The Portage*
Seton Portage, formerly Short Portage - see note at bottom of page about
correct prononciation!
First things first,
or almost . . .
Quoting with permission from Irene Edward's "Short Portage to Lillooet":
"The Beginning"
With
a thunderous roar, a large piece of the mountain broke off and tumbled
in a giant cascade of rocks and shale into the valley and lake
below. Like a broken dam, the seemingless endless torrent poured
on and on. When the last vibrations has finally died away, a great
wall of broken rocks stretched across from one side of the valley to the
other, and there were two lakes instead of one.
Thus
was born the land area between Anderson and Seton Lakes, known today as
Seton Portage. From a hillside view one can see clearly the great
cavity in the mountain from which the slide emerged, and the contours of
the slide itself, from the mountain base to the extended thrusts on the
far side.
We do not know if human eyes ever witnessed the greaet havoc that
changed foreever the geography of this mountain valley. Hundreds,
or even thousands of years of wind, snow, and rain settled the
rocks and gradually ground them into earth. Vegetation grew and
covered the ugly scards, as is the way of nature, and the Portage became
a place of beauty.
But everywhere great rocks and boulders lie close to the surface,
covered more deeply in places by river silt. Streams from the
mountainside and upper lake worked their way through the rocks, and
gradually a river joined the two lakes. Smaller slides blocked its
course many times so that it had to break through new channels.
There are at least six old river beds visible on the Portage
today. Though well established in its present bed, Seton Portage
River is threatened by small slides from time to time.
Through the years the two lakes have become strangely different,
Anderson Lake is a deep blue, but the lower Seton Lake, fed from silted
streams, and waters from the Bridge River Dams, has become green.
Sometimes it has a pale chalky appearance, but after the spring floods,
it settles to a beautiful jade green - truly a beautiful gem in its
mountain setting.
The fact that these two lakes were one was corroborated by thte Dept.
of Geology in Victoria. The big slide could have happened as far
back as 10,000 years ago. Many rocks and mud slides occur year
after year, building up the land portion.'
The last complete blockage occurred in 1907. Lillooet residents,
noting that the level of Seton Lake and the creeks was lowering rapidly,
went up by boat to investigate. They found the Portage River
blocked completely by a huge slide, and its waters flowing back into
Anderson Lake. The spring fhreshettes soon broke through the slide
again, and a new river channel was formed.
I've
quoted the opening passage of Mrs. Edwards' excellent local history
because it sums up the origin of the Portage well, and with the
appropriate drama suitable for a natural cataclysm of the scale which
created the tiny bit of land separating Anderson and Seton Lakes.
The devastation must have been intense, with displacement waves - a
freshwater "megatsunami" - scouring the valley in both directions to a
high elevation, and not dissipating until many miles later down the
Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. Any human habitation or other living
thing below a certain contour would have been washed away, and any
hunting or berry-picking party on the ridges above the valley must have
watched aghast as their lakeside villages were destroyed and their
families obliterated by the disaster. But people did return,
and in time the sheltered and benign climate of the Portage and nearby
shores became home to one of more populous native communities of the
St'at'imcets-speaking peoples, who were in earlier times were known as
the Lakes Lillooet, or Liluet-ol of the Lakes, or
Lêxalêxamux (those x's are something like h's). As
Mrs. Edwards recounts, "white people couldn't pronounce this, so it was
changed to 'mil-le wa-qua' (water mixes)". At the time of the
change of modern Lillooet's name from "Cayoosh", all the native peoples
of the Lillooet River, Long Portage, Lakes and the Fraser up to Fountain
adopted the name Liluet-ol (Lil'wat'ullh), or Lillooets.
