Fort Alexandria Locations

A view of old Fort Alexandria which is located across the Fraser River from the second location of the post. Well, maybe not, as you will find out.

Well, as you know, I wrote on our visit to Fort Alexandria a few weeks ago, and you will find that post here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fort-alexandria-flood/

This post is updating that post: we ran across a problem in the Fort Alexandria Locations — or at least what we presumed were the locations of the various Fort Alexandrias. This post is to tell you about that discovery and my/our research since realizing we didn’t have the full information about the location of the first post, and to bring you up to date on what I now think is the old locations of the various Fort Alexandrias. They are not necessarily where you think they are!

All this happened because I sent Ordell Stein the description of the 1859 location of Fort Alexandria, written by Frank Sylvester and titled “The Old Brigade Trail in ’59.” (The manuscript is found in Uvic’s Archives, and it is viewable online.) Then I told him that I thought this meant that the 1860s Fort Alexandria location was across the river from Alexandria, the town that stands well north of Alexandria, the First Nations community. So, in my mind, it would have stood on or near Diamond Island, a large island in the Fraser River. Anyway, this below is the important paragraph out of Frank Sylvester’s manuscript, “The Old Brigade Trail in ’59.” 

From Williams Lake to Fort Alexander [Alexandria] the country is very nice, not very heavily timbered, but most prairie with plenty bunch grass all over. Fort Alexander, the town proper I mean, consisted of just about a dozen log cabins. It is built on a smooth flat, right on the Bank of the Fraser River, and has several nice terraces rising just behind. Right across the River was the Hudson Bay Company Fort Alexander, at that time in charge of Red River [Ferdinand] McKenzie who was succeeded by Sands. The Fort at this place was a very important one. Here came every spring the huge Batteaux of the Company from Fort George and further north, bringing down the year’s furs for shipment to Fort Hope. When I arrived there about April 1st, the Fraser was still frozen over solid and I crossed over to the Fort several times on the ice trail.

At this point I should also give you the information that we believed that the first fort stood on the west bank of the Fraser River, as I believed, and as Sam also believed. I haven’t yet discovered why I believe that: I presume I read it somewhere, but I have found no book that I would have owned at that time that contains that information. The same information was also more or less claimed by Fort Alexandria National Historic Site of Canada, whose description says this:

Fort Alexandria National Historic Site of Canada is located on the west side of the Fraser River near the community of Alexandria in the Cariboo District of British Columbia. There are no known above ground remains of the fort, which was established as a trading post by the North West Company in 1821. Official recognition refers to the site measuring 100 meters in radius identified by archaeologist’s survey in the late 1990s. 

In order to establish the location of the fort, the people from the National Historic Site used an image from BC Archives, identification number F-05775. I happened to mention to Ordell Steen that no cameras existed in 1821: that cameras first came to Fort Vancouver in the late 1840s, and to Fort Victoria in about the 1850s; that cameras were not in the Cariboo until the 1860s. I learned all this from searching for the illustrations for The York Factory Express, and of course you can see that many of the illustrations in The HBC Brigades are taken in the 1860s or 1870s, when cameras finally made it into the Cariboo. 

So, knowing this, and taking a copy of the photograph F-05775 along with him, Ordell hopped into his truck and drove north to the town of Alexandria to look at the “viewscape” at Diamond Island. He discovered that neither the benchlands on the east bank of the river (if any), nor the line of hills to the east, matched those shown in image F-05775. This was not the location of the 1860s fort.

Not only that, but when he compared the photographs he had taken at what we thought was the first site of Fort Alexandria [the place across the river in the image above], with the image in the BC Archives, F-05775, they matched. And I agree: the benchlands were the same, and the line of hills was the same as in the BCA image mentioned above. 

So, the archaeologists who worked for either Parks Canada, or the National Historic Site, compared an image that can only have been taken in the 1860s, to the modern-day landscape at what they thought must be Fort Alexandria’s location, and discovered that the benchlands across the river were the same as in the image, and the line of hills also matched that image. That image (F-05775) can only have identified Fort Alexandria’s location in the 1860s. And the problem is that location is not necessarily the site of the first Fort Alexandria, built in 1821.

