up the creek

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A friend of mine was up at Yale lately...He was fishing the creek mouths flowing into the Fraser ....well, the fishing was slow so he got to hiking around a bit and investigating a trail above Yale to the interior plateau........ this particular Indian trail was developed into a route for the Hudson Bay Company to access the fur trade in 1847 and 1848.....it was only used for a few years until the gold rush.... then Fraser canyon wagon trail was built....

A great deal of money was spent on the plateau route. It was steep and narrow and carved into the mountainside, rising from Spuzzum on the east bank of the Fraser near today's Alexandria Bridge...while hiking about on the first part of the trail he discovered the building that is in one of the pictures....what could it be? ...a building for storing valuables ...it has us stumped....what would it be used for in the gold rush days......
Also he found a possible spearhead...it is a tool of some kind....and the flat rock it is laying on is unique as it is about 1/2 inch thick and flat as a plate.....in use a 1000......5000 years ago?...........It is quite a feeling to be around historic places like this..... imagine the thousands of determined young people using these trails 150 years ago...
When my pal Lew and I used to fish the Skagit river we used a trail that was part of the old Dewdney pack trail from Washington to the interior....it is packed into the ground about 6 inches and a wagons width.....yup ...it makes the imagination flow.