Yale is an unincorporated town in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, which grew in importance during the gold rush era. Located on the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

, it is generally considered to be on the dividing line between the

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

and the Interior regions of the British Columbia Mainland. Immediately north of the town, the

Fraser Canyon 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 Ca ...

begins and the river is generally considered unnavigable past this point. Rough water is common on the Fraser anywhere upstream from

Chilliwack Chilliwack ( )( hur, Ts'elxwéyeqw) is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Chilliwack is surrounded by mountains and home to recreational areas such as Cultus Lake and Chilliwack Lake Provincial Parks. There are numerous outdoor ...

and even more so above

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...

, about south of Yale. However, 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 era was in the 15,000 range. More generally, it housed 5,000-8,000. The higher figure was counted at the time of evacuation of the Canyon during the

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 occurr ...

of 1858. Most of today's population are members of the self-governing

Yale First Nation Yale First Nation ( hur, X̲wóx̲welá:lhp) is a First Nations government located at Yale, British Columbia. Yale has 16 distinct reserves stretching from near Sawmill Creek to American Creek, with the most southern reserve situated at Ruby Creek ...

. Non-native businesses include a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as a gas station, and automotive repair and rescue outfits. The Yale area is the lowest main destination for the Fraser River rafting expedition companies; 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. The railway was built in the 1880s down the main street of what had been the waterfront town. The Yale Museum is located on old Front Street, adjacent to the tracks. Next to it is the Anglican Church of St. John the Divine, among the oldest in British Columbia. The town has its own natural landscape. Every summer, a historical

re-enactment Reenactment or re-enactment may refer to: Legislation * Consolidation bill, a bill that consolidates several Acts of Parliament into a single Act in the United Kingdom * Repeal with reenactment, where a law is replaced with one more suitable Oth ...

group visits Yale to celebrate the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, who had served under

Richard Clement Moody Richard Clement Moody Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit of France (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British governor, engineer, architect and soldier. He is best known for being the founder and the first Lieutenant ...

during McGowan's War. They also worked on the

Cariboo Wagon Road The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching fr ...

(later improved as the Trans-Canada Highway) and the Douglas-Lillooet Trail. The men were an integral part of Yale's life from the gold rush to the end of the 1870s.

History

The town was founded in 1848 by the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

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 A factor is a type of trader who receives and sells goods on commission, called factorage. A factor is a mercantile fiduciary transacting business in his own name and not disclosing his principal. A factor differs from a commission merchant in ...

of the

Columbia District The Columbia District was a fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold ...

. In its heyday at the peak of the

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

, it was reputed to be the largest city west of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and north of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. It also earned epithets such as "the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia" and "a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah" of vice, violence and lawlessness. Yale played an important role in certain events of the gold rush period which threatened British control in the region with annexation by the United States: the

and McGowan's War. The Governor came to Yale during the first crisis, and government officials

Matthew Baillie Begbie Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie (9 May 1819 – 11 June 1894) was a British lawyer, politician, and judge. In 1858, Begbie became the first Chief Justice of the Crown Colony of British Columbia in colonial times and in the first decades after Bri ...

, Chartres Brew and

during the second, to address

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

miners and take control of matters. The unrest threatened the rule of

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

over the Mainland (or "

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

" as it was called before the creation of the

mainland colony Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or dem ...

. (New Caledonia was usually applied to the fur district northwest from present-day

Prince George, British Columbia Prince George is the largest city in northern British Columbia, Canada, with a population of 74,004 in the metropolitan area. It is often called the province's "northern capital" or sometimes the "spruce capital" because it is the hub city for ...

). As Yale was the head of river navigation, it was the best location to be designated for the start of the

, as there were no usable roads between Yale and the settlements nearer the Fraser's mouth. The Cariboo Road, built in the early 1860s, ran from Yale to

Barkerville 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. BC Highway 26, which ...

via Lytton,

Ashcroft Ashcroft may refer to: Places * Ashcroft, British Columbia, a village in Canada **Ashcroft House in Bagpath, Gloucestershire, England—eponym of the Canadian village * Ashcroft, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia * Ashcroft, Colorado, ...

and

Quesnel Quesnel or Quesnell means "little oak" in the Picard dialect of French. It is used as a proper name and may refer to: Places * Le Quesnel, a commune the Somme department in France * Quesnel, British Columbia, a city in British Columbia, Canada ...

