The Dewdney Trail — Cascade Recreation Area, BC
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Dunbar Loop
N 49° 13.847 W 121° 03.371
10U E 641513 N 5454929
The Dewdney Trail was developed through the 1860s to provide an all-British Columbia route from the Interior of the colony to water access on the Pacific Ocean.
Waymark Code: WMH4GE
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 05/21/2013
Views: 9
The Dewdney Trail provided the first west-to-east access in the British colony of British Columbia. It was an all British route designed to keep mining resources in the Kootenays in what would become Canada within a decade later.
The first task of Edgar Dewdney was to create a route from Fort Hope to Vermillion Forks, today's Princeton, across the northern Cascade Mountains. He achieved this difficult crossing by building a trail in two years. Within four of the completion the Cascade crossing the route was extended to the Okanagan, the Boundary, and the Kootenays in an effort to keep gold in British held territory as opposed to going into American territory.
Today's Crowsnest Highway, also known as Highway 3, roughly follows the route over several mountain ranges and at time the Dewdney Trail dipped very close to the Anglo-American boundary of the 49th parallel. However, the overall objective was met of an all-British transportation corridor.
THE DEWDNEY TRAIL
A bold venture, this trail crossed
the mountains of southern B.C., and kept
wealth of a new land from flowing to the U.S.A.
Planned by the Royal Engineers, and built in
1860-61 by Edgar Dewdney, a young engineer, it led
over the mountains to Princeton. After completion
to the Rockies in 1865 it served for 25 years as
a vital route to the Coast.