Douglas Road

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Route of the Douglas Road (water portions in blue, land portions in red) and the Cariboo Road (green) Douglasroadmap1 600.jpg
Route of the Douglas Road (water portions in blue, land portions in red) and the Cariboo Road (green)

The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cattle Trail, which used some of the same route but was built 25 years later). Over 30,000 men are reckoned to have travelled the route in, although by the end of the 1860s it was virtually abandoned due to the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road, which bypassed the region.

Contents

History

Originally traversed by Hudson's Bay Company employees in 1828 and charted by HBC explorer Alexander Caulfield Anderson in 1846, the route was heavily travelled by prospectors seeking to avoid the dangers of the Fraser Canyon to access the gold-bearing bars of the Fraser around today's Lillooet. Pressure for an alternative route to the Upper Fraser had mounted in the wake of the Fraser Canyon War of the winter of 1859, and miners were wary of travelling through the territory of the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson Indians), even though the war was over.

Thousands had travelled the route already, in nightmarish conditions including heavy rain and even heavier infestations of mosquitos, when Governor Sir James Douglas decided to formalize the route with the construction of a wagon road over the land portions in order to avert starvation among the thousands already on the upper Fraser. As one of the first acts of the newly incorporated Colony of British Columbia, the Governor commissioned the building of the road in an unusual road-development scheme whereby men willing to work on the road would invest twenty-five dollars each, which would be paid back in goods upon reaching Cayoosh (Lillooet).

In 1858 five hundred men, in two teams of two hundred fifty, a cosmopolitan mix of British, Americans, Chinese, Mexicans, Scandinavians, Kanakas (Hawaiians), Germans and others signed up for the job. [1] Controversy erupted at the end of construction over whether prices at the Port Douglas end of the trail or the more expensive rates at Lillooet would be used to reckon the reimbursement as promised. The Governor settled finally on the cheaper Port Douglas prices.

But the construction work was of very poor condition, such that when the Royal Engineers resurveyed the route a year later it was unusable, and further public funds were dedicated to fixing and improving it, adding bridges and taking down steep hills. Despite their efforts the route was little-used by 1861 or so, although it remained in use by locals and the occasional traveller for years afterwards. Regular steamer service to and from Port Douglas ended in the 1890s, although small-steamer traffic on Anderson and Seton Lakes continued for decades after, ending on Seton Lake only in the 1950s.

Route

Starting at Port Douglas (now abandoned), a trail led to 25 Mile House (abandoned and lost). From there a route by boat and road went to Port Pemberton. A trail then went into Pemberton and made a wide turn to Port Anderson. From there, another water to road route went straight to Lillooet, where it joined the old Cariboo Road.

Description

The last leg of the Douglas Road, near Lillooet, June 1910 (Photo: Frank Swannell Wagonrd2a.gif
The last leg of the Douglas Road, near Lillooet, June 1910 (Photo: Frank Swannell

The route begins at Port Douglas, British Columbia, at the head of Harrison Lake and the head of river navigation from the Strait of Georgia. From there a land portion of the route follows the lower Lillooet River to Port Lillooet at the south end of Lillooet Lake, where steamers and canoes carried travellers to Port Pemberton, at the mouth of the Birkenhead River near present-day Mount Currie.

The next land portion of the route, known as the Long Portage or the Pemberton Portage, follows the lower Birkenhead River then diverges from it to Birken Lake (a.k.a. Summit Lake or Gates Lake) and then via the Gates River to present-day D'Arcy at the head of Anderson Lake, then known as Port Anderson. From there a motley variety of watercraft, including the "Lady of The Lake", a small steamer and the ubiquitous native canoe, ferried travellers to the Short Portage (today known as Seton Portage). [2] There packers and ultimately a short mule-drawn "railway" shuttled men and freight to the head of Seton Lake, where another collection of steamers carried them to the foot of that lake and a final five-mile wagon road to the boomtowns of Cayoosh Flat, Parsonville and Marysville (today's Lillooet).

