From "Talle d'Epinettes" to "Mauvais Rocher"

Today we are enjoying a photographic journey down the west side of the lake the fur traders called "The Great Okanagan Lake," from Talle d'Epinettes to the river they named "Mauvais Rocher."

I was curious about the name, Talle d'Epinettes, and leafed through my French dictionary.

The verb "tailler" means "to cut, to sharpen, to trim," and I gather that this word would refer to the sharp ends of the branches on the pine in this part of the world, that would cut the faces of the men or damage the packs as the fur traders made their way through.

"Epinettes" is the word for spruce trees, as the voyageurs called these pine.

The words "Talle d'Epinettes" might mean "sharpened spruce."

As you can see, the north end of the lake is heavily occupied and summer cabins and boats litter the shoreline.

Further south there is less sign of human occupation and the gravel road leads us higher in the hills than the brigade trail would have travelled, at least in this part of the lakeshore.
Here the brigade trail followed closer to the lake, if the early maps of the fur traders are to be believed.

Note the dry vegetation and desert-like conditions.

This country is hot in the summer, and the heat lasts for days and weeks at a time.
In his essay, "Dominion of the West," Anderson notes that "British Columbia is emphatically a Land of Lakes. It would be a vain attempt to describe the beauties of many of these superb sheets of water: and impossible to enumerate even a tithe of their number."

He later wrote, "In the Upper country the climate is dry, and continuously hot in summer; especially from the vicinity of Thompson's River toward the southern frontier."

"Approaching the Okinagan, ... the summer temperature is almost tropical in its character. The winter cold, on the other hand, is comparatively sharp; but there is nothing approaching the continuous severity experienced on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

"Little snow falls on the general surface; and in many parts it is almost entirely absent for any lengthened period."

The history of this part of the brigade trail is long -- "In 1827," Anderson wrote in his History of the Northwest Coast, "it was determined to open a new route from Alexandria, the frontier post on the Fraser, with horses by way of Kamloops to O'Kinagan on the Columbia River about a hundred miles below [Fort] Colvile."

In fact, as early as 1813 this Native trail was traversed by the North West Company fur trader John Stuart as he made his way south from Stuart's Lake to the Columbia district.
But John Stuart also reported in his "Notes" that "it is equally true that in the summer of 1809 either Mr. David Thompson or Jacques Finlay, I am not certain which -- sent a party of four Indians from the Okanagan River to New Caledonia with a letter addressed to me."

"The letter was lost during the journey but the party arrived safe at Stuart's Lake where I was then stationed in the month of November..." (John Stuart's Notes, 1840, E.24/7, HBCA).

In his "History of the Northwest Coast," Anderson described the outgoing brigade from Fort St. James (Stuart's Lake).

"...during the winter the furs traded at the posts outside of water communication were brought to Fort St. James ... with dog sledges.

"As soon as the navigation was open in the spring, generally about 20th April, the boats with their cargoes on baord started down the Stuart's branch and were met at the junction of the Fraser's Lake branch, by a boat conveying the furs that had been collected at Fraser's Lake...

"The boats then ran down to Alexandria having taken the returns of Fort George at the junction of Tete Jaune's branch [the Fraser River] on the way.

"The horses several hundred in number were then collected, and by this means the whole returns of the district were conveyed to O'kinagan [post], having been preceded, or sometimes accompanied by the Thompson's River brigade likewise carrying the furs of that district."

On their return, "O'kinagan [post] was generally reached in about twenty days [from Fort Vancouver].

"Here the Brigades of the Thompson's River and New Caledonia resumed the horse transport, reversing the proceedings of the preceding spring."

But the outgoing 1840 brigade carried Anderson to Fort Vancouver, and he would not return to New Caledonia before two years had passed.

By that time the new trails were in use, and Anderson would not view this part of his Great Okinagan Lake for another thirty-seven years, when he returned in 1877 as Dominion Indian Commissioner.

