Yale, British Columbia
Encyclopedia
Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian
province
of British Columbia
. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company
as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale
, then Chief Factor
of the Columbia District
. In its heyday at the peak of the gold rush
, it was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago
and north of San Francisco. It also earned epithets such as "the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia" and "a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah" of vice and violence and lawlessness.
Yale played an important role in certain events of the gold rush period which threatened to throw B.C. over to American annexation, the Fraser Canyon War
and McGowan's War
, and it is to Yale that the Governor (on the first occasion) and the government officials (on the second) - Begbie
, Brew
and Moody came to address American
miners and take control of matters that threatened the rule of the Crown
over the Mainland (or "New Caledonia
" as it was called before the creation of the mainland colony
, although that term originally applied to the fur district northwest from present-day Prince George
).
Yale is on the Fraser River
and is generally considered to be on the dividing line between the Coast
and the Interior
. Immediately north of the village the Fraser Canyon
begins, and the river is generally considered unnavigable past this point, although rough water is common on the Fraser anywhere upstream from Chilliwack
, and even more so above Hope
, about 20 miles south of Yale. But steamers could make it to Yale, good pilots and water conditions permitting, and the town had a busy dockside life as well as a variety of bars, restaurants, hotels, saloons and various services. Its maximum population during the gold rush was in the 15,000 range, although typically it housed 5-8,000. The higher figure relates to the evacuation of the Canyon during the Fraser Canyon War of 1858.
Being the head of river navigation also meant being the best location for the start of the Cariboo Wagon Road (as there were no usable roads between Yale and the settlements nearer the Fraser's mouth. The Cariboo Road ran from Yale to Barkerville
via Lytton
, Ashcroft and Quesnel
, built in the early 1860s. By the start of the 1870s an overland route from New Westminster was finally built - the Yale Road, formally the Grand Trunk Road and known today as Old Yale Road, which is still extant in sections from Surrey
through Abbotsford
and Chilliwack
(though no longer entirely a continuous "highway"). Its counterpart on the north side of the river was the Dewdney Trunk Road
, built in the same period in advance of railway construction in the 1880s, but which ran only to Dewdney
, just east of Mission City
.
Because of its unique role as a transshipment point for the Cariboo Road, Yale prospered for another twenty years after the gold rush, and though dwindled in population it retained some prestige and such sophistication as had grown up within the rough gold town, and it was as familiar to early provincial high society as were New Westminster and distant Barkerville. During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway
, construction ran directly through the village and destroyed the town's old commercial core and the onetime immediacy of its waterfront to town life.
Handy enough to travel to and from New Westminster and the railway's destination
on Burrard Inlet
(soon after named Vancouver
), it became the headquarters and residence of railway contractor Andrew Onderdonk
and the town boomed with population and new businesses because of railway spending and employment. Yale and nearby Emory City
, in the vicinity of Hill's Bar, where the gold rush had begun, as well as all the major Canyon towns to Ashcroft, thronged with temporary residents and business of various kinds and legitimacies.
Three-times daily rail service to Vancouver - begun in the early 1880s before construction in the Canyon was finished in 1885 - made access between Yale a popular excursion run, although the population of the railway boom was greatly reduce by 1890 and progressively afterwards. Daily return service remained in effect until World War I. When Onderdonk moved on in 1886, he donated his estate for a girl's school, All Hallows, which became one of the main society schools in the colony and continued in operation into the 1920s.
Construction of the railway also meant the destruction of the Cariboo Wagon Road, which was severed between Yale and Boston Bar
and between Lytton
and Spences Bridge
. A new highway north from Yale was not built until the Cariboo Highway in 1922, partly built using surviving roadgrades of the original wagon road and since upgraded to the Trans-Canada Highway
, and was for a long time the main route between the Interior
and the Coast
. After major reconstruction of the Cariboo Highway in the 1950s, involving the construction of several major tunnels, the difficult old canyon stretch of the route became an actual highway (instead of in name only) and towns such as Yale boomed once again. With the opening of the faster Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s, Yale's economy and population fell off again.
