Old Fort Kamloops was first called Fort Thompson, having been begun by David Thompson, astronomer of the North-West Company, on his overland journey from Montreal to Astoria, by way of Yellowhead Pass, in 1810. It was the capital of the Thompson River district, and one of the oldest in all the Oregon region. After Thompson, hither came Alexander Ross, who, in 1812, conducted operations there on behalf of Astor's Pacific Fur Company. After the coalition in 1821, the veteran fur-trader, John McLeod, was in charge of the Thompson River district. Then came Ermatinger, who presided at Kamloops in 1828, when Governor Simpson visited the fort and harangued the neighbouring Indians, beseeching them to be "honest, temperate and frugal; to love their friends, the fur-traders, and above all to bring in their heaps of peltries, and receive therefor the goods of the Company."
Legend of Kamloops.
The post was not without thrilling legends and abundance of romance. It was here that the Company's officer in command, Samuel Black, in 1840, challenged his brother Scot, and guest, David Douglas, the wandering botanist, to fight a duel, because the latter bluntly, one night, over his rum and dried salmon, had stigmatized the Honourable Adventurers as "not possessing a soul above a beaver skin." Black repelled in fury such an assertion; but Douglas refused to fight. He took his departure, only to meet his death shortly afterwards by falling into a pit at Hawaii, while homeward bound.
If this was the fate of the calumniator of the Company, that of its defender was not less tragic; for soon after his display of loyalty, while residing at Fort Kamloops, he was assassinated by the nephew of a friendly neighbouring chief, named Wanquille, "for having charmed his uncle's life away." Black's successor, John Tod, built a new fort on the opposite side of the river, which differed but little from the later fortresses of the Company. There were seven houses, including stores, dwellings and shops, enclosed in palisades fifteen feet in height, with gates on two sides and bastions at two opposite angles.
Early in 1848 a small post was erected by the Company on the Fraser River, near a village of the Lachincos, adjacent to the rapids ascended by Alexander Anderson the previous year. The fort was called Yale, in honour of Chief Factor Yale, who was at that time in charge of Fort Langley. It was the only post on that wild stream, the Fraser, between Langley and Alexandria, a distance of some three hundred miles. Two causes led to its erection: the Waiilatpu massacre in 1847, and the conclusion of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which placed the boundary line several degrees north of the Lower Columbia.
Father Lacombe.
Mountain House.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable of the Company's posts was Mountain House. "Every precaution known to the traders," writes a visitor of thirty years ago, "has been put in force to prevent the possibility of a surprise during 'a trade.' Bars and bolts, and places to fire down at the Indians who are trading, abound in every direction; so dreaded is the name borne by the Blackfeet, that it is thus their trading-post has been constructed." Eighty years ago, the Company had a post far south of the Bow River, in the very heart of the Blackfeet country; but, despite all precautions, it was frequently plundered and finally burnt down by the Blackfeet, and no attempt was since made to construct another fort in their country.