Hope, to begin work on the new trail.
"On their way downriver, Donald Manson had asked Anderson to remain behind at Fort Hope to open the trail, but Anderson had refused to do so. Now, when the packhorses that had been sent over the mountain from Kamloops finally arrived at Fort Hope, Anderson told Manson of his decision to leave Fort Hope with his men and horses, without doing any more work to improve the trail. The two gentlemen exchanged "high words."
"The Fort Colvile men found the passage over the mountain easy even though the trail was unfinished; they continued their journey to Fort Colvile via the Similkameen Valley, Osoyoos Lake, Anarchist Mountain and the Kettle River, which they followed south to reach the Columbia River a few miles from Fort Colvile.
"I believe Anderson had already considered the possibility that he could cross the mountains a second time that summer, and that is why he left Fort Hope as soon as he could. From Fort Colvile, Anderson sent his men back for the remainder of his goods, left behind because of the shortage of horses. Because Fort St. James was so far north, Donald Manson did not have that option, and could not make a second journey to Hope. He left much of his supplies behind, and the shortage of trade goods plagued him the entire year afterwards.
"A few weeks after Anderson left Fort Colvile, reports of his argument with Manson reached the ears of Peter Skene Ogden at Fort Vancouver, who arranged that the Fort Colvile brigades, and those from New Caledonia, arrive at Fort Hope separately. Every year, James Douglas travelled to Fort Langley to supervise the brigades' arrival, because, as Peter Skene Ogden wrote, "without a conductor the gentlemen are not competent to conduct their own affairs, trifling as they are, and a separation is absolutely necessary as Pugilistic affairs between the two leaders is not exactly the proper mode of conduct in Brigades in the presence of the Company's servants."
Neither Manson nor Anderson would have called their affairs "trifling." Their return journey over the mountains were at all times difficult. Stress levels were high, the work was hard and there were sometimes heavy losses, and the pay was low. They worried about having enough men to do the work the fur trade demanded -- fewer good men were joining the fur trade and the quality and quantity of men that reached the Columbia district and New Caledonia was in constant decline. Moreover, at Fort Langley, many voyageurs attempted to desert the fur trade and make their way south to the California gold fields now in full swing.
"I found a good description of the trail over the Coquihalla, written that year by the acting-Governor for the HBC, Eden Colvile, who rode over it a few months after the brigade had crossed it. Among other things he suggested, "It will be necessary to send a party of men from each end of the road to cut all the fallen timber, as it is very fatiguing to the loaded horses to be continually stepping over these fallen trees, & thirdly, ditches should be cut through the swamps, & where requisite, logs & brush laid over them, so as to afford firm footing for the horses."
"When the brigades came out in the summer of 1850 they found the trails much improved. From Campement des Femmes at the base of the mountain on its north side, the Fort Colvile brigades followed Blackeye's Trail twelve miles up to Lodestone Lake. Another twelve miles or so brought them to Horseguards Camp on the Tulameen River at Podunk Creek -- where Anderson's exploration of 1846 crossed the brigade trail that resulted from that exploration.
"The next day they camped at Deer Camp, and nineteen miles further on reached Manson's Camp, at the head of Peers' creek. fifteen more miles brought them down Peers Creek and the Coquihalla River into Fort Hope, where they loaded their goods into boats and drifted downriver to Fort Langley.
"In August of that year, James Douglas reported: "I have been to Fort Langley, where the Brigades from the interior arrived safely with the furs between the 15th and 19th July. They crossed the Frasers River ridge without difficulty, the snow being compact enough to support the loaded horses, and Mr. Manson is of the opinion that the passage may be made ten days earlier in the season with perfect safety... The Colvile people reached Fort Langley in seventeen days moderate travelling, and the other Brigades took ten days from Kamloops. The woods have been partially cleared by fire, and grass seed sown at Fort Hope and other points on this road, which will in a short time furnish a sufficiency of food for the horses."
"I will try to give you a little picture of the brigades arriving at Fort Hope, and packing up to leave again: About 1860, a very young Susan Allison saw the horses and described them as "splendid animals, hardy and enduring, with lots of good horse sense." Her description of the brigades' arrival follows: "Sometimes there would be a grand stampede and the pack trains would disrupt. Horses and men could be seen through a misty cloud of dust, madly dashing all over the Hope flat, lassos flying, dogs barking, hens flying for safety anywhere. Suddenly the tempest would subside as fast as it had arisen, the pack boys would emerge from the clouds of dust leading the ring leaders in the stampede...."
"From a Royal Engineer's description of the brigades leaving Fort Colvile in the early 1860's -- these quotes come from John Keast Lord's book, "At Home in the Wilderness: What to Do and How to Do it," published in London some years after he returned home.
""This journey from Colvile to Hope occupies nearly three months for its accomplishment. About the beginning of June preparations commence at Fort Colvile for the Brigade. The horses..., in number about 120 to 150, are brought ... to a spot called the 'Horse guard,' about three miles from the fort, where there is an abundance of succulent grass and a good stream of water.
""Here the animals are taken care of by the trustworthy Indians until their equipment or 'rigging' is ready, which process is at the same time going on at the fort. Here some thirty or forty savages may be seen squatting round the door of the fur-room; some of them are stitching pads and cushions into the wooden frames of the pack-saddles; others are mending the broken frames; a third group is cutting long thongs of raw hide to serve as girths, or to act in lieu of ropes for lashing and tying; and a fourth is making the peltries up into bales, by the aid of a powerful lever press.
""Each bale is the weigh about sixty pounds [I think actually ninety], and the contents to be secured from wet by a wrapper of buffalo-hide, the skin side outermost. This package is then provided with two very strong loops, made from raw hides, for the purpose of suspending it from what are called the 'horns' of the pack-saddle. Two of these bales hung up [one] each side of a horse is a load, and a horse so provided is said to be packed....
"They use no halters, but simply throw a lasso round the animal's neck, with which it is held whilst being packed... Let us imagine a horse lassoed up awaiting the operation of packing. First a sheep or goat's skin, or a piece of buffalo 'robe,' ... called an 'appichimo,' is placed on its back, with the fur or hair next to that of the horse, and is intended to prevent galling.
""Next the pack-saddle is put on... This miserable affair with its two little pillows or pads, tied into the cross trees of woodwork, is girthed with a narrow strap of hide, which often, from the swaying of the load, cuts a regular gash into the poor animal's belly. Next a bale is hung on either side, and the two are loosely fastened together underneath the horse by a strap of raw hide... When all the animals are packed, each of the hands who are to accompany this cavalcade mounts his steed; then waving their lassoos round their heads, and vociferating like demons, they collect the band of packed animals, and drive the lot before them as shepherds do a flock of sheep. The principal trader, as a general rule, takes command of the brigade, the journey being anticipated by both the master and his men as a kind of yearly recurring jubilee."
