This is a transcript of an article written by Dave Taylor in 1980. He has an usual writing style making many references that will have to be researched to be understood. He also uses language that some might find inappropriate or offensive. The article is presented here with it’s detail intact.
The Old Hope Trail by Dave Taylor, May 1980
For much of the lives of some still amongst us, the Hope- Princeton Trail was the vital link..and for years the only.. between British Columbia’s coast and Southern interior, and most of us made the trek. Now, with much of the route overtaken by Highway that pilgrimage is impossible. But about half of the trail route remains, overgrown but not obliterated, and from nostalgia the hike can still be done. Joe Hilton, all of 15 going on 70, has just been in to tell us that with an assist from the beavers, he did it last year, and for the old timers revives glorious memories and the cheechakos, hopefully, a new surge of adventure.
Anyone who knows our hills accepts that they are combed with timeless trails impossible of exact reconstruction; and that with an inborn sense of direction, abetted by seasonal vagaries, any trail route was only approximate.
Not only had Joe redone the trail track he had found a new old one.. and an ancient brass powderhorn which he seems to think I should be able to identify as my saxophone. My powder has long been dry, alas.
On the eastern flank of the Coast Mountain divide, our origins were those of hill territory, and our hillsmen, surviving into our times, were a proud and splendid breed with a code we still cherish.
The fur-traders were the first to come over taken by the gold seekers whose brief flurry was succeeded by the placid era of the stockmen. The first known white access was in 1812 by the fur-traders; the initial gold rush pre-1860s Cariboo. The cattle barons reigned until about 1900 when roads and railways came, with mines and Orchards and towns…and tourists.
From the Atlantic and Hudson’s Bay the Furmen pushed over the Rockies with the advent of the 19th century and ruled until the gold rush ended their primitive empire. They had a competent organization in Similkameen and with the loss of the boundary settlement of Oregon in 1846 their main Brigade Trail ran through the Tulameen territory from Hope to Kamloops and New Caledonia via the Sowaqua, Peers and Podunk creeks, Lodestone and Otter Valley. This, the last of the Brigade routes, was in use for about 12 years until the gold revolution, with camps at Manson, Chevreuil, Guards (Tulameen Crossing) Lodestone and Otter Flat.
There were substantial posts at Cawston, Keremeos, Tulameen, Campement de Femme and a sort of horse depot at Guards.
It is quite possible that the first finds that exploded the Gold Rush were made in these parts. In any event, the influx supplanted the fur organization by the Colonial, with Douglas, erstwhile Fur Chief, as first effective Governor.
On a reconnaissance expedition in 1931 which eventually established Three Brothers Park (Manning is a misnomer) Podunk Davis (who in 1926 found nurse Mary Warburton lost for 30 days on a Hope Trail trek) yarned that when in Yale he heard the story of a butcher there, about a gold party from Walla Walla under John Alloway which crossed Similkameen en route to the Fraser. In that party was John Fall Allison, recognized as our first permanent settler. Though with no mention of Allison, I later found the account substantiated in standard British Columbia history. The usual story is that in 1859 Douglas sent Allison to find a route to the reputed gold in Similkameen. That Allison had already been here, is a plausible recommendation. He came by Allison Pass to be adopted by the Southern Trans-Provincial Highway. He was not our first pre-emptor.
With the loss by the boundary award of the Columbia Estuary base, Victoria had been established as the Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters under Douglas. The initial Brigade route was up the Columbia and the Okanagan rivers, across to Kamloops and the Fraser. Now, a new route had to be found between Kamloops and the lower Fraser. With this in view, Fort Hope was hopefully established in 1848 and John Caulfield Anderson, a skilled geographer, dispatched to locate a route between Fort hope and Kamloops (the latter from 1812). The next year, Henry Peers improved on Anderson’s route by incorporating an old Indian Trail; Blackeyes via Lodestone. Thus became the Brigade Trail.
