FVC History Edition - March 28, 2025 - 1894 flood devastating for early valley settlers

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Good morning!

Wow, what a week! It’s so nice to be back here in our History Edition with you all—it’s one of my favourite times of the month. Of course, news doesn’t sleep while we spend our time in the past. Drivers on Highway 1 near Hope should note the highway has been reduced to one lane each way for the coming weekend so workers can deal with a sinkhole on the road. We’ll be back to our present-day programming on Monday to help you stay up to date with all the current goings-on.

Speaking of staying current, I neglected to mention our Current Cam winner yesterday! Congratulations to Gerry Borden for being the first person to identify the location as a section of farmland near the DeVry Greenhouses in Rosedale. (We thought it looked a bit like a ghost!) Thanks also to Bob Hagkull for also getting the location right and reminding me I didn’t announce the winner.

– Grace

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🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

HISTORY

Not just fur: how HBC built Fort Langley on salmon, butter, and gold

It was as hot as the hinges on the gates of hell inside the reconstructed Fort Langley stockade building.

You can almost imagine Vancouver Sun journalist Paul St. Pierre wiping the sweat off his forehead as he wrote the phrase down in his notebook, while he and hundreds others waited for the official opening of the Fort Langley National Historic Site in 1958.

Royalty was in town for the occasion, and as St. Pierre waited for Princess Margaret to step up to the microphone and start speaking, he made notes on her dress, her shoes, her blue eyes. It was a big occasion, even if shoddy reception and an overhead plane obscured most of Margaret’s speech.

“... to see what 100 years have done for British Columbia,” St. Pierre reported her saying. “...most fitting that the reopening of Fort Langley should have been chosen as one of the main projects… feel sure this will continue to be a source of pride …”

The fort was a Canadian landmark. But it was also an example of how intertwined the nation was with a single company.

Today, the 355-year-old Hudson’s Bay Company owes nearly $1 billion and is selling all but six of its stores to pay off its debts. That will include Langley’s store, as well as nearly 90 others across the country.

By the time Princess Margaret visited the fort to open the new historic site, the Hudson’s Bay Company was no longer the fur-trading company that had established trade routes and British governance across Indigenous land.

The company had abandoned its Fort Langley post more than half a century before, and zealous local historians had taken over the “Birthplace of British Columbia” in an attempt to preserve its history. The Bay, as it became known, was turning its eyes towards other, more lucrative endeavours in the Canadian retail scene. And that led it not just out of the fort, but out of Langley altogether. It only returned in 1990 with the expansion of the community’s Willowbrook Mall.

• Today, Grace walks through the early local history of one of Canada’s most enduring, influential, and complicated businesses: the Hudson’s Bay Company.

• On Monday, follow along with the rest of the story as HBC leaves its Fort Langley roots to become a retail empire destined for failure.

Related

🚂 March 9, 1907: Chilliwack residents were worried the proposed electric railway would not be extended farther than Abbotsford unless Sumas Prairie was diked [Fraser Advance]

🍴 March 15, 1912: Chilliwack Girl Guides were preparing a book of recipes to help pay for their new uniforms [Chilliwack Free Press]

🏥 March 2, 1923: The Matsqui-Sumas-Abbotsford Hospital Society announced the hospital was free of debt, thanks in part to profits from liquor sales [Abbotsford Post]

🏫 March 17, 1948: Schools in Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs were ‘entirely unsuitable and inadequate,’ school board members found during an inspection [Agassiz Advance]

🎻 March 30, 1960: Helen Hagnes of Aberdeen won a $1,200 violin for her performance at the BC Music Festival [Aldergrove Star]

🚌 March 13, 1998: The Chilliwack Chiefs had to bench their bus driver after RCMP officers gave him a roadside suspension for driving under the influence [Chilliwack Progress]

New in history

🤝 The Chilliwack Museum and Archives has hired a new executive director and curator [Chilliwack Progress]

🪓 Lumber barons, the KKK, and faith punctuate a telling of the history of Abbotsford’s historic Gur Sikh Gurdwara [The Tyee] / We wrote about a drive to document the history of the temple back in 2022 [FVC]

🎨 The Langley Arts Council’s annual heritage exhibit is on display until April 16 [Langley Advance Times]

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1894 flood devastating for early valley settlers

Old-timers might remember the 1948 flood that inundated the Fraser Valley. But the Fraser Valley was faced with a much larger flood in May 1894, although it resulted in significantly less property damage.

The 1894 flood began at the end of May, and over the course of several days broke through dikes in Hatzic, Matsqui, Langley, and Chilliwack.

“The inundations on the Mainland, which at first it was hoped were nothing more than a spring frolic on the part of the Fraser, have developed into a catastrophe the like of which has not hitherto been known in the history of the province,” The Province reported in early June.

“The accounts which have daily reached the capital have been on a constantly increasing scale of devastation, desolation, and disaster.”

The Fraser Valley was relatively sparsely populated in the mid-1890s, and the flood resulted in few evacuations. However, some people did drown in the flood waters, and many sections of rail lines were twisted and broken by the flood. One accounted estimated that nearly half a million dollars of property was lost between Richmond and Hope in the flood.

Agriculture was also affected, as crop land was covered in a layer of thick silt once the waters retreated. Historically, floods improved the fertility of the region, but for farmers who had only just begun cultivating the land, it was a devastating blow.

A committee for the relief of flood victims expected that they would need at least $10,000 to support the settlers affected by the floods, and very likely more come the winter.

“It is anticipated that the needs of the sufferers will be more severely felt [in winter] than up to the present time, owing to the failure of the harvest, upon which they must altogether depend for their livelihood, and against which loss they have not been long enough established to have made any provision,” the Times Colonist reported in August of 1894.

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No 1A Kodak Junior Model A camera

The Kodak camera was used locally from 1914, the year this model was first produced. Autographic cameras had a popular feature that allowed the photographer to write a caption directly on the film with a stylus through a small window in the back of the camera. Opening the window revealed a small strip of tissue-like carbon paper where the photographer could write a short note or description. The backing was a layer of carbon paper, facing away from the film, followed by a red tissue paper. Scribing made a clear spot in the carbon paper where the film could be exposed through the red filter with a multiple second exposure through the door. Nothing was deposited physically on the film; you just exposed the lettering.

This artifact is courtesy of The Reach Gallery Museum.

Open house: The Atchelitz Threshermen’s Association hosts an open house at its pioneer village in Chilliwack on Saturday, March 30 from 10am to 3pm. Details online.

Temple tour: Dr. Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra hosts a walking tour of the Sikh Heritage Museum and the the Gur Sikh Gurdwara in Abbotsford on Sunday, April 6. Details online.

Flower show: The Bradner Flower Show returns, running from Friday, April 11 to Sunday, April 13. The show is open daily from 10am to 4pm, and admission is $2.50. Details online. You can read our story about the history of the flower show here.

Voyageur fun: The Fort Langley National Historic Site hosts its 15th annual Vive les Voyageurs Festival on Saturday, April 12 and Sunday, April 13. Enjoy some taffy-tasting, story-telling, Metis beading, poutine, and more. Details online.

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