"To John Keist Lord, an Englishman, the fur trade employees appeared to be Native (and some might have been). By this time many fur trade employees were descendants of the first French Canadian voyageurs and their Native wives. When I researched the men mentioned in Anderson's Fort Alexandria journals, I was amazed to find how many of them were not French Canadian, but Metis. In a later manuscript, Anderson remarked that: "a mixed generation... had sprung up, embodying in a marked degree the paternal characteristics of their origin; and these native voyageurs became at an early period a very useful class."
"By 1850 the new brigade trail was established and successful, though there were still hiccups. Even when the Native wars along the Columbia River quieted and the Fort Colvile men went downriver by boat to Fort Vancouver, the New Caledonia fur traders continued to come out to Fort Hope. There was a reason for this: if they had returned to their old trail down the Columbia River they would have entered American territory and their goods would have been heavily taxed. They had no option: they had to make this trail work for them.
"And the trail did work quite well for them, though the shortage of horses in the interior remained a problem, and June 10th appeared to be the earliest day in the year they could begin their journey over the Coquihalla trail.
"In 1851, "A party of ten men, under the direction of Mr. Peter Ogden [Peter Skene Ogden's son], were employed upon the new road for nearly two months ..., and made many substantial improvements. They cleared the points of wood on the whole route between [Fort] Alexandria and Fort Hope, and from the Shimilcomin River they increased the general breadth of road, shortened the bends, levelled or relined the steep ascents by inclined planes, and bridged about 300 yards of boggy ground."
"While I was researching Anderson's part in this trail, I found no mention of the difficulties that Manson's Mountain gave the fur-traders. But in the Fort Victoria letters for the years after 1854, I am finding the fur traders spent anxious years trying to find an alternative piece of trail for the part that descended Manson's Mountain. The first mention is in august 1854, when James Douglas wrote to Paul Fraser: "I am happy to hear that there is a prospect of finding a better road than the present one through Manson's Mountain, and I trust you have succeeded with Mr. Manson's assistance in getting it opened for the passage of the Brigades."
"That new trail was apparently never opened, and a later route that went up the Chilwayook valley was much talked of for a few years, but abandoned when it was finally realized that, "the Chilwayook Lake was enclosed by precipitous rocky hills, apparently inaccessible to horses either in a direct line across their summit or by following the margin of the Lake. We are therefore now about to direct all our strength to improve the existing road by Fort Hope."
"But all of this happened after 1852, when Anderson was no longer riding over the trail, and could not suggest an alternative route -- his pathway down the wide valley that led up the south side of the mountain from the Sumallo River and Rhododendron flats. I don't know if it would have worked as a horse trail: As you know he mentioned in one spot in his journal that the trail appeared too steep for loaded horses, although he later appears to have overcome that objection.
"By 1854, Anderson had retired from the fur trade. He would pop up again in 1858, when he came to Fort Victoria and opened the first highway into the interior over the route of his first exploration via the Lillooet River and Anderson and Seton Lakes (which he then named). By this trail, thousands of eager gold miners accessed the Fraser River gold fields north of the same canyons that had confounded the fur traders in 1848.
"In 1860, the soldiers and engineers of the Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers substantially widened the Harrison trail and turned it into a good wagon road. Then the Royal Engineers carved a good road out of the cliff faces between Yale and Boston Bar, above the rapids that had so troubled the brigades in 1848 and 1849. By autumn 1862 their road reached Lytton, and in 1863 the first Alexandra bridge crossed the Fraser River north of Spuzzum, its eastern end resting near the place where Anderson's men had buried Jacob Ballenden in 1848.
"Also in your part of the world, there are two early trails: the short-lived Whatcom Trail to the goldfields up Snass Creek, and the Dewdney Trail, constructed in 1860 by the Royal Engineers, with the part time help of engineer Edgar Dewdney.
"All of these are important roads, one way or another -- however the most important road was the one that finally brought the fur traders from Kamloops to Fort Hope. What is the fur traders had failed to find a road over these mountains and were never to reach Fort Langley in safety? What impact would that have had on the importance of Fort Victoria and Fort Langley, and how would that have impacted British Columbia's history?
"Historians agree with me. In 1975, our first local historian, Derek Pethic, wrote that Anderson's "discovery of a practical, all-British artery for the fur trade was to have a profound effect on the history of not only British Columbia, but also of Canada itself."
"When I spoke in front of the Victoria Historical Society in November, one of the questions I was asked at the end was -- were these trails now open? Could people hike these trails? I was able to tell them about your organization and the work you were doing in opening these trails. It gave me great pleasure to tell them about your uncovering some of the 150 year old hash-marks the original fur traders had used to mark the trail.
"I want to thank this group -- Hope Mountain Centre -- for the work you have done in preserving our important history. I hope that Hope Mountain continues this work for a long, long time, and that these trails remain open and accessible through the coming years. The American writer William Faulkner, wrote, "The past is never dead. It is not even past." I think that phrase is especially suitable when we are speaking of the Coquihalla brigade trail -- this trail created your town and it is now a part of your future. As a descendant of one of the men who rode over the trail, I want to thank you for your important work."
For this talk I had a number of maps to show so that people could follow the story -- and they worked. They showed to the back of the room and everyone could see them!
That is an improvement over my talk at Victoria Historical Society, where Anderson's maps did not show well beyond the front row.
I have said many times that this whole experience is a learning experience, and learning what works on Power Point is part of the learning experience.
As you may or may not know, the original talk was scheduled for last week -- but we had snow.
We thought that we would never make it to the ferry and even if we did, how would we be able to drive up the Fraser Valley?
Well, the talk was postponed: Hope got a ton of snow that buried them and the upper Fraser Valley was also inundated.
This week the weather was fine, and the journey up the valley really easy.
The talk was held at the Blue Moose Cafe, and we set up the maps on easels so people could see them, and posted a copy (not the good copy) of Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia on the wall at the back of the room.
The lighting wasn't wonderful, but it did give people an opportunity to see some of his maps.
We began on time at 7pm., and the room was pretty full, but people kept coming in until the room was jammed. I think all the chairs were filled and staff brought out a few more chairs from the back.
So here is what I said:
"Thank you, I am glad to be amongst a group of people who know who Alexander Caulfield anderson was, and what part he played in your history.
He has been forgotten by many, and when I started to write this book some ten years ago, my reason for putting his story together was to have him remembered -- to tell his story.
Over the years my reasons changed, and when I was finished I realized that I wanted to know who he was -- what kind of man he was.
It had become a very personal project.
"I will try to show a little of who he was in this talk, but for the most part I will be talking about what he and the other fur traders did. You will have to read the book to find out what kind of man I discovered."
