New Westminster Environmental Almanac (2917 ... - Douglas College

Brief History of New Westminster
Prior to European settlement, there were a number of First Nation sites
located within the present day City boundaries. According to the Stol:o –
Coast Salish Historical Atlas and the Indian Communities and Natural
Resources of the Early Lower Mainland map, produced by the
Vancouver Sun, most settlements were seasonal gathering places. People
of the Sto:lo Nation would gather along the banks of the Fraser each year
to fish for salmon or gather berries. The best-known site is probably the
fishing village of Statelew (also know as Skaiametl), located along
Glenbrooke Creek, downriver from the present day former BC
Penitentiary grounds. The Schechi:les settlement was also located along
Glenbrooke Creek but upriver from the former Penitentiary grounds.
Another fishing camp may have existed across from Poplar Island in the
North Arm of the Fraser River. Poplar Island was actually used as a
smallpox quarantine area in the 1800’s, where there is believed to be a
number of unmarked graves of smallpox victims. The only year-round
village located near New Westminster was the Skwekwte’xwqen site at
the mouth of the Brunette River.
The first definite account of European explorers at near New
Westminster was Simon Fraser in 1808. At the time Fraser was working
for the Northwest Fur Company and believed he was traveling down the
Columbia River in search of an overland route to the Pacific. When
Simon Fraser drifted past in his canoes, the site of today’s New
Westminster was the site of one permanent and a number of seasonal
First Nation fishing villages. It was not until 1827 that the Hudson’s Bay
Company erected a fur-trading post at Fort Langley, 20 km upriver from
present day New Westminster. Other than an HBC trading post, no other
European settlements existed within the Fraser Valley until 30 years later
with the discovery of gold in the Thompson and Fraser River basins.
The discovery of gold in the interior of British Columbia, then known as
“New Caledonia”, brought thousands of prospectors north from the
recently spent California Gold Rush with 27 000 prospectors arriving in
1858 alone. From Victoria, James Douglas, Governor of Vancouver
Island, became worried that American expansion would accompany the
influx of prospectors into the sparsely defended British territory. He
therefore requested from Queen Victoria that a new mainland colony be
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History of New Westminster