Evidence on the Adequacy of First Nations Consultation - BC Hydro ...

DRAFT REPORT: Rights and Title Interests in the Columbia Valley Transmission Project Area
pass thro’ it on account of the long time they have not passed that way,
being much encumbered with Wind fall wood, &c. 48
Belyea pulled together Fidler’s communication along with other correspondence from that time,
including letters of Thompson’s superior at Rocky Mountain House, John McDonald of Garth.
During the winter, McDonald and a few men went up the river himself and “found the gap in the
mountain not to be exactly as Mr Thompson represented it.” 49
Belyea concludes from this examination that:
The Kootenays appear to have returned west across the divide by Howse
Pass. 50 Thompson attempted to trace their route in June 1801, and
succeeded in June 1807.” 51
Howse Pass leads to the Blaeberry River which empties into the Columbia north of Golden. It is
clear from the extant historical record that the Aboriginal people known to live on the west side
of the Rocky Mountains in the area of the Columbia Valley Transmission Project were Ktunaxa.
David Thompson’s Visit to the Columbia Valley
There appears to have been a hiatus in travel across the Rockies for several years after the time
of Legacé (a.k.a. Legasse) and Leblanc’s stay among the Ktunaxa. The Ktunaxa didn’t arrive at
Rocky Mountain House in 1802. The House closed this year for another four years until finally
reopening in 1805. David Thompson spent a few years away from the House, but returned in the
fall of 1806 and wintered there. 52
In 1806, David Thompson sent Jaco Finlay to cut a trail from Kootenay Plains across to the
Columbia by way of Howse Pass, clearing a path as he travelled, and to build and leave canoes
ready at the Columbia River for David Thompson’s planned trip west. In May 1807, Thompson
set out. Thompson documented his travels in a journal beginning May 1807.
48 Fidler, cited in Belyea 1994:194; Fidler, edited by Haig 1991, page 50.
49 Belyea 1994, page 194.
50 Chance (1981, page 31) notes that historian Irene Spry, too, claimed that Thompson passed through
Howse Pass. See Irene Spry (1968). The papers of the Palliser Expedition, 1857-1860. Champlain Society: Toronto.
However, based on the geography provided by the Elliot Coues edition of Thompson’s journals, Chance disagreed,
although it should be noted that Chance did not have available to him the original journals that Belyea compiled in
her 1994 publication. See also, Elliott Coues (1897). New Light on the History of the Greater North West: the
Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson. 3 Volumes. Francis P. Harper: New York.
51 Belyea 1994, page 194.
52 Belyea 1994, page 208.
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