The image I showed at this time was Alexander Caulfield Anderson at the age of 60 some-odd years old. As I wrote the book this was the image I had in my head, and I always had to correct the image because when he was exploring the Fraser River, or riding over the brigade trails, he was a little over thirty years of age.
"Historians have always known who AC was -- he is the Hudson's Bay Company fur trader who, in the mid-1840's, threaded his way through mountain passes and down rapid filled rivers in search of a horse-friendly trail through the rugged country that separated the Kamloops fort from Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser River.
He uncovered two rough trails, both of which might be made suitable as a horse trail, to be used in a few years time and after a great deal of work was done to improve the trail bed.
"However, unbeknownst to the fur traders -- at the same time Anderson was exploring for a new route, a creeping illness sickened the Natives all along the lower Columbia River.
"The presence of this pestilence would, without warning, change the fur trade and force the traders to bring out their furs by one of Anderson's unimproved trails.
"The 1848 brigade over the first of Anderson's trails was an impossibly difficult journey, and that of 1849 little better. However, they attempted Anderson's second trail on their return journey and, to everyone's surprise, the trail worked reasonably well.
With a lot of work, that trail became the first good road into the interior of what would eventually become British Columbia -- as you know I am speaking of the Coquihalla brigade trail that runs east of Hope over the range of mountains behind us.
"In this talk I am going to tell you some of the stories of these difficult years, beginning with Anderson's cross-country expeditions in 1846 and 1847, and ending with the establishment of Fort Hope in winter, 1848, and the construction of the brigade trail you are so familiar with.
"The fur trade had an annual cycle that centered around the brigades, when furs gathered every winter were carried out to their headquarters on the coast -- that is, Fort Vancouver (Vancouver, WA) -- to be shipped to London and sold.
Every year between 1824 and 1860, the New Caledonia men brought out their furs by canoe of boat -- beginning at Fort St. James and coming downriver through Fort George [Prince George] to Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser River north of Williams Lake.
At Fort Alexandria the men paused to load their ninety pound packs of furs onto packhorses and crossed the rugged Thompson plateau to the North Thompson River. Crossing that river to its east bank, they rode south to their fort at Kamloops.
"South of Kamloops their trail led over the hills to Monte Lake, the north end of Okanagan Lake, down the west shore of that lake to the Okanagan River. It passed west of Osooyos Lake and down the American Okanogan valley, reaching the Columbia River at Fort Okanogan. This section of the trail was first used two hundred years ago, and remained in regular use until 1848 -- when everything changed.
"At Fort Okanogan, the fur traders loaded their furs into boats and headed downriver. Their first stop was at Fort Nez Perce [Walla Walla]. East of Fort Nez Perce was Waiilatpu -- a mission set up by American missionaries amongst the Natives. In 1848, the Waiilatpu Mission would play an important role in the history of the brigade trails.
"From Fort Nez Perce the fur traders continued south and west to their headquarters at Fort Vancouver, reaching it in early June. They departed in July for Fort Okanogan, carrying their trade goods into the interior forts. By August they approached Fort Alexandria and everyone rushed out of the fort to help them the last miles home. In September they reached Fort St. James, where they had begun their journey five months earlier.
"In 1842, Anderson entered New Caledonia for a second time, to take charge of Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser River. He travelled north over a newly opened trail that cut off the rocky traverse over the Thompson plateau.
The trail led from the Kamloops fort, across the north shore of the lake to Copper Creek, over various ridges to the Deadman River, and -- avoiding the bogs along the Bonaparte River -- continued north west to the north end of Loon Lake and the south end of Green Lake."
At this point I should have paused to explain that the illustrations I was showing were taken from Anderson's 1867 Map of British Columbia, and were not geographically accurate. Lakes appeared larger or smaller than they actually were, and streams might have flowed in different places that they actually ran. But I think it did not matter too much....
"Somewhere east off Lac la Hache it joined the old brigade trail that led west to Fort Alexandria. In 1842 Anderson might have been the first gentleman to ride the trail, and in 1843 he led the two hundred horses of the brigade out over the new trail to Kamloops.
"Now that we have covered the background of the trails, I will tell you of Anderson's four cross-country expeditions in 1846 and 1847, and explain the international forces that caused the fur traders such anxiety over these years.
Long before 1840, the boundary line between the United States and British territories had been established from Canada, along the 49th parallel to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains.
Now the British and American governments were negotiating the placement of the line west of the Rockies -- between what they called the Oregon Territory and the so-called British territory occupied by the fur traders [and Natives].
The HBC men hoped the line would follow the Columbia River to the Pacific, leaving everything north of the river in Hudson's Bay Company hands.
"Even at isolated Fort Alexandria, Anderson heard the rumours; he thought the line might continue to follow the 49th parallel west, and if it did, he knew the fur traders would eventually require a trail to Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser, from whence they could ship their furs to London.
He wrote a letter to the Governor of the Company offering to explore for a new route, and the Governor immediately accepted his offer.
"It was 1846. The fur traders already knew they could not reach Fort Langley by boat through the two rapid-filled canyons (Hell's Gate and Black Canyon) that blocked the Fraser River between Kamloops and Fort Langley.
But they also knew that the Natives from above Hell's Gate traded at Fort Langley, and that the Sto:lo on the lower Fraser travelled north past those canyons -- there must therefore be a trail around the two canyons, and Anderson was expected to find it.
"The fur traders had certain requirements for their trails. The country must provide good grass and water for the horses, and the trail bed must be solid enough underfoot that two hundred heavily laden packhorses could pass over in safety both ways. Switchbacks were needed on steep slopes to allow the horses to clamber safety up and down, and safe fords or bridges must be provided if the horses crossed deep creeks in the high waters of early summer. Nor can horses travel through deep snow -- though Anderson probably thought he would not have to worry about that problem this summer!
"In 1846 Anderson left Kamloops and followed well known Native trails to Marble Canyon, the Fraser River, and down the Fraser to the north side of Fountain Ridge. He left his horses behind at the Fountain and crossed the Fraser, walking down its west bank to the mouth of Seton River. He and his men followed the north shores of Seton and Anderson Lakes and crossed various heights of land until they reached Lillooet River, where they hired Native canoemen to bring him and his men downriver to Fort Langley.
"An anthropologist who does research among the Lil'wat people who live on today's Lillooet River, collected a story from one woman, who said her many-times-great-grandmother, as a child, had been hidden away by her parents because "strangers were coming downriver." He figured out the generations and thought the story had taken place about 1850 -- close enough to 1846 for it to have possibly been Anderson's descent of the Lillooet River."
The image I then was a photograph of the Coquihalla mountains from Fort Langley. "Picture, if you will, Chief Trader James Murray Yale, and Alexander Caulfield Anderson, standing on the edge of the Fraser and discussing a Native trail that ran through or around this range of mountains, ending in the area around the river that the fur traders called the Similkameen [the Tulameen River]. Within a day or so, Yale's guide led Anderson upriver to the mouth of the Coquihalla.
