Yale was inhabited for many thousands of years. The townsite of Yale was situated on a Fraser river bar, but the bar was first used as a village site by the First Nations people. Artifacts recovered from there by archaeologists suggest that this area was inhabited 9000 years ago. In the gold rush days, the Native population in Yale was segregated to an area east of Yate street, or east of what was known as Chinatown. This is how the east end of Yale looked in 1881.
Primary sources written by individuals portray their personal perspective.
A range of written information exists from around the time of the gold rush, as some tried to document what they saw. A census of First Nations people in Yale was done by the Canadian government in 1878, and digitized copy is available here . This was taken by Fredrick Dally sometime between 1867 and 1870. Some photographers of the day attempted to preserve the look of the past. Photographs of all descriptions were taken of those who lived around Yale.