The Highway that Time Passed By -- Part I, Beyond Hope

Returning from a two week vacation on Vancouver Island, I decided to eschew the usual soul-sucking fast link to the Interior and drive instead down the memory lane of the Fraser Canyon Highway.  For decades the latter was the only route connecting most of the Interior of British Columbia with Vancouver and the coast.  That changed in 1986 with the opening of a much faster four-lane freeway aka the Coquihalla Highway, or "the Coke" as many refer to it.  After that, most residents of the southern Interior never saw the Fraser Canyon again, myself included.

When I am on vacation the journey is every bit as important as the destination and since I had no need to hurry home, the Fraser Canyon seemed a good way to go.   Besides, I was curious to see what had happened to the small towns along the old route after the super-highway had taken a good portion of their traffic away.  I found a lot of graphic evidence of the effects -- boarded up restaurants and other abandoned buildings spoke volumes -- but I also found a lot of character in these tiny little places.  Most of the towns date back to the 1850's and though none had any buildings of that era still standing, there was a decided sense of history which was celebrated by the townsfolk.  I also found absolutely stunning scenery that I had quite forgotten about.

Fraser River at Hope, B.C.

The town of Hope, population 6,181, is where both the Fraser Canyon and Coquihalla Highways begin. It was the Fraser River which first brought European settlement to the area.  In 1808 the explorer Simon Fraser, for whom the river was named, arrived in the area looking for a trade route to the Pacific and in 1848 the Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post called Fort Hope at the present day site of the town.  

An actual town was established in 1858 but it wasn't until 1885 and the completion of Canada's first trans-continental railway, the Canadian Pacific, that the town really began to boom.  Over the next 50 years the town established itself as a major transportation hub where three railways met (CPR, CNR & Kettle Valley) and several wagon roads, later to become highways, joined.

Given that Hope is still a transportation hub, albeit on a smaller scale, it has not really been hurt by the shifted driving route.  While the Coquihalla does not run right through town as the Fraser Canyon route does, it's only a couple of km away and is likely still a popular place to gas up and have a rest break before the "Coke" which has no gas stations or restaurants.

Downtown
Hope, B.C.

As I drove into Hope, I was amazed that it looked just as I remembered it.  It appeared frozen in time, as though I'd driven through a time-travel portal and emerged in the town of 40 years ago.  Even the electric car charging stations, seen in my photo above, had a vintage, anachronistic feeling as if an invention of Christopher Lloyd's character in "Back to the Future".  Other than the spectacular mountain scenery which wraps around it, Hope is not a particularly picturesque place.  Sorry Hope, but it's true!  I remember Hope in the 1970's as a dingy, old town and it is still a dingy, old town.  Perhaps my memories of the place are tainted by gaining so many of them in or near the Hope Greyhound bus depot. 

As a university student in Victoria in the early 70's, I took many a bus trip home to visit my family in Kamloops.  These were exhausting, marathon trips which, depending on what time you left Victoria, could take up to 12 hours.  Twelve hours!  First, you'd have to travel on the ferry bus to downtown Vancouver where you'd wait for the Greyhound for Kamloops.  Once on it, you'd stop at every bus depot in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley.  Every, single one.  At Hope there would always be a meal stop which would be 30 - 45 minutes long.  Ugh.  I remember the bus depot there as old and dirty.  In fairness to Hope, its bus depot was probably not so different from any small town Greyhound bus depot in the 70's -- not a place where you'd want to spend much time.

Yale, B.C.

Population 181

About 23 kilometres down the highway from Hope is the unincorporated community of Yale, population 181.  Like Hope, Yale started off as a Hudson's Bay Company fur trading fort but with the 1858 discovery of gold nearby soon became a boom town.  At its peak, it had a population of around 15,000 and was reputed to be "the biggest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco."  By all accounts, it was a real wild west town full of gambling halls, saloons and houses of ill repute.  The gold didn't last forever but another gold strike in the Cariboo in 1861 kept something of a boom going in Yale.  Steamboats and paddlewheelers brought would-be prospectors and merchants up the Fraser from Vancouver to Yale where a new wagon road up to the Cariboo was rapidly being constructed.  After that gold rush ended, the town's population dwindled until a new boom began with the construction of a trans-continental railway.  Yale became a hub for construction of the most western portion.

