Hope B.C.

(photo by Norm Gidney, courtesy of the Barrie Sanford collection)

Hope B.C. is situated 296.7 miles from Midway B.C. where the Kettle Valley Railway begins.

It has an elevation of 144 feet above sea level.

The Stólō people have lived in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia for more than 8,000 years.

Explorer Simon Fraser arrived in what is now Hope in 1808, and the Hudson's Bay Company created the Fort Hope trading post in 1848. The area was transformed by a gold rush, beginning in 1858. Hope became part of the new British colony of British Columbia when it was created on August 2, 1858. Along with the rest of British Columbia, Hope became part of Canada in 1871.

Late in 1859, Reverend Alexander St. David Francis Pringle arrived in Fort Hope, and soon founded the first library on the British Columbia mainland. Within two years, he also founded the Christ Church Anglican church, the oldest church on the British Columbia mainland, which still holds services on its original site. It is a National Historic Site of Canada.

Hope was incorporated as a village on April 6, 1929, became a town on January 1, 1965, and was reincorporated as a district municipality as the District of Hope on December 7, 1992.

Hope was an important stop on the KVR. As the western terminus it connected the service into the Canadian Pacific mainline and CPR crews would take the trains through the valley to Vancouver. Before the Fraser Canyon roadway was completed in 1926, Hope was the point where vehicles were loaded onto the trains for transport to the interior. The Hope Princeton highway was not completed until 1949.

The Othello (Quintette) Tunnels is the popular name for the main human-made features of Coquihalla Provincial Park, just east of Hope along the Coquihalla River canyon and the decommissioned railway grade is now a walking and cycling trail that is a very popular with locals and tourists alike.