Colonial Despatches

Yale is a small community located on the Fraser River, 32 km north of Hope. Established as an HBC fort in 1847, the fort was named after James Yale.1 It was known also as “The Falls”, due to its proximity to a stretch of rapids on the Fraser).2 Yale’s population greatly expanded during the Fraser Gold Rush, and the town developed a raucous and dangerous reputation.3

Yale was the southern terminus of the Cariboo road, and the northern terminus for steamship navigation of the Fraser River; as such, it became a pivotal gold-rush station for travel both to the Cariboo gold fields and along the Fraser River.4 After the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Yale’s geographical importance diminished and today the town has fewer than 200 residents.5

• 1. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 301.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Yale, Encyclopedia of BC.
• 5. Ibid.