All booms eventually come to an end and after the railway work finished up in the late 1880's, the town slowly faded into a near ghost town.  Today, it is a tiny but quite charming community which embraces its colourful history.  There are a handful of buildings dating back to the 1860's which are maintained as historic sites.   There used to be a few businesses clustered along the highway -- a motel, restaurant, gas station -- but they all seemed to be closed while "Barry's Trading Post" has the corner on everything.  Signage on the Post indicates they're a cafeteria, gift shop, market, post office, junk food specialist, supplier of hunting & fishing supplies including licenses and seller of lottery tickets.  Whew, that's an impressive list.  Judging by the display along their side fence, they also sell Confederate flags.  I was mildly curious as to why but, since to me the flags symbolize all the worst things about social conservatism, I didn't go in to find out.

As I left Yale, I thought ahead with some relish to the next little place -- Spuzzum.  Spuzzum had almost a cult status back in the 70's and 80's due to the numerous small town jokes that proliferated with Spuzzum as their subject.  "Blink and you'll miss it" and "Spuzzum is beyond Hope" are the two best known, the latter being immortalized on keychains and other cheap memorabilia.  A sign would greet you as you drove into town:  "Welcome to Spuzzum."  About three seconds later another sign announced:  "You are now leaving Spuzzum." It took a few years of driving through the town before the best joke of all hit me -- the "Now leaving Spuzzum" sign said the same thing on both sides.  On this journey, the first in 30 years, I must have blinked because daaaaamn, I missed it.  I found out after Googling when I got home that Spuzzum's presence on the highway no longer existed, the last remaining buildings there -- gas station and general store -- had burned down around 2000 or so.  

There was one more place coming up that I was really hoping still existed...

Alexandra Lodge, near Spuzzum B.C.

... and yes!!  There it was. Alexandra Lodge, looking much rejuvenated since the last time I'd seen it.  The lodge has been a landmark along the road for almost a hundred years or maybe much longer, depending on which historical evidence you accept.  Some believe it is the original lodge  c. 1854 built at this site, while others say this building was constructed in the 1920's.  Either way, it's a beautiful building which has been spruced up in the last ten years or so and it holds some special memories for me.

On New Year's Day 1965 (ish) when I was about 12 years old, my family was returning to Kamloops from a Christmas holiday spent with family on Vancouver Island.  We had spent the night in a hotel in Hope due to the heavy snow coming down and got an early start in the morning.  The snow had never stopped coming down all night and there was a lot of snow on the road.  My dad was a good driver though and I had no fears.  I was a kid and it was all a glorious adventure to me.  At some point between Yale and Boston Bar, some young fools ahead of us with no winter tires on their car got stuck on a hill and slid almost sideways across the road.  Several cars got backed up behind them and the men from the vehicles tried to push them off the road to no avail.  Now everyone was stuck as none could get by.  Everyone from the now 8 or 9 cars stuck there, hunkered down in their vehicles waiting for the snow plows to come.  The snow was still coming down hard and, after a couple of hours of waiting, there had been no sign of a vehicle coming from either direction.  By this time it was late afternoon and was starting to get dark and so the adults met and made a plan -- we couldn't stay overnight in our cars because we'd freeze so we'd hike back to the lodge we'd passed and break in if necessary.  

The men went first, breaking a path through the snow.  I remember so clearly walking down the middle of the road with the snow up to my hips.  It was dark when we got to the Lodge.  It wasn't open for business but the owners were there.  Boy, they must have been surprised to find a group of 14 adults and 6 kids knocking at their door on a snowy evening.  They gave us all rooms and fed us dinner.  Canned ham, canned cream corn and boiled potatoes had never tasted so good!  In the morning the kids made a snowman, a hitch hiker with his thumb out, on the side of the road while the men helped the owner dig a path to his water well because they had no running water in the Lodge due to frozen pipes.  When the big snow removal equipment finally came, the big snow blower headed right toward our snow man but at the last moment plowed right around it, leaving it there on the side of the road as a monument to our glorious adventure.  It had snowed 37 inches in 24 hours and it turned out that we had been stuck between two snow slides.  They let us drive out but after that the Fraser Canyon was closed to all traffic for the next two days.