None of Anderson's maps show well on power point, and so I showed a map, which I drew, taken from the map in A.C. Anderson's original Journal of Exploration. "The red line leading from the left up the Coquihalla and Nicolum Rivers is Anderson's path.
From the mouth of the Coquihalla River, Anderson and his men followed the river east, up "a broad valley watered by a considerable stream, which we keep upon our right... pasture about the banks of the main river: wild pea, prele, etc., in moderate sufficiency for the temporary sojourn of the brigade. Burnt woods as we proceed; two small lakes...."
"Where the Coquihalla turned north they crossed the river on a logjam of driftwood, and followed the Nicolum east. He wrote: "The opposite mountains which bound the valley approach very closely here, and the Indian track (scarcely perceptible by the way) is very bad, though with a good deal of labour it might be rendered available..." Late in the day: "Fine pasture for horses and abundant... our Progress meanwhile very slow owing to the miserable travelling of our Indian assistants... the country from our encampment to this point has been very favourable for a horse-road; and since breakfast remarkably so for a woody country."
"In the Summalo River valley he wrote: "Fall in at the last crossing with an Indian from the Forks of Thompson's River who is hunting Beaver in this neighbourhood. As he appears to possess a knowledge of the country superior to our other pseudo-guides, who are miserably at a loss, I have engaged him under the promise of some ammunition and tobacco to accompany us for a day or two."
"Two days later they reached the place where the Thompson's River Native had indicated his trail up the mountain: "Breakfast at 6, at the spot where the Indian track from the lake [Council's Punch Bowl Lake] .. . descends. It is said to be very short and must evidently be so, but is at present thickly covered with snow, and the ascent appears, moreover, to be too steep for horses to go up with loads. A beautiful Rhododendron, with splendid crimson flowers now in bloom abounds in this vicinity..."
"They have reached the northernmost grove of the California Rhododendron, at Rhododendron Flats in Manning Park -- the only place in British Columbia where these flowers grow wild. When I was writing this part of the story I pictured a clump or clumps of garden-type rhododendron growing on an open mountainside slope, in the sunshine! You can imagine my surprise when I walked into the woods at Rhododendron Flats. Within short order I found a sort of salal-like plant growing quite tall and spindly, and eventually I realized that these bushes were the rhododendron I was looking for. It was early June when I was there, and the last few petals were still clinging to the branches -- when Anderson passed through this grove the flowers were still in full bloom.
"The place became even more magical when, out of curiosity, I sent an image of one of the pages of Anderson's Latin Bible, to see if my naturalist friend could identify the leaves that Anderson had stored in that Bible. The naturalist lived in Washington State, and he sent it on to other naturalist friends, and together they suggested that the leaves belonged to the rhododendron -- their state flower. None of these people had any idea that Anderson, in 1846, had walked through the northernmost grove of the California Rhododendron at Rhododendron Flats.
"I haven't been able to DNA test the leaves to confirm they are California Rhododendron, but I believe they are. I am confident that Anderson carried his Latin Bible with him everywhere -- and certainly on his 1846 exploration through Rhododendron Flats. I also believe that photographing all the flowers and leaves in his Bible might be an interesting project -- another chapter in the next book I will write about Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
"From somewhere near Rhododendron Flats, Anderson and his men climbed the south side of Coquihalla. Anderson's journal says this:
"We here leave the river; strike up East, bending round northward towards the height of land. The name of the little stream we have left is Sk-haist; implying, it is said, "A peak standing between two ridges." [He wrote this at the top of the mountains, after they left the stream they had followed up the wide mountain pass.]
"At noon reached the summit of the mountain pass. The ascent is very gentle, and perfectly clear of impediment throughout the greater part; frequent fires having destroyed the timber that heretofore encumbered the ground. Upon nearing the summit of the pass, a few occasional snowdrifts witnessed or elevated position, but up to that point there was nothing of the kind to impeded the passage of horses. But alas! On reaching the summit a dreary prospect met the view. The whole surface of the valley, as well as of the confining mountains, was white with accumulated snow...."
"The men stopped on the shoreline of a little lake they found there -- a lake Anderson named Council's Punch Bowl. All the time I was looking at Anderson's maps, I did not know what Anderson's Tree was -- and yet Anderson's Tree [southeast of Council's Punch Bowl Lake] appeared on three of his maps. James, his son, also commented on the tree in his Memoirs -- when he wrote that the lake called Council's Punch Bowl was commemorated by a marked tree.
"Then I picked up Carolyn Poduchny's book, "Making the Voyageur Wold: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade." In this book, I ran across a section on Maypole Trees, sometimes called lobsticks. This is what the book says:
""Theatre and Maypoles -- the quotation that begins this chapter illustrates a striking performance of the master and servant relationship in the fur trade... Voyageurs selected a tall tree standing out on a lake, "lobbed" off all its branches except for those at the very top, carved into the trunk's base the name of the bourgeois, clerk, or passenger to be honoured, and gathered round the maypoles to cheer and fire muskets. The honouree then provided regales, or treats, to all the brigade.
"From this I came to realize that Anderson's Tree might be a Maypole tree. This was an honor granted to very few men west of the mountains; and no fur trader ever saw Anderson's Tree after he and his men walked away from it. But Anderson knew it was there, and I believe he marked the tree on his maps so that he, if no one else, would remember the honor."
At the end of the evening or in the break one gentleman told me that the fur traders often marked a height of land with a squared tree -- that is the bottom part of the tree blazed or hacked into a square. That might also be what Anderson's Tree is. We will never know because the tree is long dead, but it changes little. It is a variety of a maypole tree. I wonder if the Hope Mountain group has found squared trees on the top of the mountain????
"From Council's Punch Bowl Lake, the men left the height of land and encamped on the east bank of the stream which Anderson thought was a tributary of the Similkameen. From Anderson's journal: "The river bends round very gradually towards East, receiving several tributaries of some magnitude from left side; others of inferior consideration upon that on which we are travelling. Upon most of these we find drift trees to serve out purpose; but have occasionally to fell a tree for a bridge."
"Eventually they crossed the mainstream of the Tulameen on another logjam, and Anderson wrote: "Altogether our bridge was a tremulous and marvellously unsteady affair; and my mind was relieved of no small degree of anxiety when I saw the whole party safely across. The old proverb tells us to 'bless the bridge which carries us safe over,' and I say not do less than this, our friend in need, however dubious its pretension to security."
"From the north base of the Coquihalla, the party proceeded about six miles when the met "Old Blackeye, the Similkameen, and his son in law, on their way to visit their deer snares." Blackeye told Anderson of a Native trail that led across the mountains to the meadows where the Rhododendron grew -- or at least that is what Anderson understood. "He states that it is a wide and good road, with plenty of pasturage at the proper season; and that but for the depth of the snow we could not have missed seeing it after crossing the height of lands..."
