Jasper and Mt. Robson - History

By Jeff Waugh

In 1865, Dr. John Rae, sponsored by the Hudson's Bay Company, the Imperial and Canadian governments, and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, made a trip through Yellowhead Pass. He surveyed the pass for the possibility of a railway, wagon road and telegraph line going through to connect the new colonies in British Columbia with the rest of Canada.

The possibility of a railway through the Yellowhead spurred further interest, but it wasn't until 1871 that the next railway survey began. Walter Moberly, the brother of H.J. Moberly, took charge of a survey party under the direction of Sir Sandford Fleming, the newly appointed (by Sir John A MacDonald) engineer-in-charge of the transcontinental railway (Canadian Pacific Railway).

Moberly, working on the upper reaches of the Columbia River, sent Roderick McLennan to survey the area of the North Thompson across Albreda Pass to Tete Jaune Cache and up the Yellowhead. A.R.C. Selwyn, of the Geological Survey of Canada, travelled with McLennan and made detailed observations of the area.

In April of 1872 Sandford Fleming ordered Moberly to direct all survey efforts on the Yellowhead Pass. Fleming organized an expedition and set out to follow his chosen railway route from Halifax to Victoria. Amongst the men of Fleming's expedition was the Reverend George M. Grant who accurately recorded the journey in his diary. "At the summit, Moberly welcomed us into British Columbia, for we were at length out of 'No-man's-land' and had entered the western province of our Dominion. Round the rivulet running west the party gathered, and drank from its waters to the Queen and the Dominion".

The survey for the railroad proceeded along the north side of the pass as the bluffs were not as steep as those on the south side. At Moose Lake the surveyors considered there to be no formidable barriers to the construction of a railway through the Yellowhead Pass. But as Grant prophetically recorded, "Still the work that the surveyors are engaged on requires a patience and forethought that few who ride in Pullman cars on the road in after years will ever appreciate". As they continued down through the Yellowhead they were extremely impressed by the "first canyon" of the Fraser.

Eventually Flemings party reached Tete Jaune Cache, ascended the McLennan River and began the descent of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers to Vancouver and on to Victoria.