Kamloops City Map Poster

About Kamloops

The area was originally inhabited by the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people. The first European to visit the area was George Vancouver, who travelled down the river in 1792. The settlement of Kamloops began as a trading post founded by Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1812, near present-day Fort Kamloops. In 1823, it became part of an extensive network of trading posts operated by what is now Hudson's Bay Company; this system continued until 1870 when Canada abolished its fur trade monopoly and created a new Crown corporation called "the Dominion Land Survey". In that year also came reports that gold had been discovered on Thompson River: see Gold mining on British Columbia for details. This led to further exploration and development here and elsewhere in British Columbia (see Fraser Canyon Gold Rush). A land petition submitted to London later confirmed these results about ten years after Victoria became capital city for BC Colony with New Westminster as its initial capital city .