The Collins Telegraph Trail

James Mackenzie Anderson was the son of James Anderson, Alexander Caulfield Anderson's older brother who had also joined the fur trade.
He was born at the HBC Nipigon Post on 12th August 1845.
He grew up at Fort Simpson, in the Northwest Territories, in a post managed by his father.
His father retired from the fur trade to Georgina, a township in York County.
About 1863, James Anderson and others went to British Columbia to work for the Collins Overland Telegraph Company, a company that planned to build a telegraph line from British Columbia to Russia across the Bering Sea.
James was 18 years old at the time.
He travelled by train to New York City, then by sailboat from New York to Nicaragua, walked across the peninsula to the Pacific, and sailed to San Francisco.
There the crew and passengers were jailed on suspicion of piracy.
Once he was released, James and his party went on to Victoria, where James visited his uncle Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
While he was working on the Collins Telegraph Trail, James Anderson acted as axeman to George Mercer Dawson, geologist and surveyor.
George Mercer Dawson had also known James' uncle, Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
The telegraph project was abandoned when the Atlantic cable was laid, and James Anderson and his party joined the gold rush to the Cariboo.
When the gold rush petered out, James returned to Sutton, Ontario.
I suspect that he actually visited his uncle at this time, after working on the Telegraph Trail, and that is why the trail is marked on Alexander Caulfield Anderson's 1867 map of British Columbia.

On his return to Sutton, Ontario, James Mackenzie Anderson took over the operation of the general store which sold everything from whiskey to frozen carcasses of pigs in wintertime.
James built a house called Riverside, in Sutton, presumably before he married.
It is rumoured that in 1885 James was a spy for the Canadian government during the Riel Rebellion; he was in Red River and took part in a Red River jig -- a Metis dance.
Of course, as son of a gentleman of the fur trade, James Anderson did not consider himself a Metis.
He may also be the James Anderson mentioned alongside his other uncle, William Anderson, in the "Frontier World of Edgar Dewdney."
James died 18th May 1932, in York, Ontario.

Fraser's Lake post

In 1836, when Anderson took charge of the post at Fraser's Lake, the Hudson's Bay Company forts in this territory still bore the names of the North West Company explorers who had opened up New Caledonia to the fur trade thirty years earlier.
Both the Fraser's Lake post, and Fraser River itself, had taken their names from Simon Fraser, and Stuart's Lake from Fraser's clerk, John Stuart.
Anderson had met Simon Fraser at Lachine House, and John Stuart at Red River.
Although Simon Fraser's journals remained unpublished until after Anderson's death in 1884, Anderson had an opportunity to read Simon Fraser's original handwritten journals.
In 1876, when historian H.H. Bancroft arrived at Victoria to collect the stories told by the old Hudson's Bay men, Simon Fraser's journals were in the hands of Anderson's close friend, Dr. Israel Wood Powell.

Bancroft made a copy of Simon Fraser's journal, but he did not collect the story that follows:
In 1821, when the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company under the latter company's name, John McDonell was the North West Company men then in charge of Fraser's Lake.
In 1828, McDonell made a cross country journey southward, to a native village on a river he called "Salmon River."
That river's modern name is Dean River, and it flows west to enter the eastern end of Dean Channel near Kimsquit, B.C.

This is not an important story, though all stories are important to someone.
As far as I know the exploration is not mentioned in any correspondence that survives in the Hudson's Bay archives, and the Fraser Lake post journals for 1828 have been lost.
The story of McDonell's exploration would have been lost, too, except for one thing.
The track of McDonell's exploration was recorded on one of Alexander Caulfield Anderson's maps.


When Anderson reached his new posting at Fraser's Lake in March 1836, he did one of two things:
Either Anderson read the post journals that remained there, including that of 1828; or he copied the map of the territory that had been left for his use.
Anderson recorded McDonell's exploration on his own map of the territory, and carried that map away with him when he left Fraser's Lake.
Thirty years later, Anderson looked over the maps which he had drawn over the years, and transferred all their stories onto his 1867 map of British Columbia.

