Fort Berens

Fort Berens, also spelled Fort Behrens, was a never-completed establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Fraser River, located immediately across the river from today's town of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada, in that province's central Fraser Canyon region. The post was designated and materials ordered for its construction in 1859, and was intended to serve as a supply outlet for the gold rush population of the area, which was the northern centre of gold-mining activity on the Fraser during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush (1858-60). Although a plot of land was allocated, and building supplies were brought into the site, the post was never constructed and by 1861 orders from company headquarters decommissioned the post and the supplies were removed due to an absence of economic viability with the collapse of the rush. A "satellite" of Fort Kamloops, the post was named after Henry Hulse Berens, deputy Hudson's Bay Company governor 1856-58 and governor 1858-63. Immiediately adjacent to Fort Berens on its north were the boomtowns of Parsonville (or Parsonsville) and Marysville, which likewise disappeared by the end of the rush, though the Parsonville name remained in use for the locality for some time.

References

* [http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/bcgn-bin/bcg10?name=53750 BCGNIS listing "Fort Berens"]
*"Short Portage to Lillooet", Irene Edwards, self-publ., Lillooet 1976