Dewdney Trail - Boundary Falls, BC
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 49° 02.363 W 118° 42.292
11U E 375402 N 5433233
At a pullout along Highway 3, 5.5 km south of Greenwood, one will find this historical sign as well as a BC Heritage Marker relating the story of the Boundary Falls Smelter, an ill conceived and short lived turn of the century project.
Waymark Code: WMHZB2
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 08/31/2013
Views: 5
In 1864 a gold rush at Wild Horse Creek. 12 miles from the present city of Cranbrook, led the residents of lower British Columbia to demand access overland in British territory. Governor Seymour in New Westminster - Vancouver Island was still a separate colony - went to Edgar Dewdney, a 30-year old professional civil engineer, who a few years before had built the trail from Hope to Princeton with fellow surveyor, Walter Moberly. Dewdney agreed to locate and construct a trail, four feet in width, and over 400 miles in length and to do it in 1 year, 1865, for a lump sum payment of $50,000. He had to find his own route over three ranges of the Monashee and the Selkirk mountains. His final location, close to the U.S. border throughout, was the forerunner of 80% of the route of the present Highway No. 3. In May of 1865 he reached the Eholt Summit and there fully realized the magnitude of his task. The trail was completed that year.