Up the Fraser River to Fort George

On the map to the right we see the route that the incoming brigade boats followed when they left Fort Alexandria.
The brigaders left their horses at Fort Alexandria, and proceeded upriver toward Fort George, at the junction of the Thle-et-le (Nechako) and Fraser River.
It was slow work north of Fort Alexandria, rowing or poling their boats north against the heavy flow of the river.
But this part of the Fraser River had few hazards for the fur traders -- the Clayey Rapids (now Cottonwood Canyon) was never a major hurdle.
The only real difficulty they had in this part of the river was the canyon and rapids to the south of Fort George.
This was called the Fort George Canyon.
In the winter of 1835-6, Edward Linton and family set out from Fort George for Chilcotin post to the south, and disappeared.
No one knew what had happened, and it was assumed they lost their lives in the Fort George Canyon.
Only the dog survived to return to Fort George.



Fort Alexandria is marked on the bottom of the map at the top of the page.
Note Deserters Creek, upriver from Fort Alexandria.
There were always problems with deserters in the fur trade -- especially in New Caledonia -- and it is possible that the name of this creek came from the fur trade.
The word 'Liard' meant cottonwood, in the French Canadian language -- hence Cottonwood River flows into modern-day Cottonwood Canyon.
Anderson knew Cottonwood Canyon as Clayey Rapids.

On the map to the right you will see that on his map CM/13699A, PABC, Anderson marked the location of the 'Old Post'on the east bank of the Fraser River.
As far as historians know, Fort George always stood in the same location on the west bank of the Fraser River, and believe this is Anderson's error.
I have not been able to discover what might have stood here to show why Anderson thought an old fort stood here.
Anderson first passed through Fort George with Ogden's incoming brigade in Fall 1835, and returned to the post in January 1836.
He left the New Caledonia district for the first time in 1840.
No Fort George post journals have survived to make their way into the Hudson's Bay archives, so there is no record of the Occurrences at the fort.
Probably (although I have not specifically researched this question) there are no letters or reports that indicate Fort George changed its location.
Perhaps the remains of an earlier fort stood here.

Anderson spent a little time at Fort George before he left New Caledonia in 1840.
He had handed over the charge of Fraser's Lake post to the new clerk-in-charge, and travelled to Fort George on Chief Factor Peter Skene Ogden's orders.
In winter 1835-6 Anderson had travelled north up the Fraser River to Tete Jaune Cache to pick up the territory's leather supplies, and barely survived the journey.
In 1840 Ogden again ordered him to make the same journey to Tete Jaune Cache.
In December 1840, Ogden cancelled those orders; and Anderson travelled north to Stuart's Lake by a route new to the men of the Hudson's Bay Company.
In his History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, A.G. Morice quotes from the post journals: "Anderson arrived from Fort George today. He did not come by Nantlais (Natleh or Fraser Lake) but by Nakasley (Na'kaztli or Stuart) River, a far shorter route, and one we shall in future follow -- a great saving of time and provisions."
Obviously, the Hudson's Bay Company men had fallen into the habit of travelling over the few familiar trails between their forts, forgetting the river trails that had once been well known to the early explorers of the North West Company.
This was Alexander Caulfield Anderson's first recorded exploration; it would not be his last.

Fort Alexandria, New Caledonia

To our left is the map of the area that surrounded Fort Alexandria, as Alexander Caulfield Anderson knew it.

When Anderson first came to Fort Alexandria in 1835, the old fort was situated across the river from the location in which I now show it.

When he re-entered the territory to take over the charge of Fort Alexandria, it was still located on the west side of the river.

There were two possible reasons for the removal of the fort in January 1846:

Firstly, the old fort was so close to the river banks that it had often been flooded in the spring freshets and was rotten and falling apart; these forts needed constant maintenance and rebuilding.

It was probable that another spring freshet caused Anderson to make the decision to move the fort.

But another reason would have been that the fort was threatened by an enormous landslide that completely destroyed the village that belonged to the Home Guard natives who lived in the immediate area.

The natives that always lived near a Hudson's Bay post were called, by the Hudson's Bay men, the "Home Guard Indians."

I have indicated the probable locations of Stonia Lake and Cake Lake, near the fort.

A great deal of agriculture happened around Stonia Lake, and it is often mentioned in the post journals.

However, Cake Lake's name came by accident, when James -- Alexander Anderson's eldest boy -- lost his cakes in the lake.

I can't imagine what these cakes were made of, but they were not cakes as we now know them.

If anyone has a recipe of some sort for these cakes, please let me know what it is.

Interestingly, we have from Alexander Caulfield Anderson's writing a recipe for roasted tiger lilly -- often eaten by the natives around this place.

The shot at the top of the page shows the cairn that now marks the location of Fort Alexandria -- although the fort never stood on that spot but to the west (behind) the cairn and closer to the banks of the Fraser River.

