Vessels of the Lakes Route

The Lakes Route is an alternate name for the Douglas Road, which was the first formally designated "road" into the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, from the Lower Mainland area flanking the Lower Fraser River.

There were originally four lakes on the route, in addition to Harrison Lake at the road's commencement at Port Douglas, which is navigable from the Lower Fraser and so also from the Gulf of Georgia and Victoria and beyond.

Continued needs by the communities in the isolated Pemberton and Gates Valleys, which were dependent on Lillooet for most services and on either Lillooet or the old sea access from Port Douglas, meant that for many years passenger and freight services continued on a smaller scale, particularly on Seton and Anderson Lakes.

The boom in the Bridge River goldfields from the 1890s and the transportation of heavy equipment into the mines required barge transport, and the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway along the north shores of these lakes also involved their own small flotilla of construction-related craft.

Later, when development of the Bridge River Project swung into full gear after World War II, hydro construction also required lake transport, although rail service was largely preferred.