"Anderson returned to Kamloops and Fort Alexandria. Early the next spring, Peter Skene Ogden sent clerk, Montrose McGillivray, north with a message for Anderson, and instructions to explore the banks of the Fraser River for a snow-free trail between Kamloops and Fort Langley.
"When he left Kamloops, Anderson already knew about the newly opened Similkameen trail from the Fraser River to the Nicola Valley; it had been arranged that Blackeye show him the trail. [We are not talking about the trail up the Coquihalla -- this was a different Similkameen trail.] Anderson had also viewed Sam Black's 1835 map of the Thompson's River district at Kamloops, and noted that Black had marked the range of hills the trail was supposed to cross, with the words: "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts."
"From the Nicola Valley, Anderson rode to the mouth of the Nicola River and, leaving his horses behind, crossed the river in borrowed canoes. He and his men walked down the south bank of the Thompson River toward modern-day Lytton, where they met their Sto:lo guide, Pahallak.
"Pahallak guided Anderson's party down the east bank of the Fraer, and one day later they reached the Native settlement that Anderson called Squa-zowm, about where Boston Bar stands today. This was where the newly opened Similkameen trail was supposed to begin, and Blackeye's son joined Anderson's party there (if he hadn't joined them earlier), and showed the fur traders his new trail up the mountains behind Squa-zowm.
"Somewhere up the mountainside, at a place suddenly familiar to two of Anderson's men, they paused. Anderson's employees assured him that, from this place, there already existed a trail that would take them all the way to the Nicola Valley.
"Now Anderson had only to find his way south to Fort Langley, past Hell's Gate and Black Canyons and the miles of rapid-filled river north of modern day Yale. From the mainstream of the Squa-zowm River, the Natives led Anderson's party up a cliff climbing trail that took them to the top of Lake Mountain, where another long sloping trail led them southward to a Native village called Kequeloose, on the Fraser River south of the two canyons.
"From there they crossed the Fraser and made their way downriver -- with some difficulties -- until they were able to borrow canoes to bring them to Fort Langley. Anderson's party of fur traders and Native guides immediately returned up the canyons bringing two unloaded boats to Kequeloose -- again with some difficulties -- and he followed his Natives guides up over Lake Mountain and up the trail to the Nicola Valley, on foot.
"As they reached the open grasslands of Nicola Valley, Anderson wrote a letter of instruction to Montrose McGillivray: "The chief part of our survey being now completed, I propose entrusting to your care the further charge of the party.... Therefore you will proceed to [Fort] Okanagan with the horses, accompanied by the men herein named -- Fallardeau, Lacourse, and Desautel remain with you. Also Nkwala's nephew, Blackeye's son, and Laronetumleun -- the last as interpreter.""
At this point I put up the colour image of Tsilaxitsa, which is black and white in the book. I don't know if anyone else enjoys this portrait as much as I do, but I think he is beautiful.
"In later years Anderson wrote that he rode many miles with Nkwala's nephew, Tsilaxitsa, who was to become the most prominent Okanagan chief of his time. Both Tsilaxitsa and Blackeye's son were on Anderson's expedition up and down the Fraser River to Fort Langley; and I suspect that both these Native men, and others who remain forever unnamed, regularly worked for the fur traders -- helping them to take out their furs and to bring in the trade goods.
[pause] "About the time Anderson was making his 1847 exploration down and up the Fraser River, measles, which had come north with Natives who traded for horses in California, began to spread through the district around Fort Nez Perce on the lower Columbia River. Measles is an illness that spreads in crowded conditions, and Natives gathered in large numbers around the Waiilatpu Mission, east of Fort Nez Perce. Many Natives died -- so many that the Cayuse chiefs became convinced that the missionary was intentionally killing them with poison.
"When the missionary failed a test they set for him, the Cayuse swarmed into the mission house, slaughtering fourteen residents and taking many hostages.
"When news of the massacre reached Fort Vancouver, Peter Skene Ogden travelled east up the Columbia River to purchase the hostages and settle the tribes. The end result of the massacre at Waiilatpu was the Cayuse Wars that erupted up and down the Columbia River, making it no longer safe for travel. The gentlemen at Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria instructed the men of New Caledonia, Kamloops and Fort Colvile (on the Columbia River near Spokane) to bring out their furs by one of Anderson's unimproved trails.
"It was 1848, and the trail they chose to use was the Squa-zowm River trail over Lake Mountain (through Sam Black's "Terrible Mountains all over Hereabouts"). James Douglas travelled to the Fraser to assess how easy it would be to travel downriver to the new Fort Yale. He was horrified by the river rapids, and discovering a rough passage that led through a rift in the rocks on the west side of the river, he ordered that a good road be built through it. This was the Douglas portage, north of modern day Yale. [I imagine the modern-day highway runs, more or less, through the old Douglas portage.]
"Before 1848, a typical brigade consisted of about 200 horses. The gentlemen rode at the head of the column, and behind them came the many individual brigades of heavily laden pack horses. In normal years, each string, or brigade, of seven to nine horses was in the care of two men responsible both for the horses and the loads they carried.
"But in 1848, close to four hundred horses -- including many unbroken animals -- came out in the hands of fifty men, many of whom would not be returning with the brigades. The outgoing brigade left Kamloops in late May and travelled over the hills south of the fort before following the Coldwater River west. They crossed the plateau and rounded the range of hills before dropping down the west side of the ridge to the Squa-zowm River, which they now called Anderson's River.
"Then up the cliffs to the top of Lake Mountain where they passed Hell's Gate and Black Canyon -- down the long sloping trail to the village at Kequeloose and downriver to Spuzzum Creek, where they crossed their loads in "barges" that were difficult to handle and drowned some of their horses. They arrived at Fort Yale in early June, and Anderson wrote: "It is needless to enumerate the difficulties which we had to encounter and surmount; suffice it to say that we continued to reach Fort Yale, which had meanwhile been established, and thence ran down speedily to Langley."
"The outgoing brigades had carried out packs of furs and castoreum -- the incoming brigades would now carry in trade goods such as packs of iron goods and axe heads, balls and black powder and flints for flintlock guns, salt, and tobacco in 90 pound rolls or in carrots.
"The brigades would also return with fewer men -- nine men sent out with the Fort Colvile crew returned to Fort Vancouver and three or more men deserted at Fort Langley. But a young gentleman named Henry Newsham Peers joined the brigade as Donald Manson's clerk, and he kept a journal of the trip in."
Peers' journal is full of information about the incoming brigade and quite delightful to read; it is found in the BC Archives somewhere. I inherited my copy from my uncle, Elton Anderson, one of the two people to whom this book is dedicated -- before he died Elton did a tremendous amount of research on his grandfather, A.C. Anderson, which I inherited. I guess that is what started me off on this project.....