. By the start of the 1870s, an overland route from

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capita ...

was finally built - the Yale Road along the south side of the river. It was formerly known as the Grand Trunk Road and in the 21st century as

Old Yale Road The Old Yale Road is a historic early wagon road between New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada and Yale, British Columbia, and servicing the Fraser Valley of the British Columbia Lower Mainland in the late 19th century and into the early 20th ...

; it survives in sections from

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

through Abbotsford and

(though no longer entirely a continuous "highway"). Its counterpart on the north side of the river was the

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 Dewdney, just east of Mission. It exists in three sections today: *an arterial route running roughl ...

, built in the same period in advance of railway construction in the 1880s. That road 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. Although it declined in population, it retained some prestige and such sophistication as had grown up within the rough gold town. It was as familiar to early provincial high society as were New Westminster and distant Barkerville. During the construction of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

, construction ran directly through the village, built on flatland by the river. It destroyed the town's old commercial core and the connection of the town life to the waterfront. As Yale was handy for travel to and from

and the railway's destination on

Burrard Inlet french: Baie Burrard , image = Burrard Inlet 201807.jpg , image_size = 250px , alt = , caption = Aerial view of Burrard Inlet , image_bathymetry = Burrard-Inlet-map-en.svg , alt_bathymetry ...

(soon after named

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

), it became the headquarters and residence of the American

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

contractor

Andrew Onderdonk Andrew Onderdonk (30 August 1848 – 21 June 1905) was an American construction contractor who worked on several major projects in the West, including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Co ...

, who supervised its construction. 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 Hill's Bar is a long-abandoned ghost town located in the Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, Canada. The site of the former boomtown is situated near the right bank of the Fraser River, between Yale and the mouth of Emory Creek. The eponymo ...

, where the gold rush had begun, as well as all the major Canyon towns to

, 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 Yale a popular excursion run. With construction ended, however, the population dropped dramatically in Yale by 1890, and continued to decline afterward. Daily return service remained in effect until World War I. When Onderdonk moved on in 1886, he donated his estate for a girls' school, All Hallows. This was ranked as one of the main society schools in the colony and continued to operate for decades, into the 1920s. Construction of the railway destroyed parts of the

, which was severed between Yale and

Boston Bar Boston Bar is an unincorporated community in the Fraser Canyon of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Name The name dates from the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush (1858–1861). A "bar" is a gold-bearing sandbar or sandy riverbank, and ...

and between Lytton and

Spences Bridge Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated north east of Lytton and south of Ashcroft. At Spences Bridge the Trans-Canada Highway crosses the Thompson River. In 1892, Spences Bridge's population inc ...

. A new highway north from Yale was not built until the

Cariboo Highway Highway 97 is a major highway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the longest continuously numbered route in the province, running and is the only route that runs the entire north–south length of the British Columbia, connec ...

in 1922, partly built using surviving roadgrades of the original wagon road and since upgraded to the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...

. For a long time, this was the main route between the Interior and the

. 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 achieved highway quality (instead of in name only), and towns such as Yale boomed once again. With the opening of the faster

Coquihalla Highway Coquihalla may refer to: *British Columbia Highway 5, also known as Coquihalla highway * Coquihalla River * Coquihalla Pass * Okanagan—Coquihalla, a federal electoral district in British Columbia * Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park *Coquihalla Ri ...

in the 1980s, Yale's economy and population fell off as traffic bypassed it.

Television

Yale has been featured on the historical television series ''

Gold Trails and Ghost Towns ''Gold Trails and Ghost Towns'' is a Canadian historical documentary show, created and produced by television station CHBC-TV in Kelowna, British Columbia for Canadian syndication and hosted by Mike Roberts with historian/storyteller Bill Barle ...

,'' season 1, episode 7.

Climate

References

*''Short Portage to Lillooet'', Irene Edwards, self-published, Lillooet, various editions, out of print. *''British Columbia Chronicle: Gold and Colonists'', Helen B. Akrigg and G.P.V. Akrigg, Discovery Press, Vancouver 1977. *

External links

"Chinatown" page, from BC Heritage website on Yale
{{authority control Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Fraser Canyon Populated places on the Fraser River Hudson's Bay Company forts Populated places in the Fraser Valley Regional District Designated places in British Columbia History of British Columbia Hudson's Bay Company trading posts

History

Television

Climate

See also

References

External links