26/04/2026
BEFORE FIVE CORNERS AND CENTREVILLE, CHILLIWACK LANDING WAS THE COMMUNITY’S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FOCUS, LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TODAY’S THRIVING CITY
The beginnings of “urban” Chilliwack’s economic, social, and cultural landscape unfolded not in the Five Corners area of today’s downtown, but 3.5 kilometres to the west, on the south bank of the Hope Slough, near its confluence with the Fraser River. Before the advent of the Township of Chilliwhack, Five Corners, Centreville, and the City of Chilliwack, there was Chilliwack Landing.
Situated at the western foot of Landing Road (which was essentially an extension of Wellington Avenue), Chilliwack Landing was the early centre of trade and commerce in the region. In its heyday, it was described as one of the busiest places on the Fraser River, in daily steamboat contact with sophisticated centres such as Victoria and New Westminster. Landing Road was accordingly the busiest road in the district. To pioneer youngsters in the area, the landing seemed like a bustling metropolis.
As with many chapters in frontier B.C.’s history, a gold rush played a critical role in the establishment and growth of Chilliwack Landing. Specifically, in 1862 the main route to the Cariboo gold fields switched from Douglas Road to the Cariboo Wagon Road, originating in the bustling town of Yale and heading north to Barkerville. Yale was the head of Fraser River navigation and its population during the gold rush era peaked at about 15,000.
[Note: Douglas Road, travelling between Port Douglas and Lillooet, was a tolled road, with over 30,000 men traversing the route during its brief life in search of gold, or in support of the gold-seeking sector. Port Douglas (situated at the northern end of Harrison Lake) was founded in 1858 upon the order of Governor James Douglas in response to the burgeoning Fraser Canyon gold rush. In its day, it was the second major settlement of any size on the British Columbia mainland (after Yale) and many of the province’s first companies had their start here.]
Switching the route north from Douglas Road to Cariboo Wagon Road in Yale essentially ushered in the age of riverboats at Chilliwack Landing. Long before there were passable roadways, railways, buses, and cars the only practical means to travel around the province and to ship freight was via waterways. In the case of the Chilliwack Valley, this meant the mighty Fraser River was the highway and lifeline to growing communities.
Chilliwack Landing soon became a port of call for river steamers travelling from New Westminster. Stopping at the landing, they would take on and transport scores of miners to Yale (approximately seventy-five kilometres upriver), before the throngs continued north to the Interior goldfields. Records indicate that the first steamer stopped at Chilliwack Landing in 1863 when the 95-foot SS Hope onboarded a full load of excited miners. [Note: Until Chilliwack Landing was established, people travelling to Chilliwack would land at the mouth of the Chilliwack River where they would disembark and continue their journey by canoe.]
Much of early Chilliwack’s recorded history was shaped to a degree by the acknowledged “Father of Chilliwack”, Isaac Kipp (1839-1921). Perhaps not surprisingly, he also had a significant role in development of Chilliwack Landing. In 1862, he pre-empted land that would turn out to be prime real estate on the western side of the future City of Chilliwack. It was a choice location, easily accessible from the Fraser River and, being slightly raised above the surrounding land, not normally subject to annual flooding.
By the mid-1860s, Kipp had formed a partnership with his cousin Jonathan Reece (1831-1904). Combining their farms for agricultural purposes, they cultivated 350 acres that were fenced with 40,000 rails, built sheds and barns, cut 165 tons of hay, pastured 340 head of cattle and 20 horses, manufactured 1,500 pounds of cheese and cultivated corn, potatoes, turnips, and other garden vegetables.
Kipp and Reece discovered that the location of Chilliwack Landing was ideal for their farms in terms of getting their production to market (settlers who did not have a road or river link to market were at considerable disadvantage). Kipp soon leased land at the landing, using it as a steamboat gateway to export their farms’ output, from Victoria up to Yale.
[Note: One fact that is generally not often noted in discussion of Chilliwack Landing is that it was located within the Stó:lō reserve of Skwah First Nation lands. Accordingly, businesses and residents of Chilliwack Landing made rent payments to Skwah band members (although they were later redirected to the regional Indian agent). The landing was always a focal point due to several small, year-round First Nations settlements on both sides of the Fraser River.]
Soon after his arrival in the area, Isaac Kipp developed meaningful relationships with the Stó:lō / First Nations reserves, and their members readily helped in his labour-intensive farming endeavours. He spoke Halq'eméylem fluently and one of his sons later characterized him as “a well-loved crony of many of the Indian leaders,” and one who often attended Stó:lō potlatches.
Such was the scale of Kipp’s use of steamships to export the joint farm’s production, during the 1860s Chilliwack Landing was often referred to on maps as Kipp's Landing. This increasing commercial activity accelerated the landing’s growth, and by 1865 three different steamboats were stopping regularly at Chilliwack Landing.