Most of today's population are members of the self-governing Yale First Nation
. Non-native businesses include a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as gas stations and automotive repair and rescue outfits. The Yale area is the lowest main destination for the Fraser River rafting expedition companies and several have waterfront campgrounds and facilities near town. All Hallows is now a campground and hostel. Not much of gold rush era Yale survives, as the docks vanished long ago and the railway ran down the main street of what had been town. The Yale Museum is located on old Front Street, adjacent to the tracks, and next to it is the Anglican Church of St. John the Divine, among the oldest in British Columbia.
Visible history is mostly atmosphere, and in good weather the town's setting is spectacular. Every summer, a historical re-enactment group visits Yale to celebrate the Royal Engineers
, who had served under Moody during McGowan's War and worked on the Cariboo Wagon Road and the Douglas-Lillooet Trail and were an integral part of Yale's life from the gold rush to the end of the 1870s.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province
Provinces and territories of Canada
The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...
of British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale
James Murray Yale
James Murray Yale was a clerk, and later, a chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Langley.Yale was born in Lachine, Lower Canada in 1796. He joined the HBC in 1815, and served first at Fort Wedderburn on Lake Athabasca. In April 1817, he was kidnapped by North West Company men and...
, then Chief Factor
Factor (agent)
A factor, from the Latin "he who does" , is a person who professionally acts as the representative of another individual or other legal entity, historically with his seat at a factory , notably in the following contexts:-Mercantile factor:In a relatively large company, there could be a hierarchy,...
of the Columbia District
Columbia District
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810...
. In its heyday at the peak of the gold rush
Gold rush
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
, it was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and north of San Francisco. It also earned epithets such as "the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia" and "a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah" of vice and violence and lawlessness.
Yale played an important role in certain events of the gold rush period which threatened to throw B.C. over to American annexation, the Fraser Canyon War
Fraser Canyon War
The Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia, which later became part of Canada, in 1858. It occurred during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which brought a...
and McGowan's War
McGowan's War
McGowan's War was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly-minted British authority on the British Columbia mainland, which had only just been declared a colony the previous summer, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold...
, and it is to Yale that the Governor (on the first occasion) and the government officials (on the second) - Begbie
Matthew Baillie Begbie
Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie was born on the island of Mauritius, thereafter raised and educated in the United Kingdom...
, Brew
Chartres Brew
Chartres Brew was a Gold commissioner, Chief Constable and judge in the Colony of British Columbia, later a province of Canada....
and Moody came to address American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
miners and take control of matters that threatened the rule of the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
over the Mainland (or "New Caledonia
New Caledonia (Canada)
New Caledonia was the name given to a district of the Hudson's Bay Company that comprised the territory largely coterminous with the present-day province of British Columbia, Canada. Though not a British colony, New Caledonia was part of the British claim to North America. Its administrative...
" as it was called before the creation of the mainland colony
Colony of British Columbia
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...
, although that term originally applied to the fur district northwest from present-day Prince George
Prince George, British Columbia
Prince George, with a population of 71,030 , is the largest city in northern British Columbia, Canada, and is known as "BC's Northern Capital"...
).
Yale is on the Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
and is generally considered to be on the dividing line between the Coast
British Columbia Coast
The British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the Pacific Ocean. The usage is synonymous with the term West Coast of Canada....
and the Interior
British Columbia Interior
The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...
. Immediately north of the village the Fraser Canyon
Fraser Canyon
The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km 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...
begins, and the river is generally considered unnavigable past this point, although rough water is common on the Fraser anywhere upstream from Chilliwack
Chilliwack, British Columbia
Chilliwack is a Canadian city in the Province of British Columbia. It is a predominantly agricultural community with an estimated population of 80,000 people. Chilliwack is the second largest city in the Fraser Valley Regional District after Abbotsford. The city is surrounded by mountains and...
, and even more so above Hope
Hope, British Columbia
Hope is a district municipality located at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon...
, about 20 miles south of Yale. But steamers could make it to Yale, good pilots and water conditions permitting, and the town had a busy dockside life as well as a variety of bars, restaurants, hotels, saloons and various services. Its maximum population during the gold rush was in the 15,000 range, although typically it housed 5-8,000. The higher figure relates to the evacuation of the Canyon during the Fraser Canyon War of 1858.
