Giscome Portage

Many hundreds of years ago, the first peoples of this continent discovered the shortest route between the waterways flowing to the Pacific Ocean and those flowing into the Arctic Ocean. This trail was a highway for the first peoples traveling across borders and overland to trade goods, gather food and visit neighbours.

The Lhedli T'enneh named this trail Lhedesti. The highest point of the trail is the boundary between two great nations the Lhedli T'enneh to the south and the Tse'Kenne to the north.

In the fall of 1862, John Robert Giscome, who was born in Jamaica in 1832, and Henry McDame, who was born in the Bahamas in 1826, after meeting in Quesnel, decided to go into the Peace River area to look for gold after hearing gold had been found in the Finlay and Parsnip rivers in the Peace River water shed area. However, they got caught in a freeze up and decided to winter in Fort George and not at Fort St. James as originally planned. From Fort St. James they would take the overland route to the McLeod Lake post.

During their stay in Fort George they met up with Indians trading at the Hudson's Bay post who told John and Henry of an alternate route to McLeod Lake via the Salmon River; a tributary of the Fraser 18 miles north of Fort George. This route involved a short portage from the upper Salmon to Summit Lake, where they'd reach the Crooked River, a tributary of the Peace River. Consequently, in the spring of 1863, they set out for this portage with an Indian guide. They headed down the Fraser River and upon coming to the Salmon River found it badly swollen with the spring run off. The guide told them there was another trail about 12 miles further up the Fraser. This trail began at the present day Huble homestead site and cut across through the bush to Summit Lake, a distance of nine miles. In an 1863 a letter published in a Victoria newspaper, John Robert Giscome recounted the prospecting trip undertaken by himself and his partner Henry McDame. In the letter, Giscome described the short trail over the Continental Divide shown to him by a native guide.

Despite the article, the trail saw little use until the Omineca Gold Rush. In 1871, three hundred ninety nine British Columbia miners petitioned the government demanding a "wagon road across the Giscome Portage" to ease access to the Omineca gold deposits. That summer the portage was widened into a wagon road at a cost of $9070, and appeared on an official government map. The portage was very heavily used after the wagon road was completed. By the 1890's traffic on the portage subsided as miners left for new gold strikes and other transport routes gained popularity.

Visit Giscome Portage on the B.C. Parks website

depending on the season, bring your bug spray & bug hat!