Lower Post, 575 miles north of Fort St. John
In 1898 a North West Mounted Police party laboured northward past here blazing an overland route from Edmonton to Dawson City and the goldfields of the Klondike. Its plan was to prove the feasibility of an alternate route to the Skagway Trail. More than a year later the trip was completed, but the scheme was proved impractical and was abandoned.
When gold was discovered in the Klondike, prospectors from all over the world came to the Yukon for a share of the metal. Many traveled by boat to Skagway, over the Chilkoot Pass and down the Yukon River. Others started from Edmonton, hoping to reach the Klondike by an overland route.
In September, 1897, Inspector J.D. Moodie with a party of seven (including four constables of the North West Mounted Police) traveled from Edmonton to Fort St. John to try and find this overland route. By following a branch of the Halfway River, they went up a valley to a 6,900 foot elevation, then through the Laurier and the Herchmer passes of the Rocky and Wolverine Mountains. The group spent the winter at Fort Grahame on the Finlay River before traveling north through the present day settlement of Lower Post and into Yukon territory.
The expedition covered 1,600 miles and took 14 months to travel, map and gather details. Although Moodie reported that the country was passable, and even forecast that a railway or road could be built in the future, he concluded that "with regard to the usefulness of this trail as a route to the Yukon, I would say it would never be used in face of the quick and easy one via Skagway", so the project was abandoned.