So now we are stuck with a problem. How do we identify the first Fort Alexandria’s location? I have tons of resources, as you know. In his Lives Lived West of the Divide, Bruce McIntyre Watson says this of Fort Alexandria, see below. Note: this book did not exist when I knew, somehow, that when A.C. Anderson arrived at Fort Alexandria in 1842, its location was on the west bank of the river:

Although goods were taken north on this route from 1814, and a building or two was apparently erected to support this, it wasn’t until 1820 that furs were taken out and 1821 that Fort Alexandria as we know it was built on the east bank as a staging post between the Fraser River and the Okanagan….

East bank, he says. Then James Gibson, in his Lifeline of the Oregon Country, says: 

Fort Alexandria, or more commonly, simply Alexandria, was erected in 1821 on the left (eastern) bank of the Fraser just below its junction with the West Road (Blackwater) River, which Mackenzie had followed to the Pacific; in 1836 the post was moved to the Fraser’s right (western) bank. 

Left and right banks of a river are almost always right or left banks DESCENDING. The HBC men used that description, and so, too, did the Royal Engineers. Modern writers might not, however, so it’s not always clear which side of a river a post is on when the author is using the terms left and right.

I have actually read some of the first batch of pages in the 1825 journals, and believe me, they are hard to read. I also know that both Bruce Watson and James Gibson read these pages, and did not decide that Fort Alexandria was built on the west bank of the river. So, east bank it is. And also, likely built at the spot the photographer (me) is standing when she took the picture, above. Almost for certain, that is the location of the first Fort Alexandria, and the location of the 2nd fort, built in 1836, is probably directly across the river, where the 1860s fort also stood.

So, more on the 1836 location for Fort Alexandria: It is stated many times over that Fort Alexandria was moved across the river, from the east side to the west, in 1836, and that information is found in A.G. Morice’s book, History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia. Here it is:

It is in that year (1836) that Fort Alexandria was removed from the east to the west side of the Fraser…

Morice got all his information for this book from the Fort St. James post journals. The 1836 Fort St. James journal is, of course, missing, so that information can’t be confirmed. So I looked at the Fort Alexandria post journals where they began in 1837, and yes, the men are building chimneys in some of the houses, and they are plastering houses and stores with mud from White Mud Lake. But this is what clinches it, I think:

July 1. Lolo cries out from the opposite shore to be crossed to the fort, he has a letter addressed to gentlemen in charge of posts in New Caledonia.

Jean Baptist Leolo was working at Kamloops at that time, and arrived at Fort Alexandria on horseback. If he had come downriver from Fort St. James, he would have arrived by boat or canoe, and there would have been no need to send a canoe across the river to bring him to the post. So I have no problem with saying that in 1836, Fort Alexandria’s location changed from the east bank, to the west. Why, I don’t know. There are various theories: fire, better trade with the First Nations, and erosion of the beach in front of the fort. Considering that fire is a huge hazard in these fur trade posts, and that the post journals for 1836 are missing, a burned-down post is a good possibility. 

Let’s see what maps show Fort Alexandria’s location over the years: Archibald McDonald’s 1827 map of the Thompson River district has Fort Alexandria’s location on the east bank of the Fraser River (or at least, there are no locations indicated on the west bank of the river in the illustration I have. I will check that map in the BC Archives.) 

Sam Black’s 1839 (or so) map has Fort Alexandria’s location on the east bank of the Fraser. In 1844, Alexander Anderson made an excursion to the Thleuz-cuz Lake and returned home via the Chilcotin post, and Fort Alexandria is clearly marked on the east bank of the Fraser River. And A.C. Anderson’s “Map of the Colony of British Columbia,” drawn in 1867, has Fort Alexandria on both the west side of the river, and the east, with the more prominent location marked in red on the east bank of the Fraser River.

In the various brigade journals we have, that is, William Connolly’s of 1826, and Peter Warren Dease’s of 1831, there is no sign they arrived at a post built on the west side of the river, and then crossed the river to continue their journey out. The same applies to the return journey to Fort Alexandria. Hence, I presume, that in 1826 and 1831, the fort was on the east bank of the river. James Gibson, who read the entire journals, also says the same. 

