Cariboo Gold Rush - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush

Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

in the Canadian province

Provinces and territories of Canada

The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...

of British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. Although the first gold discovery was made in 1859 at Horsefly Creek, followed by more strikes at Keithley Creek

Keithley Creek

Keithley Creek is a creek located in the Cariboo Region of British Columbia. The creek flows into Cariboo lake from the west. It was discovered in 1860 by "Doc" Keithley. The creek has been hand mined and hydraulicked for gold....

and Antler Horns lake in 1860, the actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were widely publicized. By 1862, following the strikes at Williams Creek

Williams Creek (British Columbia)

Williams Creek is an important historical gold mining creek in the Cariboo goldfields of the Central Interior of British Columbia, entering the Willow River between Barkerville and the town of Wells, which is at the headwaters of the Willow River....

, the rush was in full swing.

Several towns grew up, the most famous of these being Barkerville

Barkerville, British Columbia

Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel along BC Highway 26, which follows the route of the original access to...

, now preserved as a heritage site and tourist attraction. Other important towns of the Cariboo gold rush era were Keithley Creek, Quesnel Forks or simply "the Forks", Antler, Richfield, Quesnellemouthe (which would later be shortened to Quesnel

Quesnel, British Columbia

-Demographics:Quesnel had a population of 9,326 people in 2006, which was a decrease of 7.1% from the 2001 census count. The median household income in 2005 for Quesnel was $54,044, which is slightly above the British Columbia provincial average of $52,709....

), Horsefly

Horsefly, British Columbia

Horsefly, formerly known as Harper's Camp, is an unincorporated community in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada. It is located between the Cariboo Mountains and Quesnel Lake and borders Wells Gray Provincial Park....

and, around the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort of the same name, Alexandria

Alexandria, British Columbia

Alexandria or Fort Alexandria is a National Historic Site of Canada on the Fraser River in British Columbia, and was the end of the Old Cariboo Road and the Cariboo Wagon Road...

Richfield

Richfield was the first strike on Williams Creek, and became the seat of government in the region, particularly of the courts. Connected to Barkerville via the canyon of Williams Creek, Richfield became part of "greater Barkerville" along with Camerontown.

Barkerville

Unlike the placer

Placer mining

Placer mining is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment....

diggings of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush

Fraser Canyon Gold Rush

The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River. This was a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton...

, the Cariboo gold-fields required shaft-digging and other more industrial technologies.Barkerville was one of the more successful towns in the Cariboo Gold Rush. At one point, it held aprox. 10,000 residents.

Differences between the Cariboo and Fraser Canyon Rushes

The Cariboo Gold Rush is the most famous of the gold rushes in British Columbia

British Columbia Gold Rushes

The presence of gold in the region that is now British Columbia is mentioned in old legends that, in part, led to its discovery. The Strait of Anian, claimed to have been sailed by Juan de Fuca for whom today's Strait of Juan de Fuca is named, was described as passing through a land "rich in gold,...

, so much so that it is sometimes erroneously cited as the reason for the creation of the Colony of British Columbia

Colony of British Columbia

The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...

. It had been prompted by an influx of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

prospectors to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush three years earlier in 1858, which had its locus in the area from Lillooet

Lillooet, British Columbia

Lillooet is a community on the Fraser River in western Canada, about up the British Columbia Railway line from Vancouver. Situated at an intersection of deep gorges in the lee of the Coast Mountains, it has a dry climate- of precipitation is recorded annually at the town's weather station,...

to Yale

Yale, British Columbia

Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale, then Chief Factor of the Columbia District...

.

Unlike its southern counterpart, the population of the Cariboo gold rush was largely British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

and Canadian, although the first wave of the rush was largely American. By the time the Cariboo rush broke out there was more active interest in the gold colony in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and Canada and there had also been time for more Britons and Canadians to get there. The electorate of the Cariboo riding

Cariboo (provincial electoral district)

Cariboo was one of the twelve original electoral districts created when British Columbia became a Canadian province in 1871. Roughly corresponding to the old colonial electoral administrative district of the same name, it was a three-member riding until the 1894 election, when it was reduced...

were among the most pro-Confederation in the colony, and this was in no small part because of the strong Canadian element in the local populace.

