The Township is currently upgrading the trail by building wooden fences and expanding the shoulder along Allard Crescent, to keep trail users separated from traffic.
As well, interpretive signage focusing on the history of the area, and its environmental significance, will be installed.
"At one time, the river was the highway," Alberts said, noting that Fort Langley was strategically built at "the entrance to the rest of the province."
The first Fort was constructed in 1827, when James MacMillan and his men arrived in the area called Derby, on the banks of the Fraser River, in late July. The expedition cleared the land and built a fort, which served as a fur trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company.
The early Fort prospered, thanks in part to the local Sto:lo people who inhabited the area.
"The First Nations played a really important role at the Fort," said Nancy Hildebrand, a visitors' service representative at the Fort Langley National Historic Site. "Without marriages to the Sto:lo women, the fur trade wouldn't have worked here."
"The financial success of the business was dependent on the Sto:lo people," she said, adding that the First Nations also supplied the Company men with salmon and sturgeon for food.
The HBC established a large farm, and in 1938, the original Fort at Derby was abandoned so that workers could be closer to the farm land and expand its production for export markets. A new Fort was built four kilometres up stream on the Fraser River, at its current site on Mavis Avenue.
However, 10 months later, the Fort was consumed by fire, and had to be completely rebuilt.