Fort Alexandria

Alexandria or Fort Alexandria is a National Historic Site of Canada on the Fraser River in British Columbia, and was the end of the Old Cariboo Road and the Cariboo Wagon Road. It is located on Highway 97, 103 miles north of 100 Mile House and 28 miles south of Quesnel.

On June 21, 1793, explorer Alexander MacKenzie reached the shores of the First Nations village at what would become Alexandria. He was told by the people of the village that the river was not safe for navigation beyond that point. Mackenzie heeded their advice and he and his party turned around and returned upriver to what would become the town of Quesnellemouth, (later Quesnel) and continued on to Bella Coola. In 1821, the North West Company erected a fort at Alexandria, the last the company would build before it was merged the same year with the Hudson's Bay Company. The fort was named Alexandria in honour of Alexander Mackenzie. They also built a grainery and wintered their horses there. Alexandria became a key way station along the Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail.

By 1859, in response to the gold discoveries that would ultimately set off the Cariboo Gold Rush, Alexandria had grown from a simple Hudson's Bay post to a large tent community of miners and AD McInnes bought some of the HBC property at Alexandria to build a roadhouse that would serve travellers on the Old Cariboo Road once the road's construction was completed in 1863.

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