The
Lakes Lillooet people today are comprised of the Seton Lake Indian
Band. who are part of the Upper St'at'imc of the Lillooet Tribal Council
(or St'at'imc Nation), plus the Nequatqua (D'arcy) Band, which opted out
of the St'at'imc Nation in recent times. Very little is known in
white histories of the population and culture of the Lakes Lillooet, but
in Mrs. Edwards account, "an old story teller relates that his father,
returning from a trip in the mountains, looked down on the settlement
and saw 'the lights from the campfires like the stars in the sky'" -
some estimates of the population of the Lakes Lillooet prior to the
depredations of smallpox and the various impacts of colonization run
well over 10,000. Today's Seton Band population is around 500,
plus around 300 non-natives, but as suggested in the old storyteller's
account the pre-Contact population here must have been very much higher
- not suprising given the lush greenery, mild climate and abundant fish
and game around the Portage. Restitution
for lands in the Portage seized from the Band during the construction
of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in the 1910s are central to the
land claims of the Stl'atl'imx Nation and are referred to in the Lillooet Declaration of 1916.
Of
the original native village-complex which must have spanned the Portage
very little remains today because of the displacement of native people
from habitations now taken up by non-native settlement. Between
placer workings and the tilling of the soil for farms and orchards, any
archaeological evidence of former times can be expected to be
negligible, but the antiquity of native culture on the Portage is
without doubt. Legends and stories of former times are abundant in
Mrs. Edwards and other sources, and in time I may get a chance to add
them to this website's pages on native history,
One compelling legend, however, goes simply "long ago someone came
through the valley who was so good, people said he was God". The
Lakes were also the farthest inland reached by the legendary
Transformers, a family of wizard-like beings who travelled through the
land changing people and spirit-forces into landmarks such as stones or
springs; they were turned back at Skimka (the foot of Seton Lake) when
they were met there by the great trickster-spirit Coyote, who basically
told them that their services weren't required in his territory, which
begins there. More on the Transformers can be found on the pages
concerning the Douglas-Lillooet Trail, the Gates Valley (Birken) and native
culture.
During
the gold rush of 1858-59 tens of thousands of prospectors en route
to the Cariboo and Fraser goldfields crossed the Portage. The area was
so busy with gold-fevered travellers that the two huge port
encampments on the shores of Anderson and Seton Lake were dubbed
"Wapping" and "Flushing" after the London railway stations of the same
name; connecting these two "ports" - really just very busy beaches with
massed small boats and rafts - a horse-drawn wooden railway was built
to carry freight the one-mile length of the Portage. This is supposed
to have been the first railway in BC; today's Portage Road follows
pretty much the exact same route as the old wooden rails. The
system took advantage of the fifty-foot difference in elevation between
the two lakes; not much over the one mile of the Portage, true, but
enough for gravity to help out with the load; the uphill journey back to
the Anderson shore (Wapping) was mule-drawn. Nothing is left of
the makeshift merchant marine of the Lakes, but in later times small steamers and barges served the Portage and
helped tie the communites of the Long Portage with those of Short
Portage and Lillooet. Recreational watercraft remain common on
both lakes today, with Anderson being favoured by windsurfers and Seton
by waterskiers; Anderson is the preferred fishing lake, as Seton's
natural ecology was seriously changed by the power project.
Photo: E. (Andy) Cleven |
I'm not sure of the date of this photo, but it may be
possible to date it fairly precisely because there is only one powerline
cut along Anderson Lake at the right of the picture. This picture
above is very off-focus because it's actually a cropped close-up from a
much broader-view one that takes in the peaks and maybe seen by clicking
on the picture, which was taken from, I think, the No. 2 penstock
portal. The farther lake is Anderson, the nearer one
Seton. The field at far left is part of the Durban family place,
one of the two oldest non-native spreads in the valley; the other is the
equally old Hurley place, at a corresponding location by the shore of
Anderson but nothing of it is visible here and only some of it is in the
Hurley family anymore (biographies of these founding families will be
added to a later edition of this page). The other clear ground
near Seton Lake is the Slosh rancherie, including the small delta of the
Seton Portage River. Most of non-native Seton Portage is hidden
here by that big pine in the middle of the photo; the clear strip to its
right is either Portage Road or the PGE line (today the BCR).
