York Factory Express

Roughly 4,200 kilometres (2,600 mi) in length, it was the main overland connection between HBC headquarters at York Factory and the principal depot of the Columbia Department, Fort Vancouver.

[1] It was named "express" because it was not used to transport furs and supplies, but to quickly move departmental requisitions, reports, and correspondence, as well as personnel—new hires inland, retirees outbound, and Company officers being transferred or going on furlough.

Supplies and trade goods for the Columbia District were brought from Britain to Fort Vancouver every year by ship around South America, not overland via the York Factory Express route.

Management at Fort Vancouver tried to maintain one year's extra supplies on hand in case a shipment might be lost at sea or attempting to cross the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River.

With the help of John Rowand, the Chief Factor at Fort Edmonton, George Simpson investigated a quicker route than previously used, following the Saskatchewan River and crossing the mountains at Athabasca Pass.

By 1825 there were usually two brigades, each setting out from opposite ends of the route, Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River and the other from York Factory on Hudson Bay.

York Factory would be in a turmoil unpacking and repacking trade goods, mail, and special orders to send out to Hudson Bay posts along the express route.

They also carried status reports, lists of furs collected through trading and trapping, and orders for supplies from Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin, superintendent of Columbia Department operations, and the other fort managers along the route.

The York boat was preferable to the canoes used by North West Company voyageurs as a cargo carrier, because of its larger size, greater capacity, and improved stability in rough water.

In 1811 David Thompson of the North West Company introduced the use of canoes on the Columbia River, made of split or sawn cedar planks.

The NWC and the HBC continued the practice of using canoe-like wooden-plank boats, as good birch bark was in short supply west of the Rockies.