One reason the Cariboo rush attracted fewer Americans than the original Fraser rush may have been the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, with many who had been around after the Fraser gold rush going home to take sides, or to the Fort Colville

Fort Colville

The trade center Fort Colville was built by the Hudson's Bay Company at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, a few miles west of the present site of Colville, Washington in 1825, to replace Spokane House as a regional trading center, as the latter was deemed to be too far from the Columbia River...

gold rush

Gold rush

which was largely manned by men who had been on the Fraser or to other BC rushes such as those at Rock Creek

Rock Creek Gold Rush

The Rock Creek Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Boundary Country region of the Colony of British Columbia . The rush was touched off in 1859 when two US soldiers were driven across the border to escape pursuing Indians and chanced on gold only three miles into British territory, on the banks of...

and Big Bend

Big Bend Gold Rush

The Big Bend Gold Rush was a gold rush on the upper Columbia River in the Colony of British Columbia in the mid-1860s....

.

While some of the population that came for the Cariboo rush stayed on as permanent settlers, taking up land in various parts of the Interior

British Columbia Interior

The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...

in the 1860s and after, that wasn't the general rule for those involved in the Fraser rush. Many veterans of the Cariboo would spread out to explore the rest of the province, in particular triggering the Omineca

Omineca Gold Rush

The Omineca Gold Rush was a gold rush in British Columbia, Canada in the Omineca region of the Northern Interior of the province. Gold was first discovered there in 1861, but the rush didn't begin until late in 1869 with the discovery at Vital Creek....

and Cassiar Gold Rushes, just as the Cariboo itself had been found by miners seeking out in search of new finds from the Fraser rush.
shaft mining

Shaft mining

Shaft mining or shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom....

The Cariboo Wagon Road

The boom in the Cariboo goldfields was the impetus for the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road by the Royal Engineers

Royal Engineers

The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

, which bypassed the older routes via the Fraser Canyon

Fraser Canyon

The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley...

and Lakes Route via Lillooet by using the valley of the Thompson River

Thompson River

The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches called the South Thompson and the North Thompson...

to Ashcroft and from there via the valley of the Bonaparte River

Bonaparte River

The Bonaparte River is a tributary of the Thompson River, joining it at the community of Ashcroft, British Columbia. The river is about long, including the length of Bonaparte Lake...

to join the older route from Lillooet at Clinton

Clinton, British Columbia

Clinton is a village in British Columbia, Canada, located approximately 40 km northwest of Cache Creek and 30 km south of 70 Mile House.It is considered by some to straddle the southern edge of the Cariboo country of British Columbia, although others consider Ashcroft-Cache Creek, Lillooet, Savona,...

.

Towns along the Cariboo Road include Clinton, 100 Mile House and Williams Lake

Williams Lake, British Columbia

Williams Lake, is a city in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the central part of a region known as the Cariboo, it is the largest urban centre between Kamloops and Prince George, with a population of 11,150 in city limits....

, although most had their beginnings before the Cariboo rush began. During the rush, the largest and most important town lay at the road's end at Barkerville, which had grown up around the most profitable and famous of the many Cariboo mining camps.

The Cariboo Wagon Road was an immense infrastructure burden for the colony but needed to be built to enable access and bring governmental authority to the Cariboo goldfields, which was necessary in order to maintain and assert control of the wealth, which might more easily have passed through the Interior to the United States.

The wagon road's most important freight was the Gold Escort, which brought government bullion to Yale for shipment to the colonial treasury. Despite the wealth of the Cariboo goldfields, the expense of colonizing the Cariboo contributed to the mainland colony's virtual bankruptcy and its forced union with the Island Colony, and similarly into Confederation.

Richfield

Barkerville

Differences between the Cariboo and Fraser Canyon Rushes

The Cariboo Wagon Road

See also