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Photo:
E. "Andy" Cleven
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Photo:
E. "Andy" Cleven
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image at left is a cropped close-up from the image at right; by the
angle these would appear to have been taken from the No. 1 penstock
portal or from thereabouts. Another powerline has been cut by the
time this image was taken, but it doesn't look like the new switchyard
for No. 2 Powerhouse was built yet, in the left foreground, so I'd place
this some time around 1957-8. |
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BC Archives # NA-04411 |
During
the construction of the PGE supplies had to be delivered to
construction sites along the lakeshores by boat. This is the PGE
wharf at Anderson Lake, just below the Hurley place. The
contractors were Foley, Welch and Stewart of Vancouver but much of the
timber for ties and other construction was supplied by Durban's Mill at
the foot of Seton Lake. The farther shore at right here is called
Buntain's, a neighbourhood of recreational homes named after the PGE
stop, which itself gets it name from the Vancouver insurance agent whose
getaway cabin was the first here. Today the High-Line Road to
D'arcy makes a diagonal cut into the cliff-face above the lake to the
left.
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BC Archives # I-29049 |
This
view from the PGE (BCR) tracks is looking back towards the Portage,
with Mission Ridge in the background partly obscured by cloud.
Buntain's is what's mostly in view. The dark bit of shoreline at
right is the opening where the Seton Portage River flows out of Anderson
Lake for its short one-mile journey to Seton Lake. Just to its
right is the hilltop where the Church of St. Mary at Nkiat is, which is
in fact visible as the tiny lighter spot above the shore there.
The name Nkiat comes from a St'at'imcets word meaning 'on top of',
apparently in reference to the rise of land there. The PGE worker
here is cleaning the tracks, possibly of a small rockfall, which is
common on the line along both lakes - the "speeder" car here always
precedes a train in order to ensure track safety.
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Photo:
E. "Andy" Cleven
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The
aerial view here is overlooking the central part of the Portage,
looking up the valley of Whitecap Creek. The small falls visible
here is in spring freshet very large and impressive. The central
commercial and residential part of the Portage in the right foreground
is where the PGE station, pub, store and motel are. The cleared
land in the left foreground is part of a farm and orchard, if I recall
correctly owned by a Mrs. Williams at the time this photo was taken
(about 1960). The Portage is famous orchard country, and its
once-thriving commercial orchards are considered to grow the best
Mcintosh apples in the world - so prized that Canada's annual Christmas
gift of a box of apples to Buckingham Palace came from the Portage for
several decades. Although there are only a few working orchards in
the valley today, apple trees are everywhere, most untended.
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This
is another view of the Seton valley, taken from about the middle of the
Portage looking towards Seton Lake; that's Whitecap Creek in the left
foreground, which merges with the Seton Portage River in another couple
of hundred yards from here.
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This
is a similar view to the one just above, but from slightly higher up
and after the high-tension lines from Peace River were built through the
valley.
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BC
Archives # A-04369
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This
old bridge across the Portage River is of the truss-span design common
among bridges built by the Royal Engineers,
but I believe this was built by Portage residents. In fact, this
picture was probably taken to commemorate its completion, and the men
shown are those who built it, although I don't know anything (for now)
about its history. The numbers written on the photo are meant to
identify the individuals whose heads they're over. |
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This
is a distant view of the Portage from the tip of Shalalth Point,
showing the visual evidence of the slide which created it as the slope
of land emerging from the carved-out mountainside at left. The
treed headland at right is Mt Skeil, where the No. 2 Powerhouse
is. The peak at right is Goat Mountain, of the southern spur of
the Bendor Range, the farther one to the
right of centre in this picture is Mt.
McGillivary which crowns the pass of the same name near D'arcy. Most of the settled area of the
Portage is out of sight here, to the right behind the headland of Mt.