To the left we have a view of the grasslands looking in the probable direction of the place the fort once stood.

Nothing remains of the old fort today.

In the early 1860's, Anderson wrote of Fort Alexandria, in his unpublished essay, British Columbia:

"I have talked, however, of a thing that was. All, I am informed, has since been suffered to fall into decay; and the little farm on which I used to pride myself has passed away; the kine, and even the very cocks and hens, have vanished; and if the mill remains it must be as the mere ghost of its former imperfect self -- a sad memento of the past."

Anderson described the mill that had once existed at Fort Alexandria -- the first mill in the New Caledonia district.

"To grind our wheat we had a small portable mill, with stones two feet in diameter. This mill of American manufacture was bought at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia, taken up the Columbia by water to Okinagan, and thence packed on horse-back piece-meal to its destination. The mill itself was well made and efficient, but the driving gear, constructed at Alexandria, was a marvelous piece of workmanship. In those days of make-shifts, and dove-tailing of means and appliances, to turn a Canadian voyageur into a mill-wright was nothing. Hence our mill, of which by the way we were very proud, rumbled round in a most eccentric manner. It did its work, though, but with a wondrous strain upon the poor horses who tugged the unwieldy machine around. The flour thus produced was of excellent quality; and tasted all the sweeter, I doubt not, as the result of our own exertions."

The barn in the photo to the left might stand more or less where the new Fort Alexandria stood, on the top of the point of land that projected out into the Fraser River.

It is probable, however, that the fort more stood to the west, or left side, of the photograph.

These two final photographs were taken from the south of the location where the cairn now stands, looking north toward the point of land on which Fort Alexandria stood.

This is the view that the incoming brigades would have enjoyed as they approached Fort Alexandria.

I understand the horses knew where they were, and often galloped their last few miles into the fort grounds.

Alexander Caulfield Anderson

The photograph above is of Alexander Caulfield Anderson, and is said to be taken about 1880 when he was about 65 years old.
I have used this photograph with the permission of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, and its Call No. is A-01075.
As you can see, his hair was white though his brows still appeared dark.
Even after his retirement from the Hudson's Bay Company, Anderson maintained an occasional correspondence with Governor George Simpson.
In March 1857, Anderson wrote: "I am happy to say that my family are well; and I know it will interest you to learn from me -- though in such case possibly a partial witness -- that my children conduct themselves in such-wise as in no way to dishonor the grizzled crown with which Time is liberally endowing me." (D.5/43, fo. 284, HBCA)

There are very few contemporary descriptions of Alexander Caulfield Anderson in written records.
On June 21, 1824 at the mouth of the Stikine River, W. H. Tolmie described a native chief who stood in front of him, with a reference to his good friend Anderson:
"...he is a tall well-formed Indian, rather corpulent but that adds to his dignity of deportment -- countenance on the grecian model, encircled by flowing locks of jet black hair, bushy whiskers, mustachios and beard of the same hue -- his dress a fox skin robe -- he looks somewhat like Colonel Anderson, but his features are larger -- is forward and presuming."
This suggests that Anderson had a dignified and perhaps military posture, and he had allowed his hair and beard to grow long on the sea-voyage to the Northwest coast -- not surprising.
Certainly Anderson was never corpulent, and certainly not so at that young age (20 years old).
This reference was found in book, Tolmie: Physican and Fur trader; the Journal of Dr. Tolmie, ed. Howard T. Mitchell, Mitchell Press, 1963.

In 1878, the San Francisco historian H. H. Bancroft arrived in Victoria to research the history of the territory, and interviewed many retired Hudson's Bay men.
Bancroft wrote of Anderson: "In personal appearance, at the time I saw him, he being then sixty three years of age, Mr. Anderson was of slight build, wiry make, active in mind and body, with a keen, penetrating eye, covered by lids which persisted in a perpetual and spasmodic winking, brought on years ago by snow-field exposure, and now become habitual, and doubtless as disagreeable to him as to his friends. In speech he was elegant and precise, and by no means so verbose as in his writings, and in carriage, if not so dignified as [Roderick] Finlayson, his manner would do him credit at St. James."
This quote comes from a footnote on page 159, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, vol. 32, History of British Columbia.
I understand that Alexander's older brother, James, had the same tic in his eye.