Being the head of river navigation also meant being the best location for the start of the Cariboo Wagon Road (as there were no usable roads between Yale and the settlements nearer the Fraser's mouth. The Cariboo Road ran from Yale to Barkerville
Barkerville, British Columbia
Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel along BC Highway 26, which follows the route of the original access to...
via Lytton
Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. The location has been inhabited by the Nlaka'pamux people for over 10,000 years, and is one of the earliest locations settled by non-natives in the Southern Interior of...
, Ashcroft and Quesnel
Quesnel, British Columbia
-Demographics:Quesnel had a population of 9,326 people in 2006, which was a decrease of 7.1% from the 2001 census count. The median household income in 2005 for Quesnel was $54,044, which is slightly above the British Columbia provincial average of $52,709....
, built in the early 1860s. By the start of the 1870s an overland route from New Westminster was finally built - the Yale Road, formally the Grand Trunk Road and known today as Old Yale Road, which is still extant in sections from Surrey
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...
through Abbotsford
Abbotsford, British Columbia
Abbotsford is a Canadian city located in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, adjacent to Greater Vancouver. It is the fifth largest municipality in British Columbia, home to 123,864 people . Its Census Metropolitan Area, which includes the District of Mission, is the 23rd largest in Canada,...
and Chilliwack
Chilliwack, British Columbia
Chilliwack is a Canadian city in the Province of British Columbia. It is a predominantly agricultural community with an estimated population of 80,000 people. Chilliwack is the second largest city in the Fraser Valley Regional District after Abbotsford. The city is surrounded by mountains and...
(though no longer entirely a continuous "highway"). Its counterpart on the north side of the river was the Dewdney Trunk Road
Dewdney Trunk Road
The Dewdney Trunk Road was one of the earliest major roads in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada, originally running from Port Moody to its original destination at Dewdney, just east of Mission...
, built in the same period in advance of railway construction in the 1880s, but which ran only to Dewdney
Dewdney, British Columbia
Dewdney is an unincorporated community in the Central Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada, about 15 km east of the town of Mission. It was incorporated as a district municipality in 1893 but has since become unincorporated and is now represented as part of Electoral Area 'G' in the...
, just east of Mission City
Mission, British Columbia
Mission, the core of which was formerly known as Mission City, is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Fraser River overlooking the City of Abbotsford and with that city is part of the Central Fraser Valley. Mission is the...
.
Because of its unique role as a transshipment point for the Cariboo Road, Yale prospered for another twenty years after the gold rush, and though dwindled in population it retained some prestige and such sophistication as had grown up within the rough gold town, and it was as familiar to early provincial high society as were New Westminster and distant Barkerville. During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
, construction ran directly through the village and destroyed the town's old commercial core and the onetime immediacy of its waterfront to town life.
Handy enough to travel to and from New Westminster and the railway's destination
Gastown
Gastown is a national historic site in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the northeast end of Downtown adjacent to the Downtown Eastside. Its historical boundaries were the waterfront , Columbia Street, Hastings Street, and Cambie Street, which were the borders of the 1870 townsite survey, the proper...
on Burrard Inlet
Burrard Inlet
Burrard Inlet is a relatively shallow-sided coastal fjord in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the low-lying Burrard Peninsula from the slopes of the North Shore Mountains, home to the communities of West...
(soon after named Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
), it became the headquarters and residence of railway contractor Andrew Onderdonk
Andrew Onderdonk
Andrew Onderdonk was a construction contractor who worked on several major projects including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. He was born on August 30, 1848 in New York to an established Dutch family. He received his education at the...
and the town boomed with population and new businesses because of railway spending and employment. Yale and nearby Emory City
Emory City, British Columbia
Emory City was a town on the Fraser River just 5 km south of Yale, British Columbia.By 1858 over 25,000 men had travelled up the Fraser River staking claims and working the sand bars in an attempt to strike it rich and 500 men are recorded to have spent the winter of 1858-1859 camped at...
, in the vicinity of Hill's Bar, where the gold rush had begun, as well as all the major Canyon towns to Ashcroft, thronged with temporary residents and business of various kinds and legitimacies.
Three-times daily rail service to Vancouver - begun in the early 1880s before construction in the Canyon was finished in 1885 - made access between Yale a popular excursion run, although the population of the railway boom was greatly reduce by 1890 and progressively afterwards. Daily return service remained in effect until World War I. When Onderdonk moved on in 1886, he donated his estate for a girl's school, All Hallows, which became one of the main society schools in the colony and continued in operation into the 1920s.
