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Establishment of the Canadian-American Boundary

After 1846 when the Canadian-American Boundary was finally determined, the Fur Brigade Trail was no longer used. An all-Canadian route from Kamloops to the coast was established using the Nicola and Coquihalla valleys.

The fur-traders set up campsites every eighteen miles or so where grass and water were available, and it must have been a fine sight to see the pack-horses and riding horses, two to three hundred of them, making their way through the empty landscape. One can still see (in 1967) some of this country as it then looked, by going on a back road south of Gallagher Lake, beyond Oliver. Here is still the rolling dusty plain, the heavy grey sage-brush and greasewood with tufts of scattered grass. On small gravelly humps there will be rabbit-bush and bitter-root, the "speetlum" 'of the Indians who used its tubers as a staple food.

The Hudson's Bay Company did return briefly to the scene in 1867 when they set up a trading post in Osoyoos with Theodore Kruger in charge. He left the district and the post was sold in 1872, but later was bought by the same Mr. Kruger who returned and ran it as a store from 1873 to 1897. Goods came in by pack-horse and wagon from Hope once a year by the famous Dewdney Trail. Highway 3 now follows much of this road from Hope, across the lake at the present bridge site, and over the mountains to the Kootenays.

The Hudson's Bay Company at one time also owned much of the land bordering the lakeshore, but this was sold to cattle-ranchers in the 1870's.

An important traveller through the valley in 1833 was the scientist and plant-collector, David Douglas, a Scotsman who made almost solitary journeys over much of the entire continent. Among his many discoveries was the tree now called after him - the Douglas fir. In his journey through the Okanagan and the parallel valleys he travelled with the Fur Brigade and was able to collect botanical specimens, take astronomical readings and fix geographical positions. Some of these are listed in the British Columbia Historical Quarterly IV, 1940. He made sketches and wrote notes on the trees, vegetation and soil.

Many of his discoveries were given his name, a local one being the black-berried hawthorn in the lower parts of the creeks, Crataegus douglasii. It is pleasant to imagine that he collected this while riding up to the campsite at the head of Osoyoos Lake.