"They started off from Fort Langley, and Anderson travelled in the first cluster of four boats, with five more to come under Donald Manson's command. Anderson later described the up-river journey to Yale: "Hitherto, bateaux of about three burthern have been employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, for transport below the Falls [at Yale] -- a slow method when the water is high, as the ascent can then be effected only by warping along shore, with the aid of Indian canoes to pass the lines. By this tedious process, an ascent was made during the freshet of 1848, to the foot of the Falls, in eight days; under ordinary circumstances, it would occupy five."
"From Peers' journal, on passing over the Douglas portage north of Fort Yale: "I and Mr. Manson left Ft. Yale on the 2nd August with the last trip 30 horses to rejoin Mr. Anderson at the other end; We got on very well on the portage with the exception of a couple of horses falling in the ascent of the big hill & some little confusion in a swampy part of the road rendered worse than its original state by the frequent passing & repassing of horses. There is a pretty gradual ascent (one stiff hill intervening) as far as Douglas' River where there is a steep descent of about 700 feet to a bridge & and somewhat steeper though shorter ascent on the opposite side of this ravine, thence a level road till within a miles of Spuzzum River or Simon's House where the road descends pretty gradually to that place -- we were about three hours coming across & encamped on the south side of the Fraser River."
"Peers tells us that they remained about three days at Simon's House, crossing horses and loads to the east bank of the Fraser. Then they started north, "with some 500 & upwards pieces of goods in 15 brigades, each brigade having 18 & some a greater number of horses to 2 men." [A normal brigade has seven to nine horses to two men.]
"They travelled about six miles up the banks of the Fraser and, as Peers says, "encamped at the foot of Big Hill where the road leaves Fraser River, many of brigades only arriving when pitch dark and consequently great confusion from horses straying with their loads and so fort; several fell down a steep hill on nearing the encampment... from weakness, threw their loads & a bale was swept off in the river before it could be seized & one animal killed." This was at Kequeloose, at the bottom of the big hill that led them up Lake Mountain.
"Peers' journal continues the next day: "Rainy weather -- this morning Jacob Ballenden was found dead near the encampment with his gun discharged by his side, shot through the heart. It is supposed he committed suicide. The day was spent in collecting strayed horses with their loads and all found but 6 pieces and another horse killed. A war party of the Chute Indians against those of Anderson's River passed the camp and created some little alarm... Nothing I may say here for the horses to feed on."
"The brigades climbed Lake Mountain and descended the cliffs on the other side to Anderson's River, and Peers records: "Some of the rear brigades got on very badly and 80 pieces were found deficient... Remained here today till the lost pieces should be brought in all of which were rendered but 2 bales."
"They began the climb from Anderson's River to the top of the hills via Utzlius Creek, eventually reaching "a small patch of thinly wooded ground in which had been constructed a miserable horse-park. Two or three of the rear brigades arrived when quite dark and many horses necessarily strayed away before they could be freed from their loads, passing the night with the rest in the woods under a heavy thunder storm with little or nothing to eat."
"Peers also makes mention of the work the Natives did, in helping the fur traders bring in their supplies: "The pieces all but two or three were recovered after much searching and order was again restored. The Indians who had been employed for the last four days in searching for and bringing lost goods to the camp were paid off and seemed satisfied although there is some doubt as to their honesty."
"The next day the fur traders camped five miles from the top of the hill, and men in the latter brigades went without supper [the provisioning brigades were at the head of the brigade]. On the following day Anderson rode ahead, while Manson sent Natives out to search for more packs. At the end of the day the fur traders found they were still missing: "six bags salt, two bags of ball and two rolls of Tobacco." [from this list you can perhaps understand the fur traders' suspicions, above] Each of these bags and rolls weighed ninety pounds.
"Anderson sent fresh horses back to Manson and Peers, and Peers reported that "the early part of today was devoted to catching and loading young horses, about which some time was wasted." The next afternoon Manson and Peers caught up to Anderson's brigades on the Coldwater River. They reached Kamloops on August 22nd, and the gentlemen held a meeting to discuss the trail.
"The hot-tempered Manson reported: "We have tested [the trail's] advantages and disadvantages thoroughly, and I have no hesitation in declaring it utterly impracticable for a large brigade such as ours. The rugged, rocky mountainous and thickly wooded country which lies between Fraser River and the plains, ... is, in my opinion, sufficient in itself to condemn this route." [I mentioned that there was a Donald Manson descendant in the room, who was probably enjoying this description of his bad-tempered ancestor.]
"This route was far too difficult, and the gentlemen agreed that the snow-covered trail over the Coquihalla must be tried. they sent Henry Peers with Edouard Montigny, one of Anderson's men, to Blackeye's camp, to ask that he show them his trail to the top of the Coquihalla.
"Historians have spent a lot of time puzzling over how Henry Newsham Peers chose the trail across the plateau, especially as it in no way followed Anderson's 1846 exploration. Anderson himself expected that Blackeye's trail would end up on the south side of the mountain, at Rhododendron Flats. But it did not.
"Peers' actual guide was Blackeye's son, who took them up his father's trail to the top of the plateau, and then guided them due west, across the mountaintop, to a stream he called So-aqua. He point out his trail down the west side of the mountain, by streams that immediately came to be called Peers' Creek and the Coquihalla River. Peers and Montigny followed the streams to the Fraser, where they borrowed canoes from the Natives and made their way to Fort Langley.
"In October 1848, James Douglas wrote to John Tod of Kamloops: "In consequence of the very unfavourable report we have received from Messrs. Manson and Anderson of their last Summer's route, we have come to the determination of opening a New Road recommended by Mr. Peers after a very careful survey. Leaving Fraser's River, it follows successively the valleys of the Quequealla, Peers and the Soaqua Rivers, from thence crossing the dividing ridge into the Similkameen valley, where it falls upon Mr. Anderson's track of 1846 and follows it to Thompson's River.
"Mr. Peers will be despatched with ten men in a few days hence to commence operations at the mouth of the Quequealla, where we intend to establish a small Post for the convenience of parties passing to and from Thompson's River and at the same time he will proceed in opening the road with the assistance of all the Indians that can be mustered, and we hope to have it made as far as the snowy region before the Winter sets in.... He is particularly desirous that Blackeye's son, the Indian who accompanied him a part of the way on his late Journey to this place and left him at the head of the Soaqua, should be sent to meet him at that point, as without such assistance he will not be able to find his way into the Similkameen Valley... With that Indian you will please despatch Montigny and as many whites and Indians as you can muster to open the road from the plains of the Similkameen to the Soaqua Valley, following the line of road Mr. Peers pointed out to Montigny as being the best adapted for horse-transport, as early in the spring as the snow will admit...."