James Anderson A was Alexander Anderson's older brother by two years, and he, too, joined the fur trade in 1831.
As he travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to Hudson's Bay and Moose Factory, where he was posted, he wrote a desription of himself in the front of his journal.
James Anderson -- then about 19 years old -- described himself as weighing 150 pounds, and standing just short of 6 feet tall.
There is no such description of Alexander Anderson, but later photographs show a lean, long-legged man who towered above his companions.

But by the time those photographs were taken, Alexander's hair had already turned white.
James' photographs and portraits taken in later life show a brown-haired, blue-eyed, man; Alexander's wavy hair was probably medium-to-dark brown in his youth, and his eyes might have been blue, like his brother's.

The portrait above is of James Anderson A, Alexander Anderson's older brother; it is in the collection of the Georgina Pioneer Village, Keswick, Ontario, and they have allowed me to use it on this site.
A short version of James Anderson's biography can be found on this site, date July 26, 2009 -- "James Anderson (A), HBC."
To learn more about this man, look at the Georgina Pioneer Village's celebrations of James Anderson's life -- Exploring James Anderson: A Journey through the Adventurous Life of a Company Man -- online at virtual museum.ca.
I find it the lazy way, by googling "Alexander Caulfield Anderson."
You can find more information on James Anderson's journey to the Arctic Ocean in the Beaver Magazine, vol.310 [Spring 1980], Eric J. Holmgren, "The Diary of J. G. Stewart, 1855; Describing his Overland Journey in Search of the Franklin Expedition."
Copies of his many journals are in the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, as are many original letters written to his brother, Alexander.

Brigade Trail, Fish Lake to Fort Alexandria

When I took this photograph, I forgot to write down its location -- it is either the west end of Williams Lake, or more likely a view of the Fraser River south of Fort Alexandria.
I hope a local reads this and can identify for me where this photograph was taken.

To the right is the map of New Caledonia, still considered by the fur traders to be part of the Columbia District though it was a thousand miles north of Fort Vancouver.
The southernmost post in New Caledonia was Fort Alexandria, where Anderson served for six years .
Fort Alexandria stood two hundred miles north of the Thompson's River district, later known as Kamloops.
To the north of Fort Alexandria was Fort George -- where the modern-day city of Prince George stands.
North and west of Fort George was the headquarters of New Caledonia at Stuart's Lake, later known as Fort St. James -- and Fraser's Lake, where Anderson had his first New Caledonia posting in 1835-1840.

Fort Alexandria was not the final destination for the brigaders, but it was the end of the horse trails.
From Fort Alexandria, the brigaders continued upriver in boats which had been stored at the fort, and the horses were left behind.

New Caledonia was sometimes called the 'Siberia of the Fur Trade.'
It was named by the fur traders of the North West Company -- Simon Fraser and John Stuart -- who entered the territory in 1805.

The map to the left shows the last few miles of the brigade trail between Fish Lake (Williams Lake) to Fort Alexandria.

Modern day McLeese Lake bore a different name in those days -- it was called White Earth Lake.

The first rapids south of Fort Alexandria occurred at the mouth of Riviere a Joseph (Soda Creek), and were called the Atnah Rapids.

It is at this point that the native tribes naturally separated themselves into the Ta-Cully or Carrier tribes that surrounded Fort Alexandria, and the Secwepemc people who inhabited the massive area all the way to Kamloops.

It did not matter what the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people called themselves -- at Fort Alexandria they were known only by the Ta-Cully word for stranger, 'Atnah.'

Fort Alexandria was always important for the crops it grew.

At the end of summer 1843, the Hudson's Bay men knew that this year, they would not suffer from a shortage of food, as they often did.
Of the poor seed planted in the spring, they harvested 500 bushels of wheat, enough for their own general use and some to take out with the brigade the following spring.

There were also 40 cartloads of barley, 12 of oats, 660 bushels of potatoes, and 300 kegs of turnips.

In his unpublished manuscript British Columbia (PABC), Anderson wrote of Fort Alexandria:

