Spuzzum is an unincorporated community in the lower Fraser Canyon area of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The place is on the west shore of the Fraser River and north shore of Spuzzum Creek. The locality, on BC Highway 1, is by road about north of Hope and south of Lytton.
First Nations and interactions
First Nations have inhabited the canyon for thousands of years. When Simon Fraser stayed overnight in June 1808, he was perceived as a supernatural being. Fraser noted blankets made from the wool of mountain goats and dog's hair and burial boxes set on posts. At the time, the two villages of Spuzzum and Schwimp of the Nlaka'pamux peoples existed but later possessed the collective name of Spuzzum, meaning "little flat". The boundary between the Upper Sto:lo (Tait) and the Nlaka'pamux peoples was at Sawmill Creek, about south.
In mid-1858, the first miners passed through the area, which began the co-existence and intermarriages between the two cultures. That August, two miners were killed in an encounter with First Nations just below Spuzzum. In retribution, a party of about 40 from Yale travelled north as far as Boston Bar, killed several in battle, and burned their villages to the ground.
Historically, summer and winter dwellings, and fishing, hunting, and gathering locations, covered a wide area. From 1860, land was lost to trails, the Cariboo Road, bridges, railways, and pre-emptions by settlers. By 1863, pre-emptions had compressed the indigenous entitlement mostly to the south side of the creek. In the 1870s, 149 indigenous people lived south of the Alexandra suspension bridge and about was under cultivation, principally potato crops.
The Spuzzum First Nation is the name of the local band government. Downstream from the Alexandra bridges, the reserves from north to south are Skuet 6, Papsilqua 2B, Papsilqua 2, Papsilqua 2A, Spuzzum 1 (formerly Spuzzum Rancherie), Spuzzum 7, and Spuzzum 1A.
Name origin
In 1848, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) built Simon's House as a store, where the fur brigades crossed the Fraser. During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush a decade later, this name had been replaced by Spuzzum. However, Rancheria was also sometimes used.
Spuzzum Mountain to the northwest is part of the Lillooet Ranges subdivision of the Coast Mountains.
Topography
The river is narrow and turbulent at Spuzzum. The large bar was worked by placer miners. The location lies in a constricted part of the Fraser Canyon north of the Yale highway tunnel; the area is dominated by granitic or gneissic bedrock.
South of the creek, the land adjacent to the river is low and marshy and subject to spring flooding. North of the creek is higher and flatter.
Ferry, bridges, and roads
A rope guided the punt-shaped reaction ferry, which struggled to cope with the heavy and frequent wagon traffic during the goldrush. Part of the Old Mountain Trail from Yale, the ferry ran intermittently from 1848 for 10 years, then actively for five years before the first Alexandra suspension bridge opened in 1863 about upstream. On one particular day, the 50 cents per passenger fare filled a tin bucket with silver and gold. When the ferry capsized on another occasion, all the passengers drowned. When later interviewed, the operator was asked if there was much loss. He replied, "Oh no, I always collect the fares in advance."
In 1858, private enterprise erected a bridge over Spuzzum Creek, which was tolled for six months.
In 1862, the government awarded Joseph Trutch & Thomas Spence the southward leg of the new wagon road from the proposed bridge to Pike's Riffle along the west shore, for completion the following spring. The Royal Engineers supervised such work. The road width was extended to through tunnels and cuttings. When a stage plunged over a cliff below Spuzzum in March 1881, two horses died and two passengers suffered broken legs.
Although the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) construction during the 1880s severely damaged the Yale–Spuzzum road, this section had become passable by the early 1900s. After the 1894 Fraser River flood had destroyed the Spuzzum Creek bridge, the railway bridge became the only means of crossing the creek. A new bridge erected around 1900, which was again east of and lower than the railway bridge, had fallen into disrepair by 1920, when rehabilitated.
In 1924, W.P. Tierney was awarded the reconstruction of the Yale–Spuzzum leg of the road for completion during the following year. In 1947, this section was paved.