History of Terrace, British Columbia
Our part of the province has a long history of human habitation: the Tsimshian have made it their home for more than 5000 years.
The First Nations villages of Kitsumkalum (immediately west of present-day Terrace) and Kitselas (situated east of the city) were both busy centres of trade and transportation.
Individual communities were small in size yet a Hudson’s Bay Company census of 1835 counted 8500 people – virtually all First Nations – residing in the various villages scattered throughout the area. (The settlement of the townsite at Terrace – primarily by whites – did not happen until the 1900s.)
The early fur trade proved profitable for local Tsimshian: they were able to “corner the market” by acquiring valuable pelts from indigenous trappers upriver and reselling them (at marked-up prices) to buyers on the coast. The Tsimshian were, in fact, engaged in brisk trade with British and European-descended colonials long before either had actually set eyes upon the other.
Early surveyors and men of commerce moving up the Skeena River were the first white people to encounter the Tsimshian face-to-face. (Interestingly the Tsimshian would not permit early whites to pass through what later became known as the Kitselas or Little Canyon of the Skeena until they had declared their intentions of being peaceful. The Kitselas Canyon, an easily defended chokepoint in those days. The Tsimshian maintained control of this narrow waterway until the advent of large, steam-powered – and basically unstoppable – sternwheelers.)
The first white settler in the Terrace area was Tom Thornhill, an Englishman by birth (born in 1855). Thomas Job Thornhill moved from the “old country” to Victoria with his parents in 1858. He was the oldest of three brothers.
Thornhill later trained as a blacksmith, eventually opening a blacksmith shop in the Fraser Valley. There he met and married Eliza Wright, the sister of a Kitselas chief, Walter Wright.
Thornhill (with Eliza) moved to the land of his wife’s family in the spring of 1892. They built a log home on the east bank of the Skeena River immediately downstream from the present-day old Skeena Bridge.
Relations between the Tsimshians and whites – few in number as they were – were generally cordial. When George Little (commonly referred to as the founder of Terrace) arrived on the scene in 1905, local native people received him warmly: they provided food and offered instruction in the manufacture of wolf-hide blankets, among other helpful gestures.
Riverboat days
In the early days, the Skeena River provided an important, ready-made “highway” through the rugged Coast Range mountains.
The first steam-powered vessel to churn its way upriver was the paddlewheeler Union in 1864. This ship was under contract to Collins Overland Telegraph Company to deliver construction supplies as far inland as possible. (Collins Overland Telegraph Company was, at the time, building a telegraph line from New York to London following an overland route through British Columbia, Alaska, the Bering Strait, Siberia and Europe.)
Unfortunately the under-powered Union was not able to force the current beyond what is now Terrace, only 147 km (91 mi.) from the coast.
Collins tried again with the more powerful Mumford in 1866 but this vessel was capable of only slightly better performance, reaching 177 km (110 mi.) inland.
No further riverboat activity occurred until 1891 when the Hudson’s Bay Company acquired the Caledonia. This sternwheeler voyaged as far inland as Kitselas Canyon before being stopped by the swift waters and the narrow, rocky passage.
In time – and with more powerful engines – navigation on the river reached as far inland as Hazelton, although Kitselas Canyon always remained a challenge. (To assist passage through the canyon, large steel ringbolts were eventually set into granite outcroppings on the shore. The riverboats’ crews would then pass cables through the rings and, using the ships’ steam-powered capstans, winch their way upstream. The aptly-named Ringbolt Island in Kitselas Canyon still has these large ringbolts in place.)
Well-known paddle-wheelers from the era include Monte Cristo, Hazelton, Mount Royal (which sank in Kitselas Canyon with loss of life) Skeena, Operator, Conveyor, Omineca and Port Simpson.
The Grand Truck Pacific Railway, which at the time was building its rail line to the coast, added the Distributor.
Inlander was the last of the sternwheelers to join the Skeena River trade on June 1, 1910.
The official opening of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (now CN) in 1914 marked the end of the riverboats: from then on, passengers, freight and bulk commodities traveled by rail.
For more information on the Sternwheelers on the Skeena and their stories please visit the Terrace Riverboat Days Society webpage.
Local, early forestry
The first commercial use of trees in the Skeena Valley involved the sale of cordwood to captains of the wood-burning, steam-powered riverboats. Wood-cutters would stack vast piles of cordwood on the riverbanks and passing vessels would simply draw alongside to refuel.
This activity was supplemented – after 1909 – by work crews fashioning railway ties for use on the then-being-built Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Trees would be felled, cut to length and then “hacked” with axes to form two-sided railway ties. (The tops and bottoms of the ties would be flattened with the sides left untouched.)
Logging and sawmilling quickly developed into key industries for Terrace. George Little, Clair Giggey and Carl Pohle (for whom Pohle and Little Avenue;s are named) were tree well-known figures from the time: they were early logging and sawmilling entrepreneurs.
In the 1920s Terrace was widely recognized as a centre for the manufacture of long, straight cedar poles. These were in great demand for use by electric utilities and telephone/telegraph companies.
In later years, Terrace touted itself as the “cedar pole capital of the world”, with trainloads of high-quality poles of exceptional length leaving town on a regular basis.
