Lytton, Transformed by Transportation

Lytton, British Columbia, is at a unique crossroads. Located at the junction of the Fraser and the Thompson Rivers, it is one of the longest continuously inhabited sites in North America.

In pre-contact times, the local First Nations traded dried salmon for all means of trade goods and developed trade routes through the rough countryside to the West Coast and the Kamloops Plateau in the interior of the province.

Simon Fraser first explored the area in 1808 during his search for a trade rout to the Pacific. Its location became ever more important as a stop for explorers, then gold miners, resulting first in a mule trail (in 1860) and then in the first modern roadway, the Royal Engineer’s Road, completed in 1863. Portions of this route are still visible above Lytton.

The coming of the first trans-Canada railroad, now known as the Canadian Pacific Railway, caused a boom for Lytton. The little town expanded to accommodate railway workers, including thousands of Chinese hired to build the treacherous Fraser Canyon portion of the railway.

In the 1960s, the present Trans-Canada Highway was built. This reduced the travel time to Vancouver to just three hours and changed the face of Lytton dramatically. As the stores and services in town were lost, for various reasons, they were never replaced. Now the population travels out town for most major purchases.

Our Community Memories Project is to record the changes Lytton has undergone as a result of the changes in available transportation. Much of this has happened within the memories of our elders, and many of their experiences will be lost if not recorded soon.

To this end, we will be involving at least three generations in interviews to obtain personal insights into this evolution. We will be using a First Nations young person as well as another young person who is a local resident and has worked in the tourism industry as interviewers. We are expecting to interview several First Nations persons for this project.

We will be using photographs and articles presently in our Archives and obtained from other archival sources to provide a graphic portrait of the area. These will be combined with new material illustrating how the area has quietly absorbed the past.

We will interview several retired persons who worked in the area, trucking goods through the Fraser Canyon over the old road. Their audio reminiscences will form part of the project, as will new photographs of existing remains of the old road.

The impact of the railways has a special place in Lytton. We are fortunate to have a participant who has taken special interest in the early years of the railway, and has been a resident long enough to have witnessed the transition from steam powered locomotives to diesel electric locomotives. He will be substantially involved in the railroad portion of the project, which we hope to spin off to a second “Community Memories” project of its own in the future.

Come back here to keep up-to-date on our progress!