"You will notice that Edouard Montigny is already on the north side of the mountain; I am also amused to notice that Peers, a relative newcomer to the fur trade, says he pointed out to the experienced Montigny the road "best adapted for horse-transport." Peers had almost no wilderness experience, having worked at Fort Vancouver in the mill and for a short time in charge at Fort George [Astoria].
"Peers was placed in charge of building Fort Hope, and the fort did get built. But no work was done on the trail over the winter of 1848-49, though that was not Peers' fault. Snow began to fall early in the season and it kept falling and the trail up the Coquihalla River was buried under deep drifts of snow and remained that way all winter. The heavy snow fell on the forts in the interior, too -- at Kamloops and Fort Colvile at least. Though the snowfall was good news for the fur trade, it killed so many horses in the interior that the fur traders now worried about having enough animals to carry out their furs in the spring. Still, the furs must go out -- but because the fur traders had no idea how much snow might lie on the top of the Coquihalla, they decided to go out, once more, by the Anderson River trail they had used in summer 1848.
"Alexander Caulfield Anderson was now in charge at Fort Colvile, and he rode north to Kamloops -- not through the Similkameen as I said in the book -- but by the old brigade trail up Okanagan Lake and through Monte Lake. As he waited for the brigades to load at Kamloops, he sat on the hilltop above the fort and sketched the unfinished watercolour and pencil drawing of Kamloops, contained in the book.
"From Kamloops, the combined brigades came out, once again, by the Anderson River trail, and it took them ten days to reach Fort Langley. At the fort, Anderson quickly loaded his goods into the boats and pushed his men upriver to Fort Hope, to begin work on the new trail.
"On their way downriver, Donald Manson had asked Anderson to remain behind at Fort Hope to open the trail, but Anderson had refused to do so. Now, when the packhorses that had been sent over the mountain from Kamloops finally arrived at Fort Hope, Anderson told Manson of his decision to leave Fort Hope with his men and horses, without doing any more work to improve the trail. The two gentlemen exchanged "high words."
"The Fort Colvile men found the passage over the mountain easy even though the trail was unfinished; they continued their journey to Fort Colvile via the Similkameen Valley, Osoyoos Lake, Anarchist Mountain and the Kettle River, which they followed south to reach the Columbia River a few miles from Fort Colvile.
"I believe Anderson had already considered the possibility that he could cross the mountains a second time that summer, and that is why he left Fort Hope as soon as he could. From Fort Colvile, Anderson sent his men back for the remainder of his goods, left behind because of the shortage of horses. Because Fort St. James was so far north, Donald Manson did not have that option, and could not make a second journey to Hope. He left much of his supplies behind, and the shortage of trade goods plagued him the entire year afterwards.
"A few weeks after Anderson left Fort Colvile, reports of his argument with Manson reached the ears of Peter Skene Ogden at Fort Vancouver, who arranged that the Fort Colvile brigades, and those from New Caledonia, arrive at Fort Hope separately. Every year, James Douglas travelled to Fort Langley to supervise the brigades' arrival, because, as Peter Skene Ogden wrote, "without a conductor the gentlemen are not competent to conduct their own affairs, trifling as they are, and a separation is absolutely necessary as Pugilistic affairs between the two leaders is not exactly the proper mode of conduct in Brigades in the presence of the Company's servants."
Neither Manson nor Anderson would have called their affairs "trifling." Their return journey over the mountains were at all times difficult. Stress levels were high, the work was hard and there were sometimes heavy losses, and the pay was low. They worried about having enough men to do the work the fur trade demanded -- fewer good men were joining the fur trade and the quality and quantity of men that reached the Columbia district and New Caledonia was in constant decline. Moreover, at Fort Langley, many voyageurs attempted to desert the fur trade and make their way south to the California gold fields now in full swing.
"I found a good description of the trail over the Coquihalla, written that year by the acting-Governor for the HBC, Eden Colvile, who rode over it a few months after the brigade had crossed it. Among other things he suggested, "It will be necessary to send a party of men from each end of the road to cut all the fallen timber, as it is very fatiguing to the loaded horses to be continually stepping over these fallen trees, & thirdly, ditches should be cut through the swamps, & where requisite, logs & brush laid over them, so as to afford firm footing for the horses."
"When the brigades came out in the summer of 1850 they found the trails much improved. From Campement des Femmes at the base of the mountain on its north side, the Fort Colvile brigades followed Blackeye's Trail twelve miles up to Lodestone Lake. Another twelve miles or so brought them to Horseguards Camp on the Tulameen River at Podunk Creek -- where Anderson's exploration of 1846 crossed the brigade trail that resulted from that exploration.
"The next day they camped at Deer Camp, and nineteen miles further on reached Manson's Camp, at the head of Peers' creek. fifteen more miles brought them down Peers Creek and the Coquihalla River into Fort Hope, where they loaded their goods into boats and drifted downriver to Fort Langley.
"In August of that year, James Douglas reported: "I have been to Fort Langley, where the Brigades from the interior arrived safely with the furs between the 15th and 19th July. They crossed the Frasers River ridge without difficulty, the snow being compact enough to support the loaded horses, and Mr. Manson is of the opinion that the passage may be made ten days earlier in the season with perfect safety... The Colvile people reached Fort Langley in seventeen days moderate travelling, and the other Brigades took ten days from Kamloops. The woods have been partially cleared by fire, and grass seed sown at Fort Hope and other points on this road, which will in a short time furnish a sufficiency of food for the horses."
"I will try to give you a little picture of the brigades arriving at Fort Hope, and packing up to leave again: About 1860, a very young Susan Allison saw the horses and described them as "splendid animals, hardy and enduring, with lots of good horse sense." Her description of the brigades' arrival follows: "Sometimes there would be a grand stampede and the pack trains would disrupt. Horses and men could be seen through a misty cloud of dust, madly dashing all over the Hope flat, lassos flying, dogs barking, hens flying for safety anywhere. Suddenly the tempest would subside as fast as it had arisen, the pack boys would emerge from the clouds of dust leading the ring leaders in the stampede...."
"From a Royal Engineer's description of the brigades leaving Fort Colvile in the early 1860's -- these quotes come from John Keast Lord's book, "At Home in the Wilderness: What to Do and How to Do it," published in London some years after he returned home.
""This journey from Colvile to Hope occupies nearly three months for its accomplishment. About the beginning of June preparations commence at Fort Colvile for the Brigade. The horses..., in number about 120 to 150, are brought ... to a spot called the 'Horse guard,' about three miles from the fort, where there is an abundance of succulent grass and a good stream of water.
