Old Yale Road

The Old Yale Road is a historic early wagon road between New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada to Yale, British Columbia and serviced the Fraser Valley of the British Columbia Lower Mainland in the late 19th century and into the early 20th. It eventually became an early highway route for automobiles through the valley and into the British Columbia interior beyond Yale. It would eventually be part of, then surpassed by, the Fraser Highway, the Trans-Canada Highway and the 401 Highway.

While the famed Cariboo Wagon Road from Yale north to the gold fields was completed in 1865, it was years before a Lower Mainland road was completed to Hope and Yale.

To move men and supplies to the gold fields, service by river steamers was inaugurated in 1858. The navigable sections of the Fraser River proved the easiest and cheapest route of travel. As late as 1873, the Hudson's Bay Company foot trail ("Fur Brigade Trail") was the only land route between Fort Langley and Chilliwack.

The section between Chilliwack and Yale dates back to 1862 as a rough trail, built over a primitive foot path. Credit for the trail has gone to Yale butcher Jonathan Reece who wanted to source his meat from a location closer than Oregon. After convincing some other men to invest in land for farming in Chilliwack, he proceeded to cut a 50-mile-long trail through heavy forest with the help of a relative and a native local.

Construction began in 1874 for a wagon road between New Westminster and Hope roughly paralleling the route of the Telegraph Trail of 1865. On maps it was called the New Westminster and Yale (Wagon) Road, but known locally as Yale Road.

The route of Yale Road ran from New Westminster in a southeasterly direction through Langley Prairie and Aldergrove to Abbotsford. The road proceeded to curve south to follow a path along the south shore of Sumas Lake and along the north base of the Vedder Mountains through Yarrow, Vedder Crossing, north to Sardis and Chilliwack. From Chilliwack, the road followed Reece's old trail through Rosedale and Bridal Falls, then northeasterly along the south shore of the Fraser River through Cheam View and Laidlaw to Hope and Yale.

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