Page Twenty THE PRINCE GEORGE CITIZEN Thursday, May 26. • /a--/ Greaf Changes Have Taken Place in Mode of Transportation in Past Few Years When the present day traveller takes plane at Prince George and "wings" his "way to Vancouver in a little over three hours; or tools his auto over the Cariboo Highway at 40 iniles per hour arriving at the coast city in under 20 hours; or goes by the slower bai comfortable Pullman on the Canadian National Railway which lands him in Vancouver in a little over. 24 hours travelling time; or by auto to Quesnel and on down to Vancouver by P. G. E. ships and arduous toll of the argonauts of the early '60's or their predecessors who took several months to cover the same distance. The first recorded history of the romantic story of transportation into the Port George district dates back to May, 1793, when Alexander Mackenzie started out from east of the Kocky Mountains to cross the divide and find tne Pacific ocean. With a birch bark canoe weighing 30 pounds, and accompanied by six Canadians, two Indians and a dog he travelled through the Rockies via the Peace river to the present site of Pin-lay Porks, thence up the Parsnip river Leod the Hudsons Bay Posts which had been taken over from the Northwest Fur Co., still depended on canoes a.vci bateaux wftn. mostly Indian crews wlK. paddled, lined, and clawed their way up the srifi running Fraser river with .supplies. This primitive means of transportation to Fort George continued to prevail until 1909 when steamers built at Soda Creek and Quesnel were put in commission between those towns and South Fort George, continuing to be the popular mode of travel until the completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1914 did away with their profitable operation. Up to the coming of the railway, the Tort McLeod H. B. post was served in the same manner as Fort George post, the bateaux going on up the Fraser from Fort George to Giscome portage where the supplies were back-packed across the eight miles to Summit lake, then again taken by boat down the Crooked river into McLeod lake and on to the post. Fort St. James post supplies were taken up the Nechako and Stuart rivesr by canoes and ba- from the lower country. But that was years ago. Cataime gave up the pack-train business in 1912, at the age of 83, when George Biernes of Hazelton bought out his train, and now Cataline is dead. For many years now he has slept peacefully in the little cemetery at Hazel-ton, and beside him, all in a row, lie four pioneers, his friends of half a century; Jack Graham, the packer; Joe Lyons, the miner; Jim May, miner and prospector, and Ezra Evans, miner and one time deputy mining recorder of Omineca. , To these old pioneers, Cataline s friends, had they been alive today, the linking up of the highway, north and south would, perhaps, have been only of passing interest, but to Cataline it would have meant "Go on! Go on! Go on" still farther north where there were no railroads, no highways, to where the trails were wide enough only for a single pack-horse. Cataline was an extraordinary character in many ways, and it is safe to say that his like win never be seen again in the west. 1 ¦' ¦¦¦¦.' 'f'y'Vi • .- '••'•¦ ;-'v'' " ,' 1 ;¦. •;' '¦ —' - ': ¦.->'i-..v ¦•'• .•'-. ' I ¦,'¦'•¦';. ' :\. . ::- ¦1:>;;'. '¦'.. .'. \ '•¦ ¦. ... MV\ hi.iLH; "' tflVBii i*^Bi J^ff V'l - an Indian), pay fine at Hazelton, get him out of jail $5 he have coming to him now $157 six bits." Laboriously then Jean Caux would trace his name on a blank cheque to be filled in by the storekeeper. The second packers account was much the same only that this man claimed he could "figger" and had kept track of his earnings and expenses in a little book. There was $2 difference between the packer's book and the figures given to Marion by Cataline and after considerable arguing it was discovered that are man had made a mistake in his addition. Cataline was right. Whisky Made His Hair Grow Long There are not many, even among the old-timers, who eyer heard Cata-line's right name, or wanted to for that matter, but there are none who were not aware of his two outstanding habits, that of pouring whisky on top of-his head (and one wonders if he would do so now with whisky at $4 per) and that of snuffing strong "T & B" plug tobacco. He wore his hair long, almost to his coat dollar and it was thick and wavy. Seldom he took a drink without taking off his toreador hat and pouring part of the contents of the glass over his hair. "Bon she mak de hair she grow," he would ex- BARON B₯NG HIGH AND KING GE ORGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRINCE GEORGE to its junction with the Bad river, thence down the Bad into the McGregor to its junction with the Fraser. It is recorded in history that Mackenzie and his companions passed the present site of Prince George on June 9, 1793, going on down the Fraser to the present site of Alexandra, where Indians told him there was a trail following the Blackwater river and on •west along the 53rd degree of north latitude to the salt chuck. He and his companions paddled back up the Fraser to a point below the mouth of the Blackwater, shouldered^their packs and struck out west to find the Pacific ocean. They hit the headwaters of the Bella Coola river and followed it down to where it joins the sea on Dean channel where a nuiitment now stands marking the spot Mackenzie reached on the shores of the Pacific ocean in 1793. -¦ Nothing further is recorded in history again until 1805-1807 when the Northwest Fur Co. established trading posts at Fort McLeod, Fort St. James, and Fort George, coming over the same route as earlier