The Gold Rush poured horses into the primitive colony. Accepting the inevitable, and with a view to commerce, Douglas wanted them out to the diggings. Hence the Allison expedition. Allison found Johnny McDougall (an HBC breed)(sic.) sluicing at the Forks. In trail travel, the Tulameen-Similkameen confluence had become a key point, named Vermilion Forks from an ochre deposit mined by the Indians (our Paint Bluffs). Tulameen is their “Red Earth”. It should be noted that sluicing is by no means a primitive [operation?] .
After the chance Discovery in 1848 of Sutter’s gold in a mill race in California, the search for Pacific placers within a decade extended to the Arctic, though many fields were missed. But the lower Fraser, the Similkameen, and Rock Creek are among the earliest rewards.
In the summer of 1860, the enterprising Douglas came to see for himself what was doing in the interior, as far as Rock Creek. He went in by the northern Okanagan route, returned by our Cascade-Richter passes, and on the 30th of September, 1860, held a meeting with the miners at Vermilion Forks. He was so impressed with the prospects that he ordered the Royal Engineers to rush a road from Hope to Similkameen. From the Forks he planned to use bateaux on the river, resuming the trail to the boundary, and eventually pushing a road across the Rockies to Canada. and “all red” route to defy Yankee expropriation.
As Hope was the Fraser outpost, Princeton was to be the Interior; the name honored a visit to Canada (east) by Prince Edward, later, King Edward the 7th. The site was not at the Forks, but in the airport – Swan Lake – 1 mile Creek area. It remains a blueprint vision.
Captain JW Grant was the Engineers construction expert. Sergeant William McColl was placed in charge of the Hope to Princeton project. The Engineers contingent was a small, picked force, with many duties, and most of the work was done by contract under their supervision, although they themselves built 25 miles of excellent road out of Hope to their “Camp 25” on the Sumallo.
Gold diggings are ephemeral, and already interest was shifting to the Cariboo. The Hope Trail contract was given to Edgar Dewdney and Walter Moberly, recent engineer arrivals from Britain, and from “Camp 25” it was merely a good trail over a slightly different survey from the engineers. By the time it reached Princeton, Rock Creek was ghosted, so the work stopped here. Princeton was never built, and Allison eventually required the land at the forks, abandoned to Richard Sandes, a son-in-law, and promoted as the present Princeton with railway development about 1900.
But the Hope-Princeton Trail was built in 1860, and was in immediate use, and until the advent of the modern railroad and air complex, was the main and almost sole link between Coast and Southern Interior.
Moberly went on to explorations of national fame. Dewdney became first governor of the Northwest Territory, including much of present Saskatchewan and Alberta, and later was Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. He married a Moir sister of our Mrs. Allison and eventually promoted a rival town site to Princeton known as “Allison”. He is not held majestically in these parts. but the Star of 1900 carries a story, by him, of how he came up over the trail in the winter of 1860-1 “to see how the boys were getting along” .
Douglas’s Princeton was an abortion, but there was an immediate land boom, including famous names. Col. Moody, Chief Officer of the engineers, and Moberley among them. There were only two preemptions before Douglas’s visit, a maze of overlapping ones after. There is Hudson Bay Meadows near the Granite Creek headwaters; Moody’s Meadows out Five Mile; and McColl’s preemption on China Creek; originally McColl Creek.
Of this maze, only one preemption went to completion, that of Captain Luard of the Engineers. It is an oddity on the map, Lot 101. The major portion is north of the river, the present Harry Allison ranch, where Allison townsite was promoted with bridge, school and hotel; the southern part became the Taylor mill site.
The fur and gold frenzies gave way to the placid era of the cattle barons; Allison, Hayes, Richter, Cawston, Lowe, etc. British Columbia joined Canada, and in 1886 the Transcontinental Railway realized Douglas’s dream of an All-Red route.
It ran well north of Similkameen. Settlement was sparse with huge land spreads like those of Haynes and Ellis in the Okanagan. Access to the coast by rail was either by Sicamous, through the Okanagan, or by Kamloops, through the Nicola country. For many years the main artery was the Hope-Princeton trail.