Post card of Alexandra Lodge, circa 1930's
See: www.michaelkluckner.com/bciw6alexandralodge.html

Coming soon:  The Highway that Time Passed By -- Part II, Boston Bar and Kanaka Bar

The Highway that Time Passed By -- Part II, Boston Bar and Kanaka Bar

This post is part two of my look at the Fraser Canyon route, Highway #1, which for decades was the only route connecting most of the Interior of British Columbia with Vancouver and the coast.  That changed in 1986 with the opening of a much faster four-lane freeway aka the Coquihalla Highway, or "the Coke" as many refer to it.  After that, most residents of the southern Interior never saw the Fraser Canyon again, myself included.  Until, that is, I spent two days in July 2017 taking a look at what happened to it over the last 30 years.

The Fraser Canyon Highway between Yale and Boston Bar is very interesting for any number of reasons -- it follows much of the old Cariboo wagon road built for the gold rush; there is often a railroad in sight with the CPR on one side of the river and the CNR on the other; the river pushes into a narrow passage bounded by high stone walls in the area called Hells Gate, so named by early explorer Simon Fraser -- but perhaps the most interesting features of the highway itself are the tunnels.  There are a total of seven of them and they were built between 1957 and 1964. Driving from Yale to Boston Bar they are, in order:  Yale (opened in 1963), Saddle Rock (1958), Sailor Bar (1959), Alexandra (1964), Hells Gate (1960), Ferrabee (1964), and China Bar (1961).                     

This postcard shot of Saddle Rock tunnel was likely taken soon after the tunnel was opened in 1958.  Though this was the first of the modern day tunnels, there had been tunnels along the road for at least 30 years.  The earlier ones were crudely blasted holes with jagged, craggy openings which looked more like cave entrances than tunnels and must have provided a powerful reminder that you were driving into a mountainside.

When I was a kid, the trips my family made along the Canyon at least once or twice a year usually involved an informal game of "guess the name of the next tunnel."  My mum and dad were generally better at it than me, even if only marginally, so the overachiever only-child that I was then (just the over-achiever part changed) decided to memorize the names of the tunnels. Bear in mind that there was no internet then and such trivia had to be obtained first hand.  So, on our next trip, as we approached the first tunnel, I furtively pulled out the tiny notebook and pencil I had secreted in a pocket then recorded the names which are displayed by the entry of each tunnel.  I memorized the names over the course of our camping holiday and on the return trip home, put my newfound knowledge to use, cleverly flubbing my guess on a couple of tunnels so as to not appear too slick.

Most of the names are taken from nearby landmarks.  Saddle Rock is a stunning rock formation just south of the tunnel and Hells Gate is for the dramatically narrowed canyon of the Fraser down below.  The two "bar" names date from the Fraser Canyon gold rush when many of the gold-bearing sand or gravel river bars were given names.  I could not find any specific information on the origin of Sailor Bar or China Bar, though the latter would suggest that gold claims in the area might have been worked by Chinese. The two places featured in this post -- Boston Bar and Kanaka Bar -- bear names from the gold rush era as well.  The former was for a nearby bar which was worked mainly by Americans who, in Chinook Jargon, were all known as "Boston men" or just "Bostons".  Similarly, Kanaka Bar was named for an area worked by Hawaiians who were known in the Jargon as "Kanakas".  Chinook Jargon was a 19th century pidgin language used for trading in the Pacific Northwest and was a blend of words from English, French and several indigenous languages.

Boston Bar, B.C.
Looking toward North Bend bridge

In the numerous times I drove the Canyon as an adult, I don't recall ever going into the small town of Boston Bar (pop. 860) or even stopping at a gas station along the highway.  I do have one memory of the place from when I was a kid: there was an aerial ferry across the Fraser River.  I wanted to see the ferry and take a photo of it.  Just see it, not go on it.