Skeil. The sloped area shown is some of the evidence of the huge
landslip which created the Portage.
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Nkiat & Slosh
Photo: Mike Cleven
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Photo: Irene Edwards
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There are only two native churches in the
Seton Valley today, the old Mission Church at Shalalth burning down many
years ago. St. Christopher's at Slosh, above, is in disrepair,
having lost its belltower, and is partly overgrown with brush. The
church at Nkiat depicted at left, St. Mary's, has undergone renovation
work and is used on occasion, although most younger natives have long
since given up the Catholic faith brought by the Oblates, although many
elders are still devout. Both churches are only a hundred yards or
so from Seton and Anderson Lakes, respectively.
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The
photo at right shows St. Mary's under construction as well as the old
cabins of the Nkiat rancherie; this would have been in the 1890s when
the Oblates were successfully encouraging the Lakes Lillooet to move
into "modern" housing in villages organized around a church;
formerly they had lived native-style, in lean-to's or other open
accommodations in the hot summer, or in underground houses in the winter
(Si7xten - "shee-ishtikin" in Mrs.
Edwards' transcription, which most locals call "quigglies" (from another
St'at'imcets word for them, kekuli, from the Chinook Jargon kickwillie -
"below").
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Photo:
Dunlop
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*prononciation
note:
The word "Portage" here is not pronounced the
French way, rhyming with corsage, but rather the English way, rhyming
with "porridge". I've been in furious arguments with newcomers to
BC about this prononciation - actually they were furious, and I was just
stubborn as well as in the right - with them insisting that because it
was the Metis voyageurs who came through and "named" the Portage it
should be pronounced the French way, and that I was obviously an
ignorant and bigoted British Columbian for maintaining that the English
prononciation was even correct; that "portage" pronounced like
"porridge" was even an English word. Thing is, actually coming
from the place and being told I was wrong by people who'd never even
seen it as anything but a place on the map or who'd passed through it on
the train......well, I think I'm in a better position to account for how
it's supposed to be pronounced. Short Portage, as it was named
until 1958, usually simply called the Portage, got this name during the
Gold Rush of 1858 when tens of thousands of goldfields-bound miners and
hangers-on poured through the valley, even though A.C. Anderson and his
Metis crew had passed through here in '42 and that could be the origin
of the name; but Anderson was a Scot and he was the one keeping the
journal. Most of them were American or Chinese, a fair number were
British of some kind and another fair number were "Dutchmen" (any kind
of European other than French, who were pasiooks or simply "frenchmen"),
and there were a few Hawaiians, French and who knows what else.
Few stayed more than a day or two; all were gone by late '59 and little
trace of their passing remains today except the traces of a wagon road
and the colony-cum-province's first railway. Even the name they
used for it - Short Portage - got changed in 1958 to Seton Portage as
part of the centennial commemoration of the route. One thing that
didn't change - the frontier-English prononciation of "Portage", which
was also used for the Long Portage, also known as the Pemberton Portage
or Birkenhead Portage - which connected Lillooet Lake to the far end of
Anderson Lake; it was also called "Mosquito Pass" for reasons which were
painfully obvious to those travelling through it. The first
overland segment of the Lillooet Trail, between Harrison and Lillooet
Lakes, was a longer portage than the one from Lillooet Lake to Anderson
Lake, but was not referred to as the Long Portage, but instead as the
Douglas Portage (from Port Douglas to 29 Mile House), which was
also (sigh) known as 28 Mile House and
as Port Lillooet; when the phrase "Douglas Road" was used it often
referred to this first (and roughest) stretch of the complex journey,
but properly it applies to the whole route to the Fraser. To make
things a bit more confusing "the Douglas Portage" was not from Port
Douglas to Lillooet Lake, as one might expect, but between Yale and
Spuzzum, avoiding the then-impassable walls of the Fraser Canyon just
above Yale by a higher but gentler western route.
