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“OVERLANDERS” OF 1862
(1 mile south of Louis Creek)
It has been an epic struggle against the wilderness for the gold-seekers from Eastern Canada.
They had crossed the Rockies, trekked through pathless forest, and won the swift rapids of the North Thompson River. The open country now offered hope and safe passage. Ragged and starved, they reached Kamloops where many became pioneer farmers.
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(10 miles north of Spences Bridge)
Canada’s third trans-continental rail link was completed near Basque on January 23, 1915. In a simple ceremony the last spike was driven, witnessed by a small group of engineers and workmen. The line later became part of the Federal Government’s consolidated Canadian National Railways system.
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(At view point on top of Merritt (Hamilton/Hill)
The name commemorates N-kua-la, a local Indian Chief. Settlers in this valley in
1867 named their own village ‘The Forks’. When coal mining and ranching brought the railway in 1906, the settlement was renamed Merritt to honour one of the rail promoters. The collieries are closed, but mining, ranching and lumbering continue to maintain the development of ‘the country of N-kua-la’.
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(1 mile south of Spences Bridge)
Suddenly on the afternoon of August 13, 1905, the lower side of the mountain slid away. Rumbling across the valley in seconds, the slide buried alive five Indians and dammed the Thompson River for over four hours. The trapped water swept over the nearby Indian village drowning thirteen persons.
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(At the Hell’s Gate Fishways view point, 17 miles north of Yale) This awesome gorge has always been an obstacle to transportation. Indians used ladders and road builders hung ‘shelves’ to skirt its cliffs. Canoes rarely dared its whirlpools, only one sternwheeler fought it successfully. Railroads and highways challenged it with tunnels and bridges, but today man and nature still battle for supremacy.
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