Historic Yale — Yale, BC - British Columbia Heritage Markers on Waymarking.com

Today Yale seems like some sleepy hamlet with two transcontinental railways running near it and that it doesn't offer much for the visitor. Yet it has a rich cultural heritage reaching back some 10,000 years.

Yale was always important for the First Nations cultures both up the Fraser River and below to the mouth. Here nations would come from up two hundred kilometres away to fish the annual salmon runs. The narrowness of the canyon provided ample opportunities to harvest and process this important food resource. Even today First Nations continue to catch fish from the canyon walls around Yale.

Yale covers many important periods of British Columbia's history from a post-contact heritage point of view starting in 1808 when Simon Fraser explored the river that would later bear his name.

The Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Yale in 1848 with the purpose of being a transfer point between the overland routes to British Columbia's Interior region and the water routes to Fort Langley and Fort Victoria.

The 1858 Fraser Canyon Gold Rush made Yale famous throughout North America. Within months this First Nations and fur trading outpost "was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. It also earned epithets such as 'the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia' and 'a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah' of vice, violence, and lawlessness."

As the 1858 gold rush petered out, a new gold rush in the 1860s farther upstream along the Fraser River and its tributaries reestablished Yale to prominence as a transfer point. However, this point it was the head of the steamboat runs from Victoria and New Westminster. Here passengers and freight switched to the stagecoaches of the BX Express services to reach the Cariboo.

In 1868 Yale was selected as the place for the Colony of British Columbia to discuss its future. Earlier that year in Victoria four choices – remain a colony, become an independent nation, join the United States, or join Canada – was narrowed down to the last option. At Yale, the thirty-seven terms of Confederation were established and then sent to Ottawa. On July 20th, 1871 the colony ceased to exist and the Province of British Columbia came to be.

In the 1880s Yale boomed yet again. It was selected to be the main construction camp of the Canadian Pacific Railway for building the difficult Fraser Canyon section. When construction ceased many of the houses built here were moved to Vancouver’s Yaletown.

But this was the last of Yale’s important periods and since then it has slowly dwindled. It did see an improved economy starting in 1926 when the Fraser Canyon was reestablished as the only highway route linking Vancouver to the rest of Canada. But this prosperous period would only fade starting in the mid-1980s when the faster Coquihalla Highway was completed.

Today, with other Fraser Canyon communities, Yale seems forgotten. However, its rich heritage is important to British Columbia’s overall heritage and a place worth celebrating.

Type of Marker: Cultural Type of Sign: British Columbia Tourism Sign Describe the parking that is available nearby: Parking Lot near the sign What Agency placed the marker?: Province of British Columbia

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