Long before the first fur Traders the Native Indians were Avid Travelers and traders. there were annual treks into the Tulameen country for venison and berries and the like, and access to the Fraser for salmon. As we have seen, the Hudson Bay Brigade Trail incorporates Blackeye’s Trail. The hills were combed with routes now unidentifiable, remnants still cropping up with brass powder horns and Hilton’s Lost Horizon.
From 1858 our placers have always attracted some seekers. Joe Hilton may even have (false) gold teeth. In 1884, three sourdoughs who wintered at Onderdonk’s CPR construction camps sought summer in Similkameen. Going out in the fall, they told Allison, established at the forks, of a strike on the then unnamed Granite Creek. From the international boundary to well up both main rivers, the streams have been scoured in the initial rush; but as with the Klondike, the riches had been missed. Thus Granite mushrooms wildly in 1885, it was not a chance discovery by indolent John chance, who worked for Allison, stretching the verb. But it brought a new era in our area.
The gold Seekers came in by many ways, including the Hope Trail, with a new branch via 12 mile to Granite [Creek], many via Nicola, including comparador Foxcrowell P. Cook. Even unto Joe Hilton and Bud, sour cheechakos; Jim Patterson understandably prefers Soapy Smith.
The Hill-Harriman-Daly complex envisioned an northwest empire, even unto Manchuria, with a rival railway tapping the more attractive south. It brought in Nickel Plate and the Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern subsidiary of the Great Northern railway.
This activity, tapping latent resources, spawned townsites. Sandes sold to British enterprisers, the Vermilion Forks Mining and Development Co. coal and real estate, rivaling the Allison of Sande’s relatives. As Granite Creek petered out, the Provincial government moved its quarters to Princeton, settling the contest. By 1900, Princeton was a bustling town, with the Star, banking on the railway, but chiefly served by the Hope- Princeton Trail.
Hill’s railway, from Oroville, reached Daly’s mine and resultant Hedley, in 1909, Coalmont 1912, with resultant coal activity tours. But it stalled at Brookmere and eventually its upper line was taken over by the CPR and pushed through the Coquihalla to the Coast as the Kettle Valley, 1917, abandoned 1952, with most services on the Great Northern ended by 1935.
With the Granite activity and development of the Nicola ranching area the main access shifted to the CPR at Spence’s Bridge, then coach and freight wagon to Granite and Princeton, with the Hope Trail still in considerable travel use.
Until the river treks were replaced by the Southern Interior Highway, pathetic signs indicated “Allison”, “Cory”, “Bradshaw” and similar hopeful stations. See fotos, preemption story, railway story.
But from 1860 until the advent of the Kettle Valley and the extension of local roads and the building of the Fraser Valley route, the Hope-Princeton Trail was our major artery. Until the One Mile Road was built in 1921, the main route was via Princeton, McCullough Creek and Aspen Grove to Nicola and Spence’s Bridge, linking first with the CPR and later, the Fraser Valley road. The Green Mountain road to Penticton dates from the early 1900’s, but was hardly a link to the Coast. More than one sofy (sic) reached Vancouver by the VV&E from Princeton to Orovilee, branch line to Spokane, main line to Seattle, extension to Vancouver.
On the other hand, an enterprising HB man “breakfasted in Hope, lunched at Allison’s and dined at Keremeos”. A good horseman could easily make the 60 mile trip in a day. An Indian would take out an urgent missive for $10, often holing up in a snowbank during the worst winter stress.With a summit of 5400 feet, (Allison Pass at 4500 and considerably southward), the Trail was under snow for half the year, with the main season opening in June or July.
