By Mark Forsythe

It was 200 years ago that a band of 41 men journeyed from the Columbia River to the Fraser River and back. They left Fort George (Astoria, Oregon) on Nov. 18 in three canoe-shaped Columbia River boats, led by Scotsman and Hudson’s Bay Company employee, James McMillan. In the face of depleted beaver stocks and advancing American settlement their mission was to find a site for a new fort north of the Columbia. Fort Langley was built three years later at Derby becoming the first European settlement in what is now the Lower Mainland. This at a time when Yale was the region's metropolis with its bounty of salmon, and an important meeting place for Sto:lo peoples.

The Livings Arts Society recently took to the river with the Fort Langley Canoe Club to commemorate the Voyageurs’ arduous journey. Songs, readings from expedition journals and a brisk paddle on the Bedford Channel made for a memorable day. Most 1824 expedition members were Canadien Voyageurs, but there were also Iroquois, Kanakas, an Englishman, an American and Metis, including Francis Noel Annance, a clerk, translator and hunter with the HBC who kept a journal.  When they were forced to wait out fierce winds at Bellingham Bay local Indigenous guides knew a route that eliminated the need to paddle around Point Roberts and they nosed into the Nicomekl River at Mud Bay.

“We find the little river very winding and full of brush, logs etc. Towards the evening we come to the worst place; Dragging our boat through willows, shrubs, briars and beaver dams til we come to the portage and encamped.” They made two miles the next day, dragging and carrying their boats to the Salmon River. “The portage is handsome prairie. The fish excellent.” On Dec. 16 they emerged onto the Fraser River across from today’s McMillan Island: Sto:lo country.

(The Langley Heritage Society was one of the sponsors of the weekend event which also included presentations from BC and Washington State historians.)