Hope British Columbia

We wanted to mosey along the Canadian Gold Trail. While in Hope, we ventured along the Fraser River where on March 23, 1858, three Americans from San Francisco stopped for lunch on the edge of the river. Edward Hill saw something yellow glinting in the water and got out his pan. After determining he had found a considerable amount of gold, the three staked a claim and worked the area hard. Their sending of considerable quantities of gold to the assay office sparked the Cariboo Gold Rush along the Fraser River. What came to be known as Hills Bar was the largest producing claim in British Columbia in the era.

We paid a visit to Hells Gate. A very narrow gorge along the Fraser River, Simon Fraser speaks of it in his journals from the 1808 exploration. The water is so violent here that Fraser could not pass by water – with the help of locals he scaled the sheer cliffs along paths and hanging ladders built by the ancients. Hope, being just south of Hells Gate, ended up being the end point of the navigable portion of the Fraser for commercial steamers and paddle wheelers in the 1800’s.

We took the aerial tram down to the waters edge. A pedestrian bridge now allows folk a closer look at the maelstrom. Apparently in the early 1900’s when the Canada Pacific Railway blasted its way through here, they just dropped all the blasting debris in the river. That year the government recorded an 80% drop in the salmon population down river.

The government required CPR to fix the issue, and in the 1930’s, the CPR built a massive fish ladder to allow the salmon to bypass the hazard they had inadvertently created. Today the salmon population has essentially recovered. Hells Gate is worth a visit, in part because much of the area looks exactly like it would have been found by Simon Fraser.

We headed further North to the small town of Lytton. In Lytton you can find the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser rivers. The Fraser is a brown, muddy river at this point. The Thompson is clear due to its rocky bed. Where the two meet, there is a distinct line separating the muddy Fraser from the clear Thompson. Sadly, the Fraser wins.

Of course, the waterfalls continue. It seems like you just pass a waterfall every few minutes as you drive around British Columbia, not that either the Woman or I am complaining about that.

Talk to you soon!