Our trails too, have their many tales. Allison packed out copper ore by mule in the 1860’s; Mrs. Marston, whose position was taken over by the Allisons, fearful of horses, walked in behind the pack horses in 1860. The discoverer of romantic Camp McKinney was found wandering impoverished and demented; our stud horse McDonald perished similarly; John Henry Jackson our pioneer hotelman perished out of Tulameen; there was the Nurse Warburton saga, later the Ewing mystery and that of Harvey Garrison. On the other hand, Mrs. Florence Waterman leisurely took over her family with milch goats; valiant Dan McCurdy celebrated the Glorious Twelfth with gunshots in the wilderness; there is the Fraser’s Grave mystery; the inevitable Lost Mines, the Steamboat Mountain swindle; grand old Grainger introduced callow H.R.MacMillan to our wealth and wonders in 1927. And surely Emil Voight, who kicked millionaires off Copper Mountain and survived by handouts was found by Ed Burr prostrated by broken leg and saved with acceptable chivalry. A little later Ed was stuck on Copper Mountain and Emil sent him a bill for $200. Even unto Bud and the beavers and Hilton’s Horn..it’s nice to wander on the Old Hope Trail.
Douglas launched his 3500 mile All-Red route in 1860, and built a full 25 miles of it out of Hope. And for almost a century it’s stalled. It became a political football, with Kamloops naturally opposed. and eventually in 1921 the Fraser Canyon Route won out.
But the conservatives at first under McBride and later told me, vigorously espoused its completion, and launched considerable construction. There was a major push out of Princeton in 1912, primitive work with horses and graders of the time (see pictures). The outbreak of World War I halted that.
In 1927 the Tolmie Tories launched the work anew, as an alternate route to the Fraser Canyon, which had earlier won the initial contest. The Depression converted the big push to relief camps at ten cents per day, and after one term, the Tories were out.
Originally the trail ran to the Forks from the Nine Mile Creek crossing, over uplands, to what are now the benches, anddown Ewart’s hill to the basin. There was a good road up the river to the mouth of thee Whipsaw, to serve placer operations and ranches, a townsite of Ashnola (Jameson’s) being laid out, with hotel, in anticipation of the railroad going that way (see map).It also served the early Copper Mountain operations under the eloquently named Volcanic Brown, heavy gear simply lugged up the steep mountainside by go-devil..low sleds pulled by cable.
In the cattle era, drives to the New Westminster market were a major user, surviving landmarks being such names as Powder and Corral camps, Friday, Saturday and Sunday creeks. It is often (mis)called the Dewdney Trail. It is true, as we have seen, that the contract was taken, under Engineer’s supervision, by Dewdney and Moberley, and the initial construction was intended to reach Rock Creek. It is also true that it was extended, by Dewdney, to the East Kootenay. But that was a separate project, in 1865, to serve the Wild Horse Creek gold rush of that time. There was no such activity, no such destination in the trail, foregoing Rock Creek, linked Hope to Princeton. Five years later,under entirely different auspices, a trail was built from Princeton to Wild Horse Creek. Extended, if you like, but a separate project. Admittedly also by Dewdney, but by this time, the Royal Engineers were gone. From that project, Trail Creek and the town of Trail take their names. That was the Dewdney Trail of 1865. Ours is the Hope-Princeton, or Engineers Trail, of 1860.
After 1920, the Hope-Princeton Trail was but little used for economic purposes. It continued to attract riders and hikers, even the odd motorcycle, though stunters were discouraged.
From 1860, there was 25 miles of good road out of Hope, and the 1912 and 1927-on efforts brought several miles of serviceable road out of Princeton, along the general rute of the present highway, though by no means of current quality. But you could easily drive any car of these times to what is now the government lodge. Only about 12 miles remained as a gap, over Allison Pass and Skagit Bluffs. And in 1938, with private funds and government approval, we launched a plan to bridge that gap. Prominent were Mr. Grainger and Bert Thomas, a contractor on the 1912 effort.
Fates in reverse, the outbreak of World War II made this effort unnecessary, the government now requiring the access for war contingencies. On 3rd November 1949,the Hope-Princeton highway was officially opened with Charlie Bonnivier leading his pack horse through after Prime Minister Johnson cut the ribbon. Charlie had mined and ranched in the area for 50 years, and built his own quota of trails. He is buried alongside. Beloved Grainger had died earlier at his desk., father of the BC Forestry organization. Bert lived long to celebrate success.
And sometimes, you know, some of us sour old sourdoughs sort of wish we had never got the damn road built…….