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1858–1865 – The Cariboo Gold Rush

Thousands of people were lured into the remote Cariboo region by the discovery of gold during the late 1850s. Located in south-central British Columbia and extending from the eastern edge of the Coast Mountains to within 70 km of the Alberta border, the Cariboo region is about 600 km north of Vancouver. The sudden rush for spoils in the territory provoked the British government to create the colony of mainland British Columbia in 1859 to provide administrative and other support to thousands of miners.

The first major gold strike of the Fraser River valley was made in March, 1858 at Hill's Bar. A miner could make several hundred dollars a day, at a time when the average daily wage was just $2. The news spread quickly. By July of that year, approximately 33,000 miners arrived, far exceeding British Columbia’s pre-Gold Rush total population of 7,000 people. Gold deposits were discovered farther northward until reaching the fields of the Cariboo.

Most of the miners came from the overcrowded California gold fields. The majority were American; others English, Scots, Irish, Italian, Spanish and Australian. Gold was discovered in dozens of creeks in the Cariboo region. Creeks named Williams, Canadian, Downy, Wolfe and China echo the origins of their finders. The preserved gold rush town of Barkerville offers us a glimpse of the gold boom to this day.

By the end of 1863, more than 3,000 claims had been registered, and the gold mined in the region was officially worth $3.9 million—worth around $80 million in 2003. Production held that plateau in 1864 and 1865, but by the end of the latter year the rush was ended. The Cariboo Gold Rush, like most other gold rushes, did not last long.

With no room for new claims on the existing sites, some prospectors turned around and headed home. Some adventurers who had arrived with no knowledge of mining lost their savings. Most of the miners, however, settled in the Cariboo region. This short-lived Gold Rush had a significant impact on the infrastructure as well as on the economy of British Columbia. Roads were built, steamers launched on rivers and lakes and, perhaps most importantly, the Canadian state made its presence known in the region—police and public works became part of life in the Interior.

The Gold Rush not only brought a sharp increase in population and wealth but also spurred development of roads and services. Those participating in the Gold Rush required access to the Interior, and so the early primitive trails were developed into the 600-km Cariboo Wagon Road. During the Gold Rush, the British government spent millions of dollars building roads and bridges.

The first suspension bridge in Western Canada was built on the Fraser River as part of the wagon road. These roads facilitated settlement and trade in the years that followed the Gold Rush. New towns such as Barkerville, named after one of the richest miners, Billy Barker, were established. In 1862, the Bank of British Columbia, which later became the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, was established at Yale to provide banking facilities to the miners.

By the 1870s, the economy of British Columbia had diversified into fishing and lumber. Many miners found work in the industries that would set the direction of the economic future of British Columbia. The Cariboo Gold Rush brought only fleeting prosperity to the miners, but played a formative role in the creation of the province of British Columbia, which joined Confederation in 1871.

Links

The Cariboo Gold Rush
Source: British Columbia Archives
http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca

A History of British Columbia’s Gold Rushes
Source: Geological Survey of British Columbia
http://www.em.gov.bc.ca/mining/geolsurv/publications

The Cariboo Wagon road
Source: Government of British Columbia
http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/exhibits/timemach/galler04/frames/road.htm

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