The older of the two routes, and the most used, was from Fort Vancouver via the Columbia and Okanagan Rivers to Fort Shuswap (aka Fort Kamloops, today's City of Kamloops, then via the Bonaparte and Cariboo Plateaus to the Fraser River at Fort Alexandria). From there the Express used river travel via the Peace River to the Prairies and Rupert's Land. Another route used by the Express was the direct to Rupert's Land York Factory Express via the Columbia River to Boat Encampment on that river's Big Bend (beneath today's Kinbasket Lake reservoir) and then via Howse Pass or Athabaska Pass . The route from Fort Kamloops to Fort Alexandria later featured prominently in the migration to the Cariboo goldfields and was known to miners using it as the Brigade Trail. The southern part of the trail, between Forts Vancouver and Kamloops, was at this time known as the Okanagan Trail.