With a long history of habitation by First Nations, the Carrier people of the area used the waterways, trails and forests as their source of sustenance, transportation and communication. Carrier place names that still remain on lakes, rivers and geographical features are the legacy of a language that once named all the land features of this area.
Today the land base is rich in archaeological sites, reflecting past and present use by Aboriginal Peoples. The First Nations people of Nadleh Whuten, Stellat’en, Cheslatta, Saik’uz, Nak’azdli, Nasko, Lhoosk’uz, Ulkatcho and Lheikli T’enneh welcomed and guided early explorers like Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser, and continue to live in the area today.
The ancient Indian village known as Chinlac lies just a few miles east of what is now know as Vanderhoof at the junction of the and Stuart Rivers. The world famous explorer, Simon Fraser's diary relates that he was the first white man to trade with the people of Chinlac.
Alexander Mackenzie, the first European to cross North America, followed aboriginal trails along the on his epic journey to the Pacific in 1793. The Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail (Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route forms the south boundary of the Vanderhoof and Resource Management Plan
Simon Fraser traveled up the Nechako and Stuart Rivers in 1806 to found Fort St. James and Fraser, and these Northwest Company (Hudson Bay Company) forts became the focus of the fur-trade era in New Caledonia. Fort St James National Historic Site is a restored Hudson’s Bay Company post on the southern shores of in the interior of British Columbia. It is commemorated as a centre of trade and commerce in the 19th century fur trade.
Originally established by Simon Fraser for the North West Company in 1806, this place displays the largest group of original wooden buildings representing the fur trade in Canada. The story revolves around the relationships and interactions between the fur traders and Native Peoples of the region, namely the Carrier First Nations
To the south of Vanderhoof, the Entiako– the route of George Dawson’s 1876 Canadian Geological Survey Expedition. To the east, the Collin’s Overland Telegraph Line, which proposed to link North America and Russia in 1866 (and which became the Yukon Telegraph in 1902) lies along the eastern boundary of the Vanderhoof LRMP area. This trail route followed in the moccasin tracks of aboriginal trails and became the main access route into the Central Interior for both prospectors heading to the 1870’s Omineca gold rush and early homesteaders in the Nechako Valley. After the fur traders came the packers, miners, telegraph operators, surveyors and finally, settlers looking for the freedom that the frontier offers.
At the turn of the century, sternwheelers plied the Nechako and Stuart Rivers, while woods rang with the sound of the tie-hacker’s broadaxe. In 1906 the village of Vanderhoof was only a survey line in the wilderness that marked the location of the planned transcontinental railway. When the last spike was driven on April 7, 1914, it started a race for the fertile land in the Nechako Valley. The Grand Trunk Pacific Development Company offered the land for sale and one of their employees, Mr. Herbert Vanderhoof, a Chicago publisher, laid out the town-site. Vanderhoof is dutch for "of the farm".
Bush sawmills dotted the forest, as towns like Vanderhoof sprang up. Pioneer buildings and historic ranches like Rich Hobson’s Rim Rock and River Ranches on the Upper Nechako and Mandalay Creek Ranch on the Stuart River are reminders of the early cattle ranching industry in Vanderhoof area. Incorporated in 1926, Vanderhoof has a total land area of 54.86 square kilometers.
Mennonite settlers logged with horses in the 1940’s and were part of the development of the growing portable sawmill industry that boomed in the 1950’s and 1960’s to form the nucleus of the present-day local sawmill industry. Today the largest sawmill in the world, (a "supermill") owned by Canfor, is one of the largest employer's in the area in the resource sector.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/bc/stjames/index_e.asp
