With the construction of the Coquihalla Highway inland from Hope, much of the vehicular traffic now avoids the Trans Canada Highway which winds tortuously through the Fraser Canyon. However, two of the mainlines of the two transcontinental railways, the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific, run up the canyon, as do trucks headed north.
Several plaques and roadside signs along the Trans Canada relate the stories of the Fraser Canyon and the Fraser River, which runs along the bottom of the canyon. This CNHE plaque is mounted at a pullout at the northern end of Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park, about 4 kilometres north of Spuzzum, which is no longer even a wide spot in the road.
Nearby is a walking trail leading west to the second Alexandra Bridge, a suspension bridge built in 1926, using the support towers from the first Alexandra Bridge, built in 1863. The bridge is now a pedestrian only bridge, and a heritage site. The present, Third Alexandra Bridge, was built in 1962 about a half mile south as part of the Trans Canada Highway.
FRASER CANYON CORRIDOR
Once an almost insurmountable obstacle to travel into the interior, the scenic Fraser Canyon is now one of Canada’s major transportation corridors. Aboriginal people were the first to open paths along the canyon walls, followed later by fur traders and gold miners, walking on trails high above the raging waters. Transit was improved by the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road and later two transcontinental railways. When the Trans-Canada Highway replaced the provincial highway in the 1950s, the Fraser Canyon’s role in the national transportation network was reaffirmed.
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 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, British Columbia at Soda Creek Canyon near the town of the same name.
Tunnels
The Fraser Canyon Highway Tunnels were constructed from the spring of 1957 to 1964 as part of the Trans-Canada Highway project. There are seven tunnels in total, the shortest being about 57 metres (187 ft); the longest, however, is about 610 metres (2,000 ft) and is one of North America's longest. They are situated between Yale and Boston Bar.
In order from south to north, they are: Yale (completed 1963), Saddle Rock (1958), Sailor Bar (1959), Alexandra (1964), Hell's Gate (1960), Ferrabee (1964) and China Bar (1961). The Hell's Gate tunnel is the only tunnel that does not have lights, while the China Bar tunnel is the only tunnel that requires ventilation.
History
At the mouth of the Canyon, an archeological site documents the presence of the Stó:lo people in the area from the early Holocene period, 8,000 to 10,000 years ago after the retreat of the Fraser Glacier. Research farther upriver at the Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, near Pavilion, is dated to 8000 BP, when a huge lake filled what is now the canyon above Lillooet, created by a slide a few miles south of the present-day town.
During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858–1860, 10,500 miners and an untold number of hangers-on populated its banks and towns. The Fraser Canyon War and the series of events known as McGowan's War occurred during the gold rush. Other important histories connected with the Canyon include the building of the Cariboo Wagon Road and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The river is navigable between Boston Bar and Lillooet and also between Big Bar Ferry and Prince George and beyond, although rapids at Soda Canyon and elsewhere were still difficult waters for the many steamboats which piloted the river in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The first sternwheeler to pass the rapids was Skuzzy, which was built with a multiple-compartment hull to preserve her from sinking from rock damage. She was used to haul equipment and supplies during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, beginning in the 1880s.
With the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s came the destruction of key portions of the Cariboo Wagon Road, as there was no room for both railway and road on the narrow, steep mountainsides above the river. As a result, the towns of Lytton and Boston Bar were cut off from road access with the rest of the province, other than by the difficult wagon road to Lillooet via Fountain. During the automotive age and following the construction of the Canadian Northern Railway in 1904–05, a newer version of the road was built through the canyon. The Fraser Canyon Highway was surveyed in 1920 and constructed in 1924–25 with a through-route available after the completion of the (second) Alexandra Suspension Bridge in 1926. This was known as the Cariboo Highway and Highway 1 until the construction and designation of the Trans-Canada Highway (circa-1962).
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