By the late 1860s, the landing area was established as the growing business centre of the frontier community. Riverboats increasingly delivered (and took on) more tourists, businessmen, freight, and livestock.
The ongoing development of the village included Robert Gardner opening a general store in 1867 that became a social gathering place. Two years later, a general / country store was established at the landing by J. Shelford, and then in 1871, G. R. Ashwell (1831-1913) bought Shelford’s establishment. Jane McDonald also operated a small hotel that catered to the steamboat business. In 1874, Chilliwack’s second post office opened in Gardner’s store. In fact, for thirteen years (1874-1887) Chilliwack’s post office was located at Chilliwack Landing.
In the early 1870s, the provincial government announced plans to open a sleigh road between New Westminster and Yale to keep commerce between the two bustling centres open during the winter months when the Fraser River was unnavigable. The road was later upgraded and became a wagon trail. Ultimately it became Yale road, travelling through Five Corners in downtown Chilliwack.
This new roadway was completed in 1875 as the Yale-New Westminster Wagon Road. While it connected the coast to the interior, it was a slow, unreliable, cumbersome, and treacherous route to travel. Thus, the only effective means to travel around British Columbia and to ship freight continued to be via waterways (in particular the Fraser River in a local context) and Chilliwack Landing and its river steamer business remained prominent.
Chilliwack Landing was strategically located, at the halfway point between Hope and Fort Langley, between the commercial centres of Yale and New Westminster, as well as at the junction of a high-profile river and slough. The geography also lent itself as the best location for steam-powered riverboats to load and unload cargo, and for passengers to embark/disembark.
As sternwheelers with a shallow draught, the Fraser’s riverboats could land almost anywhere. With names such as the SS Beaver, Gladys, Ramona, Onward, Paystreak, Royal City, Skeena, Transfer and so on, there was always a different ship coming and going from Chilliwack Landing. During the landing’s peak years, well over twenty different steamships regularly docked at the busy port of call, as they travelled between New Westminster and Yale.
However, a significant problem with Chilliwack Landing’s location was the Fraser River itself, specifically the unrelenting erosion that ate away at the underlying land, along with unpredictable deposits of sand and silt. By 1878, the original five-acre public dedication for a riverboat landing had long been swept away, and the core of businesses and portable houses at the landing had been creeping eastward along the south bank of Hope Slough to stay ahead of the advancing erosion. In fact, before he later relocated to the Five Corners area, Chilliwack Landing storekeeper George Ashwell had to move his store seven times as a result of the encroaching Fraser River.
In the decades before 1890, the Fraser River channel was actively eroding the river shore of Skwah First Nations, taking many acres of good land. Silt deposits at Chilliwack Landing had not been a problem as the nearby channel current was strong enough to sweep them away. However, the channel moved to the other side of the Fraser River in the 1890s and remained there into the early twentieth century. Instead of the banks being eroded, the Chilliwack Landing waterway now became a zone for depositing silt, and sandbars began to form.
The first mention of sandbars affecting riverboat access was in the early 1890s, when some steamers were unable to reach Chilliwack Landing due to what was described as the “lowness of the water”. During times of the slough being too shallow there was much talk of dredging being needed. Fast-moving river sediment accumulated and dispersed quickly.
There were actually two Chilliwack Landings, differentiated as Upper and Lower. Lower Landing, around which the village of Chilliwack Landing developed, was situated at the confluence of the Fraser River and the Hope Slough. Upper Landing was located on the south bank of the Hope Slough, approximately 900 metres east of where the slough met the Fraser River.
When the water was high, steamers would make their way up the slough to Upper Landing and freighting would be carried on from that wharf. However, during certain seasons of the year Upper Landing became hard to access due to sandbars, leaving Lower Landing, closer to the junction of the Fraser River, to load and unload steamers.
All factors being equal, the preference was for Upper Landing. The public generally did not want to travel to Lower Landing as it meant having to navigate a mile of savage, muddy road that was tough “on both man and horse flesh” alike, alternatively described as “almost unpassable,” or “toilsome.” Landing Road was gravelled on occasion, but it would be one of the first thoroughfares submerged underwater, and thus any gravelling or roadwork generally vanished with each flood. Chilliwack settlers and riverboat operators also complained about loading and unloading goods in the mud that prevailed most of the year at Lower Landing. And Upper Landing was less expensive for freight purposes.
Indeed, both Upper and Lower Landing became famous for their sheer muddiness. Travellers who arrived at the landing would commonly “see the bus and freight wagons standing to the axles in mud,” and they were required to “wade through mud and water to get to their conveyance.” At Lower Landing, steamer cargo required extra labour to be “loaded and unloaded in the mud” by the steamboat crew. Travellers also found that without a dock, “gum boots are required by the passengers to reach the boat.”