In response to the Cariboo Gold Rush, a toll road from there to Fort Alexandria was built by entrepreneur Gustavus Blin Wright, followed the Fraser Canyon for about twenty miles, then cut up eastwards onto the Cariboo Plateau via the town of Clinton, where the later Cariboo Wagon Road met the older route. Lillooet was numbered as "Mile 0" of this road, with its roadhouses taking their name from their distance from a certain point on Lillooet's Main Street.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillooet</span> District municipality in British Columbia, Canada

Lillooet is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of Pemberton, 64 kilometres (40 mi) northwest of Lytton, and 172 kilometres (107 mi) west of Kamloops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seton Portage</span> Unincorporated community in British Columbia, Canada

Seton Portage is a community on a narrow strip of land between Anderson Lake and Seton Lake in Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia. The community is home to two Seton Lake First Nation communities at either end of the portage and a non-native recreational community between them. Local services include a post office, fire department, library, and general store, among other small businesses. The community is also the location of Seton Portage Historic Provincial Park, a small provincial park protecting a historically significant stretch of railway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cariboo Road</span> Historical route in British Columbia, Canada

The Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching from Fort Yale to Barkerville, B.C. through extremely hazardous canyon territory in the Interior of British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraser Canyon</span> Canyon in British Columbia, Canada

The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Canyon" is often used to include the Thompson Canyon from Lytton to Ashcroft, since they form the same highway route which most people are familiar with, although it is actually reckoned to begin above Williams Lake at Soda Creek Canyon near the town of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seton Lake</span> Lake in British Columbia, Canada

Seton Lake is a lake in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. On the northeast side is Mission Ridge. On the southwest is the Cayoosh Range. By road, the eastern end is about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) southwest of Lillooet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Port Douglas, British Columbia</span> Place in British Columbia, Canada

Port Douglas, sometimes referred to simply as Douglas, is a remote community in British Columbia, Canada at east of the mouth of the Lillooet River, and at the head of Harrison Lake, which is the head of river navigation from the Strait of Georgia. Port Douglas was the second major settlement of any size on the British Columbia mainland during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. It came into being in 1858 when Governor Douglas ordered that it be laid out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anderson Lake (British Columbia)</span> Lake in British Columbia, Canada

Anderson Lake is a deep lake in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. On the northwest side are the Bendor Range and Cadwallader Range. On the southeast is the Cayoosh Range. By road, the southern end is about 47 kilometres (29 mi) northeast of Pemberton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cayoosh Range</span> Mountain range in British Columbia, Canada

The Cayoosh Range is the northernmost section of the Lillooet Ranges, which are a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. The range covers an area of c. 3,770 km2 (1,460 sq mi) and is approximately 65 km (40 mi) SW to NE and about 20 km (12 mi) SE to NW.

N'Quatqua, variously spelled Nequatque, N'quat'qua, is the proper historic name in the St'at'imcets language for the First Nations village of the Stl'atl'imx people of the community of D'Arcy, which is at the upper end of Anderson Lake about 35 miles southeast of Lillooet and about the same distance from Pemberton. The usage is synonymous with Nequatque Indian Reserve No. 1, which is 177 ha. in size and located adjacent to the mouth of the Gates River.

The Birkenhead River, formerly known as the Portage River, the Pole River and the Mosquito River, is a major tributary of the Lillooet River, which via Harrison Lake and the Harrison River is one of the major tributaries of the lower Fraser River. It is just over 50 km long from its upper reaches in the unnamed ranges south of Bralorne, British Columbia ; their western area towards the named Bendor Range east of Bralorne is sometimes called the Cadwallader Ranges.

D'Arcy is an unincorporated community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, approximately 150 kilometres northeast of the city of Vancouver. Located at the head of Anderson Lake, D'Arcy, also known as Nequatque or N'Quatqua in the St'at'imcets (Lillooet) language, is partly a recreational and resource community and also the territory and residential area of the N'Quatqua First Nation.

