The old core area around the town of historic and once-important Yale, which has long since became depopulated by being bypassed by massive growth elsewhere, was attached to the Fraser Valley riding, then to its successor Fraser Valley East, and then to today's Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon.

This riding was created as Yale District in 1871 as a result of British Columbia joining Confederation.

This original version of the riding covered both Yale and Kootenay Land Districts, in other words the whole of the southern portion of the province from the Fraser Canyon to the Rocky Mountains.

The first election had only 62 voters, the second 109, and most of these were in the area of the Fraser Canyon towns of Boston Bar, Hope, Yale.

The rest were a scattered handful of ranches and mining camps in the Okanagan, Nicola and Similkameen regions.

In 1914, that riding was broken up and the Yale and Cariboo riding-names were restored, although the new constituencies were considerably smaller than before.