followed by Mackenzie. After these posts were established supplies were brought to them all the ¦way from Fort Vancouver, on the banks of the Columbia in the now State of Washington, via the Okana- teau~to the cite on Stuart lake. A trail j also led across country connecting Fort McLeod and Fort St. James. In 1864-65 a telegraph line was projected from San Francisco north which was Intended to link America with Asia and Europe and had been built from Ashcroft to Hazelton before tne successful laying of the Atlantic cable caused its immediate and hurried abandonment. To serve this big undertaking a packtrail left the Cariboo road at Quesnel and came north to the Blackwater south of Fort George, thence on to Hazelton. From Hazelton east another packhorse trail led to the placer gold discoveries at Old Hogem and Germansen on the Omineca river north of Fort George. Pack horses were used extensively from this time on in opening up the gold mining creeks of the Omineca, and no story of this phase of early transportation could be' complete without a description of the most famous of all the north country's pack train bosses, as told by Louis Le-Bourdals, Cariboo's favorite historian j and a member of the British Columbia ' legislature. j CATALINE ! By Louis LeBourdais Whether it was Yale, Ashcroft, Quesnel or Hazelton that Cataline's He came to this country from Oregon in the early 60,s and it was common knowledge in later days -that he once owned the and where part of the city of Portland now stands. Originally he came from a small town in the Pyreneeson the border of France and Spain, in the province of Catalonia, and it was from his frequent use of the word Catalonia, in explaining where he came from, and the inability or disinclination of tne old-timers to pronounce Jean Caux, that he got~the name of "Cataline," a cognomen which stuck to him for the remainder of his life. He spoke Spanish and French fluently, but in everyday conversation he employed a mixture of French, Chinese, Indain, Mexican and English. He could neither read nor write, but was possesed of a wonderful memory, perhaps from necessity, because being unable to write, he was forced to keep track, from memory, not only of every article of freight consigned to his care, but also to keep account of the men's wages and their,expense on the road; and as he only paid the bills on the return trip, which sometimes covered a period of several months, this was truly a remarkable feat. He seldom hired any white men as COURT HOUSE, PRINCE GEORGE gan country, on pack horses and via the Thompson, and Fraser1 rivers, in canoes and bateaux. With the gold discoveries along the Thompson and Fraser rivers and on into the Barkerville area in the late '50's a new era in transportation developed. In 1859 boats were used on the lower Fraser, up the Harrison river and across Harrison lake to Douglas, from whence a wagon road with portages across Lillooe^ Anderson and Seaton lakes, was built to Llllooet town, and thence on to Barkerville. The Royal Engineers later built a road from Yale through the Fraser river canyon connecting at Clinton with the old road. With, the completion of this road In 1864-65, transportation successively was by back-pack, packhorses, four and six-horse teams, bull-teams of 16 head of oxen, and camel trains for freighting and stage coaches with four and six-horse teams1 for passengers and express to Quesnel and Barkerville from the head of navigation at Yale. On north from Quesnel to Fort George, Fort St. James and Fort Mc- pack train started from, as railroads, highways and so-called civilization drove him on, cataline, or Jean Caux, to give him his proper name, always rode at its head. Wearing a white-stiff-bosomed shirt, a frock coat, with blue overalls tucked into high-topped boots and a hat such as a Rudolph Valentino might wear, Cataline might have been a mighty don of ancient Spain as he rode slowly at the head of his, train; behind him a short distance followed the "bell-mare" leading the string of 60 mules and horses, each with its load of 200 to 300 pounds of freight lashed to the apparajoe (leather pack-saddle stuffed with hay), breast-strapped and cruppered in its place upon the backs of these slow-gaited animals, long accustomed to their heavy burdens. "He always bought a stiff-bosomed white shirt In Ashcroft or Yale and never took it off until he came back for a second load," an old-timer remarked recently when speaking of the old pack-train man. But this is a gross libel, others say, because he has been known to buy_ them in Quesnel and also in Hazelton, when he was packing packers. Invariably his crew was composed of Indians, Chinamen, occasionally a Negro, and for years old Ah Gun, a Chinaman, acted as his "supercargo" or manager. Tom Marion, who operated a general store in Quesnel fdr thirty years, tells of an incident in connection with Cataline's method of settling up with two of his men on one occasion when they quit the train at this point after making one trip. The two men, hired in* Quesnel, had gone down with the pack train to Ashcroft, loaded, worked on through to Hazelton and returned to Quesnel again an intervalof three months or more. The first man, like his employer, could neither read nor write. Cataline brought the packers into Marlon's store and from me.nory called out the items for him to put down on paper. They were something like this: $5 cash at Soda Creek; $3 at the 150-Mile House; $4 at Lac La Hache; $2.50 at Clinton; $2 at the Bonaparte Reserve; $15 at Ashcroft; at Cahce Creek, tobacco 50 cents; one pair overalls at Moricetown, $155; red silk handkerchief 75 ents; at H