Cariboo Gold Rush
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The Cariboo Gold Rush is the most famous of the gold rushes in British Columbia and is erroneously sometimes mentioned as the reason for the creation of the Colony of British Columbia. In fact, the colony was created three years earlier in response to an influx of American prospectors seeking gold during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which had its locus in the area from Lillooet to Yale]. Unlike its southern counterpart, the population of the Cariboo gold rush was largely British and Canadian (meaning those from what was still then a separate set of colonies), whereas the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush had been overwhelmingly American, Chinese and polyglot European with British, Mexicans and others after that. Some of the population that came for the Cariboo rush also stayed on as permanent settlers, taking up land in various parts of the Interior in the 1860s and after, with the city of Quesnel the largest and most notable of gold rush-founded towns and ranching areas.
One reason the Cariboo rush had less Americans may have been the American Civil War, with many who had been around after the Fraser gold rush going home to take sides, or to the Colville and Colorado gold rushes, which were largely manned by men who had been on the Fraser and in other BC rushes such as those at Rock Creek and Big Bend.
Conversely a reason the Cariboo rush did have more Canadians and Britons in it was the more established access to get to the colony, and particularly once arrived to get to the remote wilderness at the northeast corner of the Cariboo plateau where its goldfields are. During the Fraser gold rush the relatively few Canadians among it were those who, like Amor de Cosmos and Gassy Jack Deighton, had been at hand in California when the Fraser rush broke, or had been adventurous enough to strike out on the long and difficult journey via the United States to get to the newly-declared colony. By the time the Cariboo rush broke out there was more active interest in the gold colony in the UK and Canada and there had also been time for more Britons and Canadians to get there. It should be noted that the electorate of the Cariboo riding 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.
The Cariboo Gold Rush is the most famous of the gold rushes in British Columbia, so much so it is sometimes erroneously cited as the reason for the creation of the Colony of British Columbia which was in fact prompted by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush three years earlier. Some of the population that came for the Cariboo rush also stayed on as permanent settlers, unlike the general rule for those involved in the Fraser gold rush.
The rush began in 1861 with the discovery of gold at Keithley Creek, east of Quesnel. Unlike the placer diggings of the Fraser, the Cariboo gold field required shaft-digging and other more industrial technologies, although not exactly hard rock mining. Several towns grew up, the most famous of these being Barkerville, now preserved as a heritage site and tourist attraction. Other important towns of the Cariboo gold rush era were Keithley Creek, Quesnel Forks, Antler, Richfield, Quesnellemouthe and Fort Alexandria.
The boom in the Cariboo goldfields was the impetus for the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road by the Royal Engineers, which bypassed the older routes via the Fraser Canyon and Lakes Route via Lillooet by using the valley of the Thompson River to Ashcroft and from there via the valley of the Bonaparte River to join the older route from Lillooet at Clinton.
The Cariboo Wagon Road was an immense infrastructure burden for the colony, but necessary in order to maintain and assert control of the Cariboo goldfields, the wealth of which might more easily have passed through the Interior to the United States. Once completed - after the Cariboo gold rush was over but with producing mines in the many goldfield towns which were established then and thereafter, including Richfield, Antler, Williams Creek, Bullion and Quesnel Forks (aka Keithley Creek, or "the Forks").
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.
