The
1848 HSBC Trail is the longest example of early trading routes; until Bob
Harris unearthed it with a team of volunteers from the Vancouver Natural
History Society, it remained largely neglected and overgrown. VNHS member
Louise Irwin was present on the trip, and recalls clearing away the undergrowth
to expose the stone foundation of the Cariboo Wagon Road: they were definitely
“in for some bush-whacking.”
The first traders had only two options for long distance
travel: either they canoed the river network, or went on horseback. Whitewater
rapids and a lack of adequate materials made the latter more favorable; as a
result, a network of “horse roads” ran across BC. This trail runs from Fort
Yale to Kamloops, which served as the Thompson River District office for the Hudson's Bay Company.
The first section, north of Fort Yale, is notorious for its difficult terrain;
HBC employees purportedly nicknamed it “Douglas Portage,” making fun
of BC’s first governor, James Douglas.
The 1848 HSBC route connects to the First Brigade trail
used by the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is listed as Trail 15 in Bob Harris’s Best of BC’s Hiking Trails, and can be
readily accessed by hikers today. Not only is this trail a testament to
Harris’s further research, in which he cites the “well documented” materials he
collected and perused, but it is also emblematic of Bob Harris’s contributions
in the field: without his efforts, this route would have faded into history.