The evolving natural threats of sandbars, land erosion, and seasonal flooding had adverse effects on Chilliwack Landing, and in particular steamboat travel to and from the First Nations reserve. Docks were sometimes wiped out or not accessible, along with warehouses gradually falling apart, rotting, or floating away. As the landing was sometimes without a wharf, mud that was “placed there by nature or heaped up by the Fraser” was used to make ramps to unload riverboats.
In 1880, the CPR had started blasting at Yale to carve out its railroad right-of-way through the Fraser Canyon. Even though the new railway would be built north of the Fraser River, a sense of optimism was evident among the citizens/settlers of the Chilliwack Valley, and in particular, Chilliwack Landing. The railway work led to a large increase in the riverboat trade on the Fraser River, with steamers being even more of a common sight at the landing.
One of the immediate consequences of the bullish outlook associated with the CPR construction was a new store opened at the landing, this one operated by John Calvin Henderson (1848-1925). It was a general store carrying overalls, nails, groceries, and so on. Now there were two thriving general-purpose stores at Chilliwack Landing—George R. Ashwell’s and John C. Henderson’s.
It was in this context of growth that Matilda Harrison (1840-1925) opened a hotel at Chilliwack Landing. Harrison’s lodging venture, the Valley Hotel, flourished (in sync with the railway construction that was stirring up the whole Fraser Valley) and she eventually had the structure expanded to accommodate increasing business.
At its peak, the Chilliwack Landing community had three stores, a hotel, supply shed, a livery for livestock and horses, post office, and a wharf for loading and unloading passengers and freight. Although there was no dedicated school building, public school classes were also held at the landing.
But by the mid-1880s, it became apparent that Chilliwack Landing could not accommodate any further growth, as it was constrained by the ever-eroding Fraser River as well as being situated on First Nations land. Thus, the economic and social focus of Chilliwack gradually shifted to the east, where Landing Road / Wellington Avenue met Westminster Street (later to be renamed Yale Road East and West). At this geographic point, Five Corners had been developing for the previous fifteen years, anchored by St. Thomas Anglican Church since 1873.
By the late 1880s, the only significant business establishments remaining at Chilliwack Landing were Matilda Harrison’s Valley Hotel (continuing to serve the steamship trade), George Ashwell’s general store, and John Henderson’s store.
But in 1887, Ashwell, who had been appointed postmaster at Chilliwack Landing in 1874, relocated his retail operation to the community’s new centre of business. He built his store on the south side of Wellington Avenue, on the site that decades later would accommodate the city’s Eaton’s store. That same year, the community’s post office also relocated from Chilliwack Landing to near Five Corners, resulting in the town’s name changing from Centreville (so dedicated in 1881) to Chilliwack.
In 1889, J. C. Henderson joined the exodus of entrepreneurs and businesses relocating to the nascent area of downtown Chilliwack, where at Five Corners (at the northwest corner of Young Road North and Wellington Avenue) he established the first shoe, tinware, and hardware shop in the Valley in the Henderson Block, a landmark structure that his father had constructed several years earlier.
And in 1890, Matilda Harrison purchased 3.6 acres of land from Isaac Kipp, essentially bounded by what would become Wellington Avenue, Corbould Street, Princess Avenue, and Edward Street. Here she built Chilliwack’s newest hotel, the successor to her Valley Hotel at Chilliwack Landing. Opening in June 1891, the Harrison House Hotel was the first lodging establishment that travellers (many of whom Matilda had formed relationships with from her Valley Hotel days) encountered on the only road into downtown Chilliwack, less than three kilometres from the Chilliwack Landing dock.
Despite the emergence of a new urban Chilliwack and in particular the establishment of the community’s new town centre around Five Corners, Chilliwack Landing continued to thrive due to the ongoing role of river steamboats delivering and transporting visitors and freight. At this point, there was no railway or workable main highway in the district and the Fraser River remained the main means of transportation and thus Chilliwack Landing remained relevant.
In early 1891, to capitalize on the continued prominence of Chilliwack Landing in the community’s economic profile, a proposal was put forth to build a tram, or street railway, to transport people between Chilliwack Landing and downtown Chilliwack, (i.e., Five Corners). Officials believed the tramway would open up development of prime land located between the landing and downtown. Chilliwhack council had approved the concept, and initial plans called for it to be in place by the fall of 1891. However, for various reasons the tramway from Chilliwack Landing was never completed.
