Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
Encyclopedia
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
was discovered on 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...
in 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...
at its confluence with the Nicoamen River. This was a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
at present-day Lytton
Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. The location has been inhabited by the Nlaka'pamux people for over 10,000 years, and is one of the earliest locations settled by non-natives in the Southern Interior of...
. The rush overtook the region around the discovery, and was centered on 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...
from around Hope
Hope, British Columbia
Hope is a district municipality located at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon...
and 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...
to Pavilion
Pavilion, British Columbia
Pavilion is a ranching and Indian Reserve community in the Fraser Canyon area of British Columbia, Canada. Most of the community is the population of the Pavilion 1 Indian Reserve of the Pavilion Indian Band, aka the Ts'kw'aylaxw First Nation but there are also a number of ranches in the...
and Fountain
Fountain, British Columbia
Fountain is an unincorporated rural area and Indian Reserve community in the Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, Canada, located at the ten-mile mark from the town of Lillooet on BC Highway 99, which in that area is also on the route of the Old Cariboo Road and is located at the junction of...
, just north of 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,...
.
Though the rush was largely over by 1860, miners from the rush spread out and found a sequence of other gold rushes throughout the British Columbia Interior and North
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...
, most famously that in the Cariboo
Cariboo Gold Rush
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Although the first gold discovery was made in 1859 at Horsefly Creek, followed by more strikes at Keithley Creek and Antler Horns lake in 1860, the actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were...
. The rush is credited with instigating European-Canadian settlement on the mainland of British Columbia. It was the catalyst for the founding 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...
, the building of early road infrastructure, and the founding of many towns.
Gold rush
Although the area had been mined for a few years, news of the strike spread to San Francisco when the governor of the Colony of Vancouver IslandColony of Vancouver Island
The Colony of Vancouver Island , was a crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with British Columbia. The united colony joined the Dominion of Canada through Confederation in 1871...
, 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...
, sent a shipment of ore to that city's mint. People in San Francisco and the California gold fields
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
greeted the news with excitement. Within a month 30,000 men had descended upon 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...
. Until that time, the village had had a population of only about 500. This was a record for mass movement of mining populations on the North American frontier, even though more men in total were involved in the California and Klondike Gold
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
rushes.
By the fall, however, tens of thousands of men who had failed to stake claims, or were unable to because of the summer's high water on the river, pronounced the Fraser to be "humbug". Many returned to San Francisco. A continuing influx of newcomers replaced the disenchanted, with even more men storming the route of the Douglas Road
Douglas Road
The Douglas Road, aka the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior...
to the upper part of 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...
around 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,...
; others got to the upper canyon via the Okanagan Trail
Okanagan Trail
The Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858-1859...
and Similkameen Trail, and to the lower Canyon via the Whatcom Trail
Whatcom Trail
The Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. Named for the then-chief of the Nooksack people on Bellingham Bay, where the trail began at Fairhaven , the route used went via a route known as the Columbia...
and the Skagit Trail. All these routes were technically illegal since the Governor required that entry to the colony to be made via Victoria, but thousands came overland anyway. Accurate numbers of miners, especially on the upper Fraser, are therefore difficult to reckon.
During the gold rush tens of thousands of prospectors from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
flooded into the newly declared 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...
and disrupted the established balance between the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
's fur trade
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...
rs and indigenous peoples. The influx of prospectors included numerous European Americans and African Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Britons
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...
, Germans
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
, English Canadians, Maritimers, French Canadians, Scandinavians
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
, Italians, Belgians
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and other European ethnicities
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
, Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...
, Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, Mexicans, West Indians, and others. Many of those first-arrived of European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
and 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...
origin were California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
n by culture, and this included Maritimers such as Amor De Cosmos
Amor De Cosmos
Amor De Cosmos was a Canadian journalist, publisher and politician. He served as the second Premier of British Columbia.-Early life:...
and others. The numbers of "Americans" associated with the gold rush must be understood to be inherently European-ethnic to start with. Anglo-American Southerners and New Englanders were well-represented. Alfred Waddington, an entrepreneur and pamphleteer of the gold rush later infamous for the disastrous road-building expedition 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...
of 1864, estimated there were 10,500 miners on the Fraser at the peak of the gold rush. This estimate was based on the 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...
area and did not include the non-mining "hangers-on" population.
Birth of British Columbia
The Fraser Gold Rush was a seminal point in the history of British Columbia. It led Britain to declare the Colony of British Columbia, which was also known as the Mainland Colony, to assert British authority and governance over the territory, which had been unincorporated in the wake of the Oregon TreatyOregon Treaty
The Oregon Treaty is a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States that was signed on June 15, 1846, in Washington, D.C. The treaty brought an end to the Oregon boundary dispute by settling competing American and British claims to the Oregon Country, which had been jointly occupied by...
of 1846. Governor Douglas placed restrictions on immigration to the new British colony, including the proviso that entry to the territory must be made via Victoria and not overland, but thousands of men still arrived via the Okanagan
Okanagan Trail
The Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858-1859...
and Whatcom Trail
Whatcom Trail
The Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. Named for the then-chief of the Nooksack people on Bellingham Bay, where the trail began at Fairhaven , the route used went via a route known as the Columbia...
s. Douglas also sought to limit the importation of weapons, one of the reasons for the Victoria-disembarkation requirement, but his lack of resources for oversight meant that overland routes to the goldfields could not be controlled.