The Old Cariboo Road is a reference to the original wagon road to the Cariboo gold fields in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. It should not be confused with the Cariboo Road, which was built slightly later and used a different route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Trail (British Columbia)</span>

The River Trail was a main route for travel in the colonial era of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia, running northwards along the Fraser River from to present day Lillooet to Big Bar, British Columbia and points beyond in the Cariboo District. The route was primarily in use during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush and associated explorations by prospectors northwards in the search for gold in the Cariboo and Omineca Districts.

The Lillooet Country, also referred to as the Lillooet District, is a region spanning from the central Fraser Canyon town of Lillooet west to the valley of the Lillooet River, and including the valleys in between, in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. Like other historical BC regions, it is sometimes referred to simply as The Lillooet or even Lillooet,.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vessels of the Lakes Route</span>

The Lakes Route is an alternate name for the Douglas Road, which was the first formally designated "road" into the Interior of British Columbia, Canada from its Lower Mainland area flanking the Lower Fraser River. Also known as the Douglas-Lillooet Trail or the Lillooet Trail, the route consisted of a series of wagon roads connected via lake travel in between. A variety of craft were used on the lakes, from steamboats to sail-driven rafts to, through the early 20th Century, diesel and other engines. Lake travel continued for commerce, passenger travel and heavy freight until after World War II.

Gates Lake, also known as Birken Lake, Tenass Lake, Halfway Lake, and Summit Lake, is a small lake located at the summit of the Pemberton Portage area of the one-time Lakes Route through the Coast Mountains, located at the summit of a low pass connecting the Upper and Lower Lillooet Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia. Birken Lake sits at the divide between the Birkenhead and Gates-Seton drainage, known as the Pemberton Pass or Mosquito Pass, and is part of the Gates River drainage.

Cayoosh Pass is a mountain pass in the Lillooet Ranges of the Pacific Ranges of the southern Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It lies just west of Duffey Lake on BC Highway 99 between the towns of Lillooet and Pemberton, formed by the headwaters of Cayoosh Creek to the east, flowing to the Fraser River at Lillooet, and Joffre Creek to the west, flowing steeply downhill to Lillooet Lake just southeast of the Mount Currie Indian Reserve.

Pemberton Pass, 505 m (1,657 ft), also formerly known as Mosquito Pass, is the lowest point on the divide between the Lillooet and Fraser River drainages, located at Birken, British Columbia, Canada, in the principal valley connecting and between Pemberton and Lillooet. The pass is a steep-sided but flat-bottomed valley adjacent to Mount Birkenhead and forming a divide between Poole Creek, a tributary of the Birkenhead River, which joins the Lillooet at Lillooet Lake, and the Gates River which flows northeast from Gates Lake, at the summit of the pass, which flows to the Fraser via Anderson and Seton Lakes and the Seton River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cayoosh Creek</span> River in Canada

Cayoosh Creek is a northeast-flowing tributary of the Seton River in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The name Cayoosh Creek remains on the bridge-sign crossing the stream on BC Highway 99 and continues in use locally to refer to the final reaches of the Seton River, formerly Seton Creek, which prior to the renaming ending at the confluence with Cayoosh Creek. The creek is the namesake of Cayoosh Creek Indian Reserve No. 1, one of the main Indian reserves of the Cayoose Creek Indian Band, which lies adjacent to what was renamed the Seton River without local consultation.

Parsonville is a ghost town on the east shore of the Fraser River approximately opposite Lillooet. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of Pemberton, 64 kilometres (40 mi) northwest of Lytton, and 172 kilometres (107 mi) west of Kamloops.

References

  1. "The Douglas Road (Aka the Douglas-Lillooet Trail aka the Lillooet Trail) - History and Visual Journey". Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2014-08-18.
  2. http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/bchf/bchq_1946_1.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]

See also