Clinton is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, located approximately northwest of Cache Creek and 30 km south of

70 Mile House 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube (algebra), cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion ...

. It is considered by some to straddle the southern edge of the

Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the caribou that were once abundant in the region. The Cariboo was the ...

country of British Columbia, although others consider Ashcroft-Cache Creek, Lillooet, Savona, Kamloops and even Lytton and Spences Bridge to be in the Cariboo. Clinton, however, does sit immediately below the southern edge of the

Cariboo Plateau The Cariboo Plateau is a volcanic plateau in south-central British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Fraser Plateau that itself is a northward extension of the North American Plateau. The southern limit of the plateau is the Bonaparte River alth ...

. Clinton has a number of attractions including horse-back riding, big game viewing, hiking, fishing and other outdoor activities. Every May, Clinton is home to the Annual Ball held on the Victoria Day weekend, where many people dress as the first settlers did. The Annual Ball kicks off the Village's Heritage week with the parade and the May rodeo and dance ending Heritage week. The Clinton Annual Ball is one of British Columbia's oldest continual events having first been held in 1867 and was a highlight of the social calendar in the

British Columbia Interior , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Interior" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivi ...

for many decades. The Clinton Museum, built in 1892, has a number of historical artifacts on display that date back to the gold rush and founding of the area.

Name origin

Originally known as Cut-Off Valley, "47 Mile House" or "47 Mile", Clinton was named in 1863 upon completion of the

Cariboo Wagon Road The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching fr ...

in the area for Henry Fiennes Pelham Clinton, the 5th

Duke of Newcastle Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle u ...

, who was colonial secretary in 1854 and from 1859 to 1864.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Clinton had a population of 568 living in 291 of its 336 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 641. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Transportation

Highway 97 Route 97, or Highway 97, may refer to: Australia - Olympic Dam Highway, South Australia Canada * British Columbia Highway 97 ** British Columbia Highway 97A ** British Columbia Highway 97B ** British Columbia Highway 97C ** British Columb ...

runs through the village north-south, meeting just south of downtown with the Pavilion Mountain Road, which connects from

Pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

and Kelly Lake and is the route of the

Old Cariboo Road The 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. It should not be confused with the Cariboo Road, which was built slightly later and used a differen ...

and follows what is known as

Cut-Off Valley A cut-off, battle jacket, battle vest or kutte in heavy metal music, heavy metal subcultures, is a type of vest or jacket which originated in the U.S. military, specifically the Army Air Corps, where pilots and other aviation personnel would co ...

from the foot of the road over

Pavilion Mountain Pavilion Mountain is the highest summit of the southern Marble Range in the South Cariboo region of southwestern British Columbia. "Mount Carson", a subsidiary peak, was misapplied to the whole mountain 1957–1965, before the well-established lo ...

, which is also the route used by the

British Columbia Railway BC Rail is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Chartered as a private company in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), it was acquired by the provincial government in 1918. In 1972 it was renamed to the British ...

although that route does not traverse Pavilion Mountain but comes via the Fraser Canyon via Moran and Arden Forest. The ranching communities of

Jesmond Jesmond is a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, situated to the east of the Town Moor. Jesmond is considered to be one of the most affluent suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, with higher average house prices than most other areas of the city. H ...

, Kostering and Big Bar can be accessed via a road which has its junction with the Pavilion Mountain Road at Kelly Lake, which is also the location of

Downing Provincial Park Downing Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, created when Mr. and Mrs. Clair Downing donated their half-mile of lake frontage property on Kelly Lake. The park's size, including the donated by the Downings, is 156 he ...

, which encompasses that lake. The same road is the access for Edge Hills and Marble Range Provincial Parks and also for the

Big Bar Ferry Big Bar Ferry is a cable ferry across the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. It is located about north of the town of Lillooet and west of Clinton. 6 km upstream from the ferry is French Bar Canyon (sometimes known as Big Bar Canyon) ...

to the west side of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

, which connects to the Slok Creek FSR to

Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abou ...

. Clinton was, until adoption of its present name, known as "47 Mile House", that being the distance from Lillooet on the Old Cariboo Road. Also diverging from Highway 97 at Clinton is the route of the original

Cariboo Road The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching fro ...

, which climbs a gentler grade up the side of the

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. Rising on the Silwhoiakun Plateau to the northwest of Kamloops, B ...

valley up to the

, via

Chasm In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben w ...

and the associated provincial park and the community of Lone Butte. The BCR line also follows roughly the same route and has railstops at Chasm, Lone Butte and the Flying U Ranch, one of the province's oldest

dude ranch A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agritourism. History Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...

es. Other roads lead east from the Cariboo Road routing to

Bonaparte Lake Bonaparte is an Italian surname. It derives from Italian ''bona'' (''buona'') 'good' and ''parte'' 'solution' or 'match' (a name bestowed as an expression of satisfaction at a newborn's arrival). Bonaparte may refer to: People *The House of Bo ...

and

Bonaparte Provincial Park Bonaparte Provincial Park is an 11,811 hectare provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. It is located within the Bonaparte Plateau. History The park was established April 30, 1996 under the Kamloops Land and Resource Management Plan (LRM ...

and various provincial parks in that area. Loon Lake is accessed via the Loon Lake Road, which departs Highway 97 eastwards to the south of Clinton.

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Villages in British Columbia Populated places in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District Geography of the Cariboo Bonaparte Country