So, with that in mind, I turned off the highway and headed toward the river.  When I came to a "T" intersection with a sign pointing to North Bend, the community across the river, I knew I was at the right place.  Instead of turning in the direction the sign pointed, I turned the other way.  I wanted to reconnoitre.  I wanted to scout out whether the road continued on past the ferry landing or, as if often the case, ended at the ferry with no way of turning around.  Obviously, a dead end would not be a good thing for someone who didn't want to go on the ferry.  I couldn't really see the road down at the river so I grabbed my camera and zoomed in.  Ahhh... I still couldn't see the road but what I could see told me I had nothing to worry about. There was a bridge.  So that was that.  I found out later that the ferry had been replaced by the bridge in 1985.  

The postcard below shows the ferry circa 1950.

I thought I might as well see what other sights Boston Bar had to offer so I drove on down the street until a boarded up building came into view.  Boarded up buildings always make good photo subjects.

The more I stared at this building, the more I thought it looked like an old railway station.  I walked all around it looking for clues.  All original signage had been removed and the usual "No Trespassing" signs had replaced them.  Also conspicuous in their absence:  railroad tracks.  There were no tracks by the building.  So if it really was a railway station, where were the tracks?  I chalked it up as one of those mysteries that would probably never be solved.  

A couple of weeks later while looking for something else entirely on Google -- always the way it goes -- I came across this photo:

CNR train station, Boston Bar, B.C. 1974

photo courtesy Rick Horne

It looked quite different in black & white and shot from this angle.  Then, of course, there was the matter of the missing tracks. It had to be the same building, I knew that, but even so I pored over the two images comparing each feature with an avid scrutiny worthy of Sherlock Holmes or with the painstaking devotion of an archaeologist about to unlock the secrets of an ancient culture.  Finally, I concluded it was definitely the same building.  There remained but one mystery:  why was the old station now so far from the tracks?

Once again, I found the answer while looking for something else.  It was contained in Michael Kluckner's research notes for his book "Vanishing British Columbia".  Kluckner, renowned for his water-colour paintings and his love of heritage, carried on a conversation with 450 British Columbians on his website about their "roadside memories" then headed out on the road to find these places and remember them in water-colours.  There is a link to his online notes in my links.

He noted in 2001 that the railroad had moved the train station away from the tracks to save it from demolition; presumably, so that it could be restored by the Boston Bar-North Bend Enhancement Society.  In 2011 a correspondent wrote to him that no progress had been made on restoration.  Though the Enhancement Society held a lease on the building no agreement had yet been reached about the land on which it sat (I'm assuming it is also held by CN Railway).  By the looks of it in my photo, nothing has ever been done in the way of restoration.

 Boarded up buildings

Kanaka Bar, B.C.

I had never seen the old Boston Bar train station when it was still in use.  A place I had seen though and was familiar with when it was operating was the restaurant and gas station at Kanaka Bar.  So it was something of a shock when I rounded the corner on the stretch of highway between Boston Bar and Lytton and saw the boarded up buildings.  

The area known as Kanaka Bar was never really a settlement, not even an unincorporated one.  It is simply the name that the general area is known by.  Even so, the restaurant and surrounding buildings had the feel of a quaint little village.  In addition to the restaurant, there was a gas station & garage and three large two-storey houses which had the look of rustic ski chalets.  All of the buildings had the same exterior finish:  dark wood triangles up at the roof line and at the bottom, with a strip of white plaster in between.  I will swear that there was even an old wooden water wheel on the property, adding to the quaint feel of the place.  I've not been able to find it in any photographs though, so perhaps my memories have misinformed me this once.

Kanaka Bar Cafe, 2017

The Cafe wasn't particularly noteworthy -- it served a mix of typical highway cafe foods like hamburgers along with Chinese dishes -- nor did it have any historical significance that I can find.  Still, it is always quite sad to see buildings boarded up and abandoned, particularly ones like these which for so many years had been such a presence and a landmark along the highway. My mind always turns to pondering on the fortunes of the family for which this had been both home and business for so many years.

Coming soon:  The Highway that Time Passed By -- Part III, Lytton