But that’s not how I knew, when I wrote The Pathfinder, what side of the river that Fort Alexandria was on in 1842. I wrote that Fort Alexandria was on the west bank of the river in 1842, and that was without knowing that the fort had moved across the river in 1836. By 1844 Fort Alexandria had been removed from the west bank to the east bank of the Fraser River. But how did I know that? And am I right? Let’s find out.

I pulled out an ancient Fort Alexandria “Notes” file I had, which contained only a few sheets of paper and is not filed with the rest of my Fort Alexandria papers. There, I had written down the information that somewhere in B.5/a/5, I had learned that “Fort Alexandria [is] clearly on the west bank of the Fraser River,” when Anderson reached that place. I did that research sometime in the 2000s, for my first book, The Pathfinder, and haven’t looked at it since. But as it happens, I have the Fort Alexandria post journals in my Dropbox, and so I checked it out and confirmed the information, which is clearly written in John Tod’s beautiful handwriting. This is what it says: 

May 3, 1842. Mr. C.F. Ogden and his Brigade crossed to the other side the river last night to arrange the packs & other baggage.

If Peter Skene Ogden went over to the other side of the river to prepare the packs for the outgoing brigade to Kamloops, then he had to cross the river from the post that stood on the west bank of the Fraser. Confirmation!

So, sometime after Anderson arrived at the fort in its west bank location in November 1842, and before 1844, when Anderson identified the location of Fort Alexandria as being on the east side of the river as he set off on his Thleuz-cuz expedition, the fort was moved across the river. One of the times it could have happened is between February 21, 1843 and April 25, 1843, when A.C. Anderson was placed in charge of Fort St. James while Peter Skene Ogden was absent. But then he led out the brigade to Prairie de Nicholas [Summerland] and returned home on May 23, 1843. It didn’t happen then, as Anderson was away from the fort.

Then the journals in B.5/a/5 end in September 1843, and B.5/a/6 begins again in April 1844. I think the fort must have been moved across the river at this time, and that is supported by the fact that on Monday, May 27, 1844, Anderson leaves on his Thleuz-cuz expedition. The location of Fort Alexandria on that map could, however, have been added at a later date, so that is not confirmation. However, in the post journals the men at the fort are carrying pickets in July 1844.

Later, in June 1845, the water is within three feet of the fort gate, apparently without flooding the fort. B.5/a/6 ends July 1845, and B.5/a/7 begins September 1845, in the middle of a sentence. In February 1846, the fort is being moved from the lower bench to that above. Take a look at the blogpost I have attached above — that is, “The Fort Alexandria Flood.” Look at it differently. Understand (as I now understand, and didn’t understand when I wrote it) that the fort was flooded when standing on the lower bench on the east bank of the Fraser River, and it was moved to the upper bench on the east bank of the Fraser River. (This is actually what young James said, but I did not listen to him.) So, the fort was not moved from the west bank to the east at this time: it was already on the east bank. All else remains the same. 

So, location of the first fort, on the east bank of the Fraser River, likely more or less where I was standing when I took the photograph above. I don’t know whether it was on the first bench or the second, however.

Location of the second fort, on the west bank of the river, probably at the same place that the 1860’s fort stood.

Third location of Fort Alexandria, on the east bank of the river, on the first bench closest to the river. That was a mistake (and A.C. Anderson’s mistake, too!) This is the fort location that was flooded. 

Fourth location of Fort Alexandria, on the east bank of the river, on the second bench, close to where the old church now stands. 

Fifth location of Fort Alexandria, on the west bank of the river, on the second bench where the Fort Alexandria National Historic Site places it. Whew! 

I think I have it all right. So, let me know if you see anything wrong with this, or if you have further information to clarify or add. I am quite fond of uncertainty and chaos, don’t you think? But it’s fun, figuring out puzzles like this, and its exciting to finally know what the answers (probably) are. And I think I’m right, but I might change my mind on that, too.

Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2024. All rights reserved.  

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