"As the best criterion of the productive powers of British Columbia I will cite some of the statistics of the Hudson's Bay Company farm attached to the Post of Alexandria, conducted under my own supervision for six years succeeding 1842. Wheat, barley and oats were sown, in the order mentioned, as fast as the ground was prepared; fall-wheat having of course been sown the preceding Autumn. Immediately following, potatoes were planted, generally about the beginning of May. Late in June or early in July refreshing thunder-showers lasting sometimes at intervals for a week or ten days, afforded a favorable opportunity for sowing turnips, which the heat afterwards brought on with great rapidity. The remainder of the time, till the commencement of harvest, was occupied in attending to the gardens and green crops, and laying in a stock of hay for the winter. Fall-wheat was less to be depended upon than the spring variety, for the reason that, if frost came on before the fall of snow the expansion of the surface soil was apt to unroot the growing grain. The crops secured during the years I have mentioned were invariably good. I have witnessed forty bushels of the finest spring wheat thrashed from the product of a measured acre (Canadian) of sixty six yards square. The yield of Barley was invariably heavy; that of Oats good, considering the inferior variety we cultivated. All the culinary vegetables throve well. We had in 1847 twenty six milch cows; and in the spring of 1848, when the writer was removed to the charge of Colvile District on the Columbia, ninety head of cattle, counting the increase of that year, remained upon the farm. Fowls, turkeys, and pigeons completed the live stock. Swine, albeit in many parts a most profitable stock, were not raised in large numbers, on account of the trouble attending them when ranging at large. A few were raised in styes for a while, but the breed eventually was lost."

A footnote on the back of another page tells a little more about the pigs -- "It was an abominable breed -- lank, long-legged, and with a snout like a ploughshare, I did not fret much when I saw the last of them disappear."

As you can see, the fur trade is about much more than just the trading of furs.

The photograph at the bottom of the page is of the point of land on which Fort Alexandria stood after 1844.

Though the fort was built on the east side of the river in 1821, it was moved to the Fraser's west side about 1836.

When Anderson entered New Caledonia in 1835, the fort stood on the west bank of the Fraser River.

In early 1846, Anderson gave orders to move the fort from the west bank of the Fraser River, to the top of the point of land high above the waters of the Fraser River.

It is admittedly hard to distinguish, but the Fraser River curves around the high-banked point of land in the middle of the photograph.
Today this beautiful piece of land is owned by the descendents of the natives who lived around Fort Alexandria.

The Brigade Trail, Bridge Creek to Fish Lake

From Bridge Creek, the brigaders rode north west toward Lac la Hache (Axe Lake).

Both the old and new brigade trails followed this route west from Bridge River and, although the trail changed its course west of modern-day Williams Lake, this part of the brigade trail was used since the beginnings of the brigade trail out of New Caledonia.

Alexander Caulfield Anderson entered New Caledonia by the old brigade trail over the Thompson Plateau in 1835, and he left by that same trail in 1840.

When he re-entered New Caledonia in 1842, he rode in over the new trail. In 1843 the brigaders used the new trail for their brigades for the first time.

Above and to the left we have the San Jose river valley, which the fur traders followed west toward the Fraser River.

From early days in the fur trade the river carried this name, and it is still called that.

In both photos of the San Jose River valley we look east towards Lac la Hache.

Both the old brigade trail over the Thompson's Plateau to the North Thompson River, and the new brigade trail through Green and Loon Lake, followed this stream valley from Lac la Hache to Fish Lake (modern-day Williams Lake).

The photograph to the left shows the beautiful grasslands that lay at the north end of Williams Lake.

Anderson wrote of the area around Williams Lake in his unpublished manuscript "British Columbia," PABC:

"About Williams Lake, near Alexandria, the nature of the grass is different, but still very nutritive, and the vetch abounds throughout. In former years the Hudson's Bay Company's herd of horses, attached to Alexandria, amounting to upwards of three hundred, wintered constantly in this vicinity, under the care of the horse keeper and an Indian assistant." -- Fort Alexandria's horse-guard must have been close to modern-day Williams Lake.

Anderson knew this lake by a number of names.

The early fur traders called this Fish Lake. In his later writings Anderson called it Lac de Colum-

en-let-sa -- the French Canadians' name for the lake, likely based on the natives' name.

We are standing on the north side of the lake and looking toward the west. This is the side of the lake that the brigaders travelled.

From the far end of the lake, Williams Creek flows to the Fraser River. For a few years the brigade trail did follow Williams Creek all the way to the river, but by the time Anderson left Fort Alexandria in 1848, the brigaders followed a shorter route north to Fort Alexandria.

This was the country Anderson loved. He reveled in the beauty of the open valleys that were divided from each other by ridges of land heavily timbered with Douglas and other firs.

Fine grasslands surrounded many of the lakes that lay along their route, and aspen and cottonwood grew in the streambeds.

In springtime -- the time the brigade rode away from Fort Alexandria toward Kamloops -- the white petals of the Mock Orange filled the air with their fragrance, and from every copse echoed the low drumming of the ruffed grouse.