North East - St Lawrence River
"Smallpox crossed the Atlantic Ocean when European empires began to expand in the 16th century. The disease had long decimated populations and caused terror. It was first reported in New France in 1616 near Tadoussac, the colony’s first fur-trading post...
Between 1634 and 1640, Jesuit priests introduced smallpox into Wendake (Huronia), west of Lake Simcoe and south of Georgian Bay. Priests insisted on baptizing sick and dying Huron-Wendat. However, the priests’ presence contributed to the spread of the disease. Due to smallpox and other infectious diseases, the Huron-Wendat population declined by roughly 60 per cent by 1640.
In 1763, the British under Jeffrey Amherst used blankets exposed to smallpox as germ warfare in an attempt to subdue the First Nations resistance led by Obwandiyag (Pontiac). In 1775, during the American Revolution, American troops besieging Quebec City were stricken with smallpox." - Smallpox in Canada
IMAGE: New France
Pacific North West - Fraser Valley
"The first smallpox catastrophe to hit what is now British Columbia swept in through Indigenous trade and travel networks during the continent‑wide pandemic of 1779–1783. In the lower Fraser Valley—especially around the Harrison River and present‑day Agassiz—oral histories and academic studies converge on a grim timeline: the disease arrived in the autumn of 1782, ran through the winter, and was still claiming lives into 1783. For many Stó꞉lō communities, it happened decades before any face‑to‑face meeting with Europeans.
Smallpox moved faster than ships. It rode along river corridors, horse trails, canoe routes, and seasonal gatherings. Historians trace the 1779–83 wave north from Mexico, across the Plains, and into Rupert’s Land, while a roughly contemporaneous coastal path spread along the Northwest Coast. The two paths converged in the Salish Sea and lower Fraser system right at the mountains, where the 1782 arrival in the Fraser–Harrison region continued into 1783.
For the lower Fraser peoples, the epidemic came long before direct contact. Europeans did not descend the river until 1808 (Simon Fraser), and Fort Langley wasn’t founded until 1827. Yet Coast Salish oral historians (as recorded by ethnographers) list multiple communities “wiped out… before Fort Langley,” and Stó꞉lō histories emphasize that first contact with Europeans was initially indirect—by disease carried through Indigenous networks."
Smallpox in British Columbia: The Fraser–Harrison Shock of 1782–83 and the Long Aftermath - CedarVia Group
Fort Victoria
In 1862, a person infected with smallpox arrived in Victoria aboard a steamship travelling from San Francisco. The disease spread to an encampment north of the city, where traders from many First Nations stayed. The few efforts colonists made to control the disease were disorganized. Some demanded the eviction of Indigenous people from colonial communities to protect themselves from the disease. When the residents of the north encampment left for their homelands, the disease spread across the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. The disease had devastating impacts on many peoples, including the nations of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw, Tlingit, Heiltsuk, Haida, Tsimshian and Tŝilhqot’in, as well as some Coast Salish and Interior Salish nations. On the coast alone, some 14,000 Indigenous people died, representing a loss of roughly half of the region’s population. - Smallpox in Canada
T h e diffusion of measles from the southern coast to the northern coast was a function of H B C technology and organization. Native trading patterns, stimulated and to some extent channelled by the distribution of H B C posts, accounted for its subsequent spread. In combination these two systems of communication ensured that the measles reached much of the area that is now British Columbia. In my opinion, the measles of 1847-1850, not the smallpox of 1862-1863, was the first modern epidemic in this region (page 42).
- Measles, 1847-1850: the First Modern Epidemic in British Columbia
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/ebarsky,+1307-5414-1-CE.pdf
IMAGE (right): Kumtuks
IMAGE: Smallpox Epidemic of 1862 among Northwest Coast and Puget Sound Indians
https://www.historylink.org/File/5171