In 1905, with funding provided by the federal government, Chilliwack proudly cut the ribbon on a new Upper Landing. Located immediately east of the older site on the Hope Slough, the new steamboat facility featured a “splendid new building” with a large “spacious wharf.” In addition, the Chilliwack Progress noted that “the grounds around the warehouse have been nicely cleared and levelled, and with a few large cottonwoods standing here and there, the effect is very park-like.”
The Progress also jubilantly announced how "for the first time in the history of Chilliwack the passengers from the boats are assured they can land with dry feet and free from mud!" However, within weeks of opening, the new dock at Upper Landing was again choked with sand, and a large sandbar formed at the mouth of Hope Slough, ensuring no steamboats could reach the dock.
The first decade of the twentieth century was the heyday of the sternwheeler on the Fraser River. Up to 1910, many people still used Chilliwack Landing, along with more farm produce than ever being shipped. However, a watershed milestone in Chilliwack’s history would gradually mark the beginning of the end of the Chilliwack Landing era. In October 1910, the British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) completed its Chilliwack Line to the community, providing daily rail service between the Valley and Vancouver (with many stops in between).
Arguably more critical to Chilliwack’s growth than being connected to the outside world (which also included the competitive edge of shipping and receiving goods at a cost considerably less than long-established river freight rates) was the community now had access to electricity, triggering an economic and population explosion fanning out around the Five Corners area.
When completed, the Chilliwack Line was the longest interurban railway in Canada. It was a decidedly all-inclusive rail service, as it had fifty-seven stops on the sixty-three miles between Vancouver and Chilliwack, allowing many valley residents, businesses, and farmers to avail themselves of this new transportation / freight service.
For much of the following two decades, riverboats and trains both competitively transported Chilliwack freight, partly due to the specialization in different cargo each carried. The advantage the BCER had was its terminal in downtown Chilliwack was nearer to most farms than was the steamer landing, and it tended to carry other commodities such as wood and milk, while the Chilliwack Landing steamers generally carried farm produce, feed, and livestock.
Initially BCER freight service took three days to arrive in Vancouver due to the necessary loading at most of the numerous rail stations, while riverboats in the 1910s could commonly sail to New Westminster in four hours and back upstream to Chilliwack in seven. However, in 1913, overnight rail freight service from Chilliwack was introduced, further hastening the obsolescence of Chilliwack Landing.
Eventually the demand to ship cargo from Chilliwack Landing dwindled to next to nothing, and sometime around 1926 river steamers operating on the Fraser River between New Westminster and Yale passed the threshold of no longer being competitive or financially viable. The last steamboat to call in at Chilliwack Landing was the SS Skeena in 1928. Over the years, twenty-three different river steamboats had stopped at the landing, but after BCER’s arrival in 1910, only three continued did so, such was the railway’s impact.
Using riverboat activity as a measure, Chilliwack Landing existed for sixty-five years. Its ultimate demise as first a townsite and later just a riverboat port of call was attributable to a number of factors, including the emergence of Centreville as the new commercial focus of the community, the challenges of working through the seasonal cycles of erosion, siltation, and flooding of the Fraser River, the advent of more efficient transportation systems, (i.e., the arrival of BCER, highways, vehicles, and so on), and the complexities of being located within the Stó:lō reserve of Skwah First Nation.
Currently there is nothing at the storied site of the Chilliwack Landing settlement and riverboat port of call, on the banks of the Fraser River where it meets the Hope Slough, to formally mark what was once the thriving predecessor to today’s city. In fact, the Fraser long ago washed away most physical evidence of the vital development and function that had once been centred there—even the ground which the buildings existed on was washed away and since redeposited.
At one time, in addition to Wellington “Street” (as it was originally called) there was both an Upper Landing Road and Lower Landing Road. Today, Wellington Avenue becomes Lower Landing Road when it reaches D**e Road, which in turn becomes Teathquathill Road at Skway Road.
Despite the absence of any physical recognition of Chilliwack Landing at its historic location, there are several references around town to this dynamic aspect of earlier Chilliwack. The city’s second fairgrounds, at the corner of Spadina Avenue and Corbould Street, is now called The Landing—a forty-nine-acre site that includes the Chilliwack Landing Leisure Centre, the Chilliwack Landing Sports Centre, and the Landing Spray Park (all located approximately 2.5 kilometres southeast of the original Chilliwack Landing). There is also the Chilliwack Landing Apartments on Mary Street. Regardless, Chilliwack Landing, and all the history it represents, will always form a prominent chapter in the annals of Chilliwack.
[This story borrows from an article entitled, “The Last Steamboat Whistle: the Rise and Demise of Chilliwack Landing at Skwah First Nation, 1863 – 1928”, that was co-written earlier by Trevor Williams and me, published in the Northern Mariner journal in 2017. Trevor’s essays have also been published in periodicals such as the Canadian Journal of Native Studies, BC Studies, and Alberta History.]
