Express
By 1825, there were usually two York Factory Express brigades, each setting out from opposite ends of the route. Each spring, one left from Fort Vancouver and the other from York Factory on Hudson Bay. They passed each other in the middle of the continent. Each brigade consisted of about forty to seventy five men and two to five specially made bateaux.
Compared to other travellers of the time, they travelled quickly—an 1839 report cites the travel time as three months and ten days—almost 26 miles (40 km) per day on average. These men carried supplies in and furs out by boat, horseback and as back packs for the forts and trading posts along the route. They also carried status reports for supplies needed, furs traded, etc., to and from Dr. John McLoughlin and the other fort managers along the route.
The practice of using bateaux (boats) was adopted because birch bark canoes had proved too dangerous on the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. In 1820, Joe McKay of the HBC described the Columbia District bateaux as "made from quarter-inch pine board, and are thirty-two feet long, and six and a half feet wide in midships, with both ends sharp, and without a keel—worked, according to the circumstances of the navigation, with paddles, or with oars." Indians along the way were often paid in trade goods to help them portage around falls and unnavigable rapids.
From west to east, Fort Vancouver to York Factory, the express route ran as follows: up the Columbia River past the posts of Fort Nez Perces, Fort Okanogan, and Fort Colvile to Boat Encampment (today under Kinbasket Lake), then over Athabasca Pass to Jasper House, down the Athabasca River to Fort Assiniboine, then overland to Fort Edmonton. Thence down the North Saskatchewan River and Saskatchewan River to Lake Winnipeg and via Norway House on the Nelson River. Finally the brigade would travel down the Hayes River to York Factory on Hudson Bay. This route was longer than the Oregon Trail route followed by the Americans, but easier.
Read more about this topic: Fort Vancouver, History
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