Construction of the railway also meant the destruction of the Cariboo Wagon Road, which was severed between Yale and Boston Bar
Boston Bar, British Columbia
Boston Bar is an unincorporated town in the Fraser Canyon of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was not named for an organization of Massachusetts lawyers but dates from the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush...
and between Lytton
Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. The location has been inhabited by the Nlaka'pamux people for over 10,000 years, and is one of the earliest locations settled by non-natives in the Southern Interior of...
and Spences Bridge
Spences Bridge, British Columbia
Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated 23 miles north east of Lytton and 32 miles from Ashcroft. In 1892, the population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130 First Nations people. There were 5 general stores, 3 hotels, one Church of England...
. A new highway north from Yale was not built until the Cariboo Highway in 1922, partly built using surviving roadgrades of the original wagon road and since upgraded to the Trans-Canada Highway
Trans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway is a federal-provincial highway system that joins the ten provinces of Canada. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 km...
, and was for a long time the main route between the Interior
Interior Plateau
The Interior Plateau comprises a large region of central British Columbia, and lies between the Cariboo and Monashee Mountains on the east, and the Hazelton Mountains, Coast Mountains and Cascade Range on the west. The continuation of the plateau into the United States is known there as the...
and the Coast
Lower Mainland
The Lower Mainland is a name commonly applied to the region surrounding and including Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As of 2007, 2,524,113 people live in the region; sixteen of the province's thirty most populous municipalities are located there.While the term Lower Mainland has been...
. After major reconstruction of the Cariboo Highway in the 1950s, involving the construction of several major tunnels, the difficult old canyon stretch of the route became an actual highway (instead of in name only) and towns such as Yale boomed once again. With the opening of the faster Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s, Yale's economy and population fell off again.
Most of today's population are members of the self-governing Yale First Nation
Yale First Nation
The Yale First Nation is an independent First Nation, located at Yale, British Columbia. It is not affiliated with Sto:lo tribal council.-Treaty Process:They have reached Stage 5 in the BC Treaty Process...
. Non-native businesses include a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as gas stations and automotive repair and rescue outfits. The Yale area is the lowest main destination for the Fraser River rafting expedition companies and several have waterfront campgrounds and facilities near town. All Hallows is now a campground and hostel. Not much of gold rush era Yale survives, as the docks vanished long ago and the railway ran down the main street of what had been town. The Yale Museum is located on old Front Street, adjacent to the tracks, and next to it is the Anglican Church of St. John the Divine, among the oldest in British Columbia.
Visible history is mostly atmosphere, and in good weather the town's setting is spectacular. Every summer, a historical re-enactment group visits Yale to celebrate the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers, Columbia detachment
Columbia detachment of the Royal Engineers was a British military contingent that played a major role in the settlement, development and security of the new British Columbia. Sent at the request of Governor James Douglas to help maintain order during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, the detachment was...
, who had served under Moody during McGowan's War and worked on the Cariboo Wagon Road and the Douglas-Lillooet Trail and were an integral part of Yale's life from the gold rush to the end of the 1870s.
See also
- Coast salish defensive sitesCoast Salish defensive sitesThe Coast Salish Defensive Sites are rock wall features constructed by Coast Salish peoples that have been excavated by Kisha Supernant in 2008 near the Fraser River Canyon, Yale, British Columbia. The functions of these features may have included defense, fishing platforms, and creation of house...
- Fraser Canyon WarFraser Canyon WarThe Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia, which later became part of Canada, in 1858. It occurred during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which brought a...
- McGowan's WarMcGowan's WarMcGowan's War was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly-minted British authority on the British Columbia mainland, which had only just been declared a colony the previous summer, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold...
- Douglas RoadDouglas RoadThe Douglas Road, aka the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior...
- Dewdney Trail
- Okanagan TrailOkanagan TrailThe Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858-1859...
- Jacko hoaxJacko hoaxThe Jacko hoax was a Canadian newspaper story about a gorilla supposedly caught near Yale, British Columbia in 1884. The story, titled "What is it?, A strange creature captured above Yale. A British Columbia Gorilla", appeared in the British Columbia newspaper the Daily Colonist on July 4th, 1884...