William Downie was a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 prospector and explorer involved in the 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...

es in California and British Columbia of the mid-19th Century. Downie was born in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, and raised in Ayrshire

Ayrshire

Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

.

In gold rush-era California, Downie led an expedition up the North Fork of the Yuba River

Yuba River

The Yuba River is a tributary of the Feather River in the Sacramento Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is one of the Feather's most important branches, providing about a third of its flow. The main stem of the river is about long, and its headwaters are split into North, Middle and South...

. Major Downie's travels are documented in his 1893 autobiography, "Hunting for Gold" Downie was the first mayor of Downieville, California

Downieville, California

Downieville is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Sierra County, California, United States. Downieville sits at an elevation of...

, in 1849, until which time it had been named "The Forks".

Downie explored British Columbia at the request of Governor James Douglas

James Douglas (Governor)

Sir James Douglas KCB was a company fur-trader and a British colonial governor on Vancouver Island in northwestern North America, particularly in what is now British Columbia. Douglas worked for the North West Company, and later for the Hudson's Bay Company becoming a high-ranking company officer...

, in 1858 investigating the route from Bute Inlet

Bute Inlet

Bute Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. It is 80 km long from its head at the mouths of the Homathko and Southgate Rivers to the continental headlands at its mouth, where it is nearly blocked by Stuart Island, and it averages about 4 km in width...

 to the Cariboo

Cariboo

The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia along a plateau stretching from the Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the woodland caribou that were once abundant in the region...

 via the Homathko River

Homathko River

The Homathko River is one of the major rivers of the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia, and one of the few rivers that penetrates the range from the Chilcotin Plateau to the coastal inlets, entering the sea at the head of Bute Inlet adjacent to the mouth of the Southgate River, just to...

 an attempted development of which led to the Chilcotin War

Chilcotin War

The Chilcotin War, Chilcotin Uprising or Bute Inlet Massacre was a confrontation in 1864 between members of the Tsilhqot'in people in British Columbia and white road construction workers...

 a few years later. At the onset of the Big Bend Gold Rush

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....

 of 1865, Downie travelled up the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

 before steamboat

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

 service on that route began. Downie died on December 27, 1893 on board the steamer City of Puebla just before disembarking in San Francisco from Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

, 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...

.

Legacy

Places named for Major Downie:

• Downieville, California
  Downieville, California
  Downieville is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Sierra County, California, United States. Downieville sits at an elevation of...
  
  
• The former goldrush boomtown of Downie Creek, British Columbia, at the confluence of the stream of the same name with the Columbia River and adjacent to the vanished boomtown of La Porte, both at the heart of the Big Bend goldfields.