Jackass Mountain
Artwork Description
Historically, one of the major obstacles to travel through the Fraser Canyon was the 6,600 foot mountain on the east side of the river, some 16 miles north of Boston Bar. The Cariboo Wagon Road was forced to climb over much of it, as the mountainside falls steeply to the river. In the 1880’s, the Canadian Pacific Railway chose the west bank of the river to avoid it; thirty years later the Canadian Northern Pacific had little choice but to carve their way across the avalanche prone rockface seen here. In this scene from the 1950’s, an eastbound passenger train crosses the 319 ft. Skow Wash Creek bridge. A C.N.R. freight threads its way through a series of tunnels, rocksheds and bridges on the west face of Jackass Mountain which obviously derived its name from the mules that hauled tons of freight over it in the 19th century. None of this is visible from today’s highway, which roughly follows the old wagon road.