""Here the animals are taken care of by the trustworthy Indians until their equipment or 'rigging' is ready, which process is at the same time going on at the fort. Here some thirty or forty savages may be seen squatting round the door of the fur-room; some of them are stitching pads and cushions into the wooden frames of the pack-saddles; others are mending the broken frames; a third group is cutting long thongs of raw hide to serve as girths, or to act in lieu of ropes for lashing and tying; and a fourth is making the peltries up into bales, by the aid of a powerful lever press.
""Each bale is the weigh about sixty pounds [I think actually ninety], and the contents to be secured from wet by a wrapper of buffalo-hide, the skin side outermost. This package is then provided with two very strong loops, made from raw hides, for the purpose of suspending it from what are called the 'horns' of the pack-saddle. Two of these bales hung up [one] each side of a horse is a load, and a horse so provided is said to be packed....
"They use no halters, but simply throw a lasso round the animal's neck, with which it is held whilst being packed... Let us imagine a horse lassoed up awaiting the operation of packing. First a sheep or goat's skin, or a piece of buffalo 'robe,' ... called an 'appichimo,' is placed on its back, with the fur or hair next to that of the horse, and is intended to prevent galling.
""Next the pack-saddle is put on... This miserable affair with its two little pillows or pads, tied into the cross trees of woodwork, is girthed with a narrow strap of hide, which often, from the swaying of the load, cuts a regular gash into the poor animal's belly. Next a bale is hung on either side, and the two are loosely fastened together underneath the horse by a strap of raw hide... When all the animals are packed, each of the hands who are to accompany this cavalcade mounts his steed; then waving their lassoos round their heads, and vociferating like demons, they collect the band of packed animals, and drive the lot before them as shepherds do a flock of sheep. The principal trader, as a general rule, takes command of the brigade, the journey being anticipated by both the master and his men as a kind of yearly recurring jubilee."
"To John Keist Lord, an Englishman, the fur trade employees appeared to be Native (and some might have been). By this time many fur trade employees were descendants of the first French Canadian voyageurs and their Native wives. When I researched the men mentioned in Anderson's Fort Alexandria journals, I was amazed to find how many of them were not French Canadian, but Metis. In a later manuscript, Anderson remarked that: "a mixed generation... had sprung up, embodying in a marked degree the paternal characteristics of their origin; and these native voyageurs became at an early period a very useful class."
"By 1850 the new brigade trail was established and successful, though there were still hiccups. Even when the Native wars along the Columbia River quieted and the Fort Colvile men went downriver by boat to Fort Vancouver, the New Caledonia fur traders continued to come out to Fort Hope. There was a reason for this: if they had returned to their old trail down the Columbia River they would have entered American territory and their goods would have been heavily taxed. They had no option: they had to make this trail work for them.
"And the trail did work quite well for them, though the shortage of horses in the interior remained a problem, and June 10th appeared to be the earliest day in the year they could begin their journey over the Coquihalla trail.
"In 1851, "A party of ten men, under the direction of Mr. Peter Ogden [Peter Skene Ogden's son], were employed upon the new road for nearly two months ..., and made many substantial improvements. They cleared the points of wood on the whole route between [Fort] Alexandria and Fort Hope, and from the Shimilcomin River they increased the general breadth of road, shortened the bends, levelled or relined the steep ascents by inclined planes, and bridged about 300 yards of boggy ground."
"While I was researching Anderson's part in this trail, I found no mention of the difficulties that Manson's Mountain gave the fur-traders. But in the Fort Victoria letters for the years after 1854, I am finding the fur traders spent anxious years trying to find an alternative piece of trail for the part that descended Manson's Mountain. The first mention is in august 1854, when James Douglas wrote to Paul Fraser: "I am happy to hear that there is a prospect of finding a better road than the present one through Manson's Mountain, and I trust you have succeeded with Mr. Manson's assistance in getting it opened for the passage of the Brigades."
"That new trail was apparently never opened, and a later route that went up the Chilwayook valley was much talked of for a few years, but abandoned when it was finally realized that, "the Chilwayook Lake was enclosed by precipitous rocky hills, apparently inaccessible to horses either in a direct line across their summit or by following the margin of the Lake. We are therefore now about to direct all our strength to improve the existing road by Fort Hope."
"But all of this happened after 1852, when Anderson was no longer riding over the trail, and could not suggest an alternative route -- his pathway down the wide valley that led up the south side of the mountain from the Sumallo River and Rhododendron flats. I don't know if it would have worked as a horse trail: As you know he mentioned in one spot in his journal that the trail appeared too steep for loaded horses, although he later appears to have overcome that objection.
"By 1854, Anderson had retired from the fur trade. He would pop up again in 1858, when he came to Fort Victoria and opened the first highway into the interior over the route of his first exploration via the Lillooet River and Anderson and Seton Lakes (which he then named). By this trail, thousands of eager gold miners accessed the Fraser River gold fields north of the same canyons that had confounded the fur traders in 1848.
"In 1860, the soldiers and engineers of the Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers substantially widened the Harrison trail and turned it into a good wagon road. Then the Royal Engineers carved a good road out of the cliff faces between Yale and Boston Bar, above the rapids that had so troubled the brigades in 1848 and 1849. By autumn 1862 their road reached Lytton, and in 1863 the first Alexandra bridge crossed the Fraser River north of Spuzzum, its eastern end resting near the place where Anderson's men had buried Jacob Ballenden in 1848.
"Also in your part of the world, there are two early trails: the short-lived Whatcom Trail to the goldfields up Snass Creek, and the Dewdney Trail, constructed in 1860 by the Royal Engineers, with the part time help of engineer Edgar Dewdney.
"All of these are important roads, one way or another -- however the most important road was the one that finally brought the fur traders from Kamloops to Fort Hope. What is the fur traders had failed to find a road over these mountains and were never to reach Fort Langley in safety? What impact would that have had on the importance of Fort Victoria and Fort Langley, and how would that have impacted British Columbia's history?
"Historians agree with me. In 1975, our first local historian, Derek Pethic, wrote that Anderson's "discovery of a practical, all-British artery for the fur trade was to have a profound effect on the history of not only British Columbia, but also of Canada itself."
"When I spoke in front of the Victoria Historical Society in November, one of the questions I was asked at the end was -- were these trails now open? Could people hike these trails? I was able to tell them about your organization and the work you were doing in opening these trails. It gave me great pleasure to tell them about your uncovering some of the 150 year old hash-marks the original fur traders had used to mark the trail.
"I want to thank this group -- Hope Mountain Centre -- for the work you have done in preserving our important history. I hope that Hope Mountain continues this work for a long, long time, and that these trails remain open and accessible through the coming years. The American writer William Faulkner, wrote, "The past is never dead. It is not even past." I think that phrase is especially suitable when we are speaking of the Coquihalla brigade trail -- this trail created your town and it is now a part of your future. As a descendant of one of the men who rode over the trail, I want to thank you for your important work."
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