Dewdney Trail - Moyie, BC
N 49° 16.918 W 115° 49.922
11U E 584943 N 5459457
The Dewdney Trail runs 720 kilometres (447 miles)from Hope BC to Fort Steele.
Waymark Code: WM95RN
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 07/03/2010
Views: 7
From the stop of interest sign:
Kootenay gold discoveries attracted thousands of prospectors from Washington Territory in the late 1850s and 1860s. In those years all trails led south into Washington and Idaho and the vast bulk of the treasure and commerce enriched those regions. The need for an all-British route to the distant corner of the province was realized when Edgar Dewdney was commissioned to extend his famous trail from Rock Creek.
By 1865, this historic trail was completed. Although it followed the shores of this lake, it was not until 1883 that the town of Moyie came into being, after a magnificent body of silver ore was discovered. Today the Dewdney Trail has all but vanished but Moyie lives on.
From Wikipedia:
The Dewdney Trail is a 720-km (447-mile) trail in British Columbia, Canada that served as a major thoroughfare in mid-1800s British Columbia. The trail was a critical factor in the development and strengthening of the newly established British Colony of British Columbia, tying together mining camps and small towns that were springing up along the route during the gold rush era prior to the colony's joining Canadian Confederation in 1871. The route's importance and urgency was prompted because many new gold finds were occurring at locations near the US border that were much more easily accessed from Washington Territory than via any practicable route from the barely-settled parts of the Lower Mainland and Cariboo. Today, approximately 80 percent of the former trail has been incorporated into the Crowsnest Highway.