Related conflicts
During the fall of 1858, tensions increased between miners and the Nlaka'pamuxNlaka'pamux
The Nlaka'pamux , commonly called "the Thompson", and also Thompson River Salish, Thompson Salish, Thompson River Indians or Thompson River people) are an indigenous First Nations/Native American people of the Interior Salish language group in southern British Columbia...
, the First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
people living in the heart of the canyon. This led to the Fraser Canyon War
Fraser Canyon War
The Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia, which later became part of Canada, in 1858. It occurred during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which brought a...
. Miners wary of venturing upriver beyond Yale began to use the Lakes Route to Lillooet instead, prompting Douglas to contract for the building of the Douglas Road
Douglas Road
The Douglas Road, aka the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior...
, the mainland colony's first public works project. The governor arrived in Yale to accept the apologies of the Americans who had waged war on the natives. Wanting to make the British military and governmental presence more visible, Douglas appointed justices of the peace and also revised the slapdash mining rules which had emerged along the river. Troops to maintain order, however, were still in short supply.
Competition and interracial tensions between European Americans and non-white miners erupted on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
1858, with the beating of Isaac Dixon, a freed American black. He was the town barber and in later years was a popular journalist. Dixon was beaten by two men from Hill's Bar, the other main town in the southern part of the goldfields. The complicated series of events that ensued is known as McGowan's War
McGowan's War
McGowan's War was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly-minted British authority on the British Columbia mainland, which had only just been declared a colony the previous summer, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold...
. Its potential to provoke United States annexation ambitions within the goldfields, prompted the governor to send newly-appointed Chief Justice Begbie
Matthew Baillie Begbie
Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie was born on the island of Mauritius, thereafter raised and educated in the United Kingdom...
, the colony's Chief of Police Chartres Brew
Chartres Brew
Chartres Brew was a Gold commissioner, Chief Constable and judge in the Colony of British Columbia, later a province of Canada....
and a contingent of 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....
and Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
to intervene. They did not need to use force, and were able to resolve the matter peacefully. The team also dealt with the corruption of British appointees in the area, which had contributed to the crisis.
Aftermath
The Fraser Canyon War did not affect the upper reaches of the goldfields, in the area of Lillooet, and the short-lived popularity of the Douglas Road caused the town to be designated "the largest town north of San Francisco and west of ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
", with an estimated population of 16,000. This title was also briefly held by Port Douglas
Port Douglas, British Columbia
Port Douglas, sometimes referred to simply as Douglas, is a remote community in British Columbia, Canada at the head of Harrison Lake, which is the head of river navigation from the Strait of Georgia...
, Yale, and later on by 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...
.
By 1860, however, the gold-bearing sandbars of the Fraser were depleted. Many of the miners had either drifted back to the U.S. or dispersed further into the British Columbia wilderness in search of unstaked riches. Other gold rushes occurred 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...
, the Similkameen
Similkameen Gold Rush
The Similkameen Gold Rush, also known as the Blackfoot Gold Rush, was a minor gold rush in the Similkameen Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, in 1860...
, Wild Horse Creek and the 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....
of the Columbia River. 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
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 Washington Territory
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 8, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington....
could also be considered a spin-off of the Fraser gold rush.
See also
- British Columbia gold rushesBritish Columbia Gold RushesThe 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,...
- Cariboo RoadCariboo RoadThe Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the colonial Governor of British Columbia, James Douglas...
- Gold CommissionerGold CommissionerGold Commissioner was an important regional administrative post in the Colony of British Columbia.In the 1860s, Governor Douglas had three priorities to protect the two colonies he governed: to protect the boundaries, to uphold law and order and to provide access to the gold fields...
- History of the west coast of North AmericaHistory of the west coast of North AmericaThe human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along a now-submerged coastal plain, through the development of significant pre-Columbian cultures and population densities, to the arrival...
- Old Cariboo RoadOld Cariboo RoadThe Old Cariboo Road is a reference to the original wagon road to the Cariboo gold fields in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia...
- Pitt Lake gold find
- River TrailRiver Trail (British Columbia)The River Trail was a main route for travel in the colonial era of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia, running northwards along the Fraser River from to present day Lillooet to Big Bar, British Columbia and points beyond in the Cariboo District...
- Simon Fraser (explorer)Simon Fraser (explorer)Simon Fraser was a fur trader and an explorer who charted much of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. Fraser was employed by the Montreal-based North West Company. By 1805, he had been put in charge of all the company's operations west of the Rocky Mountains...
- Whatcom TrailWhatcom TrailThe Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. Named for the then-chief of the Nooksack people on Bellingham Bay, where the trail began at Fairhaven , the route used went via a route known as the Columbia...
Further reading
- The Early History of the Fraser River Mines, Frederic William Howay (C.F. Banfield, 1926)