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by Esther Darlington MacDon-
When the Canadian Pacific Railway was being built and had reached Ashcroft, there was nothing there except two buildings, one of which Dr. Mark S. Wade described as a “wretchJoin us at Ashcroft Elementary School ed establishment”. Dr. Wade had been Tuesday mornings at 9:30 am hired by the railroad to provide medWednesday evenings beginning ical service to the railroad crews, many of them Chinese, and was stationed at February 11- 7:00pm- 8:30 pm Spences Bridge. New Beginners always welcome. With the establishment of the railClasses are ongoing. road in Ashcroft in 1884, the governAttend unlimited classes at any location ment realized the need to connect the in BC. Start a class at any time. Cariboo Road with Ashcroft. Phone 250-453-9907 for more info. The branch road began at Boston Flats. The cliffs of igneous rock were detonFe ated with exb. s 14 e’ th Valentin 5 plosives, and & 7 pm seating Special a road was hewn out Bookings Strongly Recommended ~ $45 per person above the Complimentary Cocktail ~ Bellini Bonaparte Prosecco Bubbly Wine with Peach Purée (or any non-alcoholic drink of your choice) River. A Starter (choose one) ~ Spicy Tuna Tartare or Crispy Polenta Square with Mushrooms & Gorgonzola Cheese Sauce ‘substantial’ Main (choose one) bridge was Creamy Fettuccine Pasta with Prawns & Zucchini or built crossing Seared Rib-Eye Steak with Celeriac Puree, Dauphinoise Potatoes & Compound Butter or Vegetarian Tower with the ThompPortobello, Zucchini, Squash & Goat’s Cheese son River. Dessert (choose one) Bleeding Heart (Chocolate Lava Cake with When Raspberry Sauce) or Passion in a Cage Dr. Wade (Passion Fruit Pannacotta with a Caramel Cage) first visited the site, 250-453-0041 211 Railway there was no Ashcroft road and no bridge. He wrote that he “alited from the stage at Cornwall’s hotel” on the Cariboo Road, and walked Greek Platter for 2 down to the Escargot to start • Greek Salad • Pita Bread Thompson Chicken Souvlaki • Calamari • Greek Ribs River folTzatziki • Rice • Roast Potatoes $39.90 lowing an Mediterranean Special old Indian trail. When Starter Greek Salad • Sauteed Garlic Prawns combined with Fresh Vegetables, served he reached on a Bed of Rice, Roast Potatoes $22.00 the river, he crossed it in a canoe. The good doctor Located at the doesn’t say Oasis Hotel how he came 250-457-9991 by the canoe, but chances are, he hired it from the
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Indians above. Ashcroft was then very much in ‘embryo’, consisting of the “wretched establishment” mentioned above, and another building, a log cabin. A few weeks later, Dr. Wade visited the site again on horseback from Spences Bridge, following the rail line and such trails that existed, eventually passing through Penny’s ranch at Walhachin. While at a construction camp there, Dr. Wade’s horse became ill. He abandoned the horse and now had to find a way back to Spences Bridge. As he pondered the dilemma, a raft of logs from the Shuswap swung by, drifting down river. By dent of some acrobatic dexterity the doctor probably didn’t know he possessed, he managed to jump on the raft which was moving along at a ‘goodly rate’ toward Spences Bridge. When they reached Ashcroft, passing over the Bonaparte white water apparently, without incident, the skipper of the raft, decided to pole it into shore. The raft was tied up for the night, and the “wretched establishment” calling itself a hotel, was entered. As soon as the proprietor learned that Dr. Wade was one of the rafting party, he was advised that there was a very sick man upstairs in one of the rooms. “He is a stupid man. We can’t wake him up. He’s been taking opium,” Dr. Wade was told. But when the doctor visited the man, whose name was Carey and found him comatose with only a few hours to live, Dr. Wade determined that the man wasn’t suffering from opium he had been given a severe blow to the head with a shovel. The man’s skull had been fractured. Dr. Wade learned that there had been a fight between Carey and another man named W. Abieshire, and the latter had struck Carey with the shovel. The fracture occurred at the base of the skull. An inquest was held soon after where the inn keeper maintained several times that Carey had been taking opium, even after Dr. Wade had made the post mortum. Dr. Wade concluded that the story was a lie, made to protect the said Abieshire. ‘That rascal had taken to the hills’, as soon as Carey had lost consciousness. The authorities were notified and got hot on Abieshire’s trail. But the killer had made it to the Coeur d’Alene country. There, he got himself into another fight. This time, however, he was shot and killed. Justice was seen to have been served, one
way or the other. Once the CP tracks were laid in Ashcroft, the hamlet began to grow by leaps and bounds. First a store opened, then a competitor came along and opened another store. But it wasn’t until the bridge was built across the Thompson that business really began to literally roll. Ashcroft was seen as the Gateway to the Cariboo and the headquarters of the B.C. Express Company. Large warehouses were built, teamsters came and went with their freight wagons, ox teams, stage coaches. The little hamlet became a thriving village. Twenty years later, Dr. Wade once again found himself in Ashcroft bound for points north. This time, in mid winter, in a “stage on runners”, which pulled out with much mail and several passengers. It was dark when the vehicle stopped for the night at the 83 Mile House. The stars were shining brightly. The party resumed their journey at daybreak the following morning. The temperature was 50 below. About 8 pm that night, they arrived at an inn. Dr. Wade doffed his fur coat on one of the hooks in the bar room, washed his hands and face in refreshing warm water in tin basins, and proceeded to share some drinks with the cowboys and the stage driver. He went to supper in the dining room, and those in the bar room who had asked about his identity, learned who he was, and they realized Dr. Wade had lived in Clinton in 18846, after doing his stint as the railroad medic. Dr. Wade attended the dance at the 150 Mile hotel, but at 2 am, he and other passengers were told to have some breakfast as they were proceeding on to Quesnel at 3:30 am. The doctor reported that he slept all the way along a ‘smoothly beaten road’ to Quesnel. Dr. Wade went on to become the owner of the Kamloops Daily Sentinel, spent a productive, creative life there. His reminiscences are recorded in The Cariboo Road, a book published many years after his death. Dr. Wade saw and lived through the growth of the road when it was the busiest artery in the interior. In fact, for 50 years, the only means of transportation in the Cariboo country. He looked upon its demise with a degree of sadness, but the legacy he has left about that road, much of it demolished when the railroads came though, provides this writer, anyway, with much of the material for my articles.
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