[2] Until 1961, it was a major tributary of the Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of Lillooet; its flow, however, was near-completely diverted into Seton Lake with the completion of the Bridge River Power Project, with the water now entering the Fraser just south of Lillooet as a result.

Terzaghi Dam forms Carpenter Lake, the longest and largest of the power project's reservoirs at about 40 kilometres.

The Yalakom, whose name means 'the ewe of the mountain sheep' in the Chilcotin language, was in old times known as the North Fork of the Bridge.

Around Bralorne other localities such as Ogden grew up along road right-of-ways and slips of land between the mineral claims which dominate the northwestern flank of the Bendor Range in this area, providing services not approved of by company towns, including "sporting houses", some of which were also in Gold Bridge until forced to move to Minto as Gold Bridge became larger.

During the 19th Century, large hydraulic mining operations lined the banks of the river for the thirty kilometres between the community of Moha, at the confluence of the Yalakom and the Bridge.

The official designation for the area has changed since it was first proposed for a park in the 1930s, due to the efforts of the prospecting and mining community in the goldfield towns.