The Old Cariboo Trail
From Wallula Gap on the Columbia River, the Old Cariboo Trail was built over the the route of the Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail, which began at Fort Okanagan, near the Wallula Gap area on the Columbia River and passed north through Eastern Washington along the Columbia River to the Okanogan River and north into British Columbia.
Hudson Bay Company fur traders brigades followed this route up until 1847, when the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew from the Northwest. Cattle drives were common along this trail to supply the gold miners, who arrived in British Columbia in the late 1850s.
In Washington Territory a wagon road from Wallula (Fort Nez Percés near Walla Walla) to the gold mining regions of British Columbia was known as the "Cariboo Trail" or the "Wallula-Okanogan Road". Connecting to the Oregon Trail at Wallula, it ran north across Quincy Flats past Moses Lake, then crossed the lower Grand Coulee at present day Coulee City. From there it turned north and crossed the Waterville Plateau to reach the Columbia River near Fort Okanogan. From there it followed the valley of the Okanagan River into Canada, connecting with the Okanagan Trail. The section known in Canada as the Cariboo Trail departed from the northernmost of the Okanagan Trail routes near today's Savona to head up the Deadman River towards the initial strikes near Likely and Horsefly, British Columbia.
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Famous quotes containing the word trail:
“Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winters walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)