By the way, "Mauvais Rocher" translates as "bad boulders."

This part of the old brigade trail was very difficult to cross and hard on the horses.

Probably that was the reason that the new brigade trail over the hills to the west was developed.

The Fur-traders' Great Okanagan Lake

Alexander Caulfield Anderson's 1867 map of British Columbia shows names known by the fur traders for the places along Okanagan Lake.

Few of the names and places remain the same today -- the city of Vernon sits squarely on the land between Long Lake and Great Okanagan Lake; land which the Indian Reserve Commissioners gave to Selixt-asposem's tribe for grazing (mentioned in the last post) -- "Long Lake" on these maps is modern-day Lake Kalamalka and Wood Lakes, merged.

The city of Kelowna stands on the river Anderson called L'anse au Sable, and he indicated where the Roman Catholic Mission once stood on the east side of the lake.

But in James Gibson's book, "The Lifeline of the Oregon Country," L'anse au Sable was where the town of Westbank now stands.

Today's main highway runs down the east side of the lake and rock bluffs almost entirely hide the view.

But there is a road on the west side which allows for splendid views of the lake, and a feeling that you are following along the old brigade trail.

When we speak of the "old brigade trail" in this particular post, we are talking of the trail before 1842.

After 1842 (and exact date of the new trail is unknown, but assumed to be about this time), the fur traders followed a new trail that travelled further west, perhaps on the top of the ridge of hills that lined that side of the lake.

On A.C. Anderson's map the names of the creeks or rivers are sometimes hard to read.

They are also impossible to read on Sam Black's pre-1840 map of Thompson's River (CM/B2079, BCArchives).

But on the Royal Engineers 1861 copy of Sam Black's map (a copy of which was owned by James Douglas), the names of the rivers are easier to read.

This map is in Library and Archives Canada, but you can obtain a rough photocopy of it in BC Archives; its number is P615pBC R888t 1861, Royal Engineers, Thompson River District, British Columbia, from a map in the possession of HE Gov. Douglas, C.B., made in 1836 by S. Black. I have a note its new map number is CM/A294, BCA, so if you can't find it under first number, look there.

Mauvais Rocher has become Bear River -- I should say that Sam Black's Bear River changed to Mauvais Rocher on Anderson's later map.

Bear Creek Park appears to be at the outflow of that same creek, but on the Forest District map the stream no longer bears the name of Bear Creek!

McDonald River, just south of Mauvais Rocher, will have been named for Archibald McDonald (later of Fort Colvile), who spent a few years at the Thompson's River post.

South of McDonald's River is Deer River (on Black's map).

A well-travelled trail followed Jacques River toward the west -- I don't think this was the newer brigade trail but it might have been.

McDonald River is probably where the city of Westbank now stands,

On Black's map R. de Trepannier? (from Anderson's map) is Trepanege(?) River -- still hard to read. But it bears the same name today, and is on the Penticton Forest District map as Trepanier Creek!

South of that is Trout River, a name I could not read on Anderson's map -- I thought it was R. de Fruite and it appears I am right, as James Gibson also calls the creek Riviere de la Fruite (Trout Creek).

Today's Trout Creek appears to flow south-eastward through modern-day Summerland, entering Okanagan Lake at Kikininee Park.

Somewhere where Summerland now stands is Prairie de Nicholas, often mentioned in Alexander Caulfield Anderson's journals.

But on his map, he indicates the resting place as Campment du Prele -- Horse-tail camp -- though it is very hard to read exactly what the writing says. (Horse-tail is a primitive plant the fur traders always called 'Prele').

At the south end of Okanagan Lake is the modern city of Penticton, sitting squarely between Okanagan Lake and Shaka Lake to the south.

Skaha Lake was, of course, the fur traders' Lac du Chien (Dog Lake).

I don't know if any of you want to go out to explore the fur traders trails and camps.

If so, it will be very hard to find them; the population in this part of the Okanagan has exploded and highways and houses have buried any signs of the past.