The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

was discovered on the

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, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The ri ...

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, for ...

at its confluence with the

Nicoamen River The Nicoamen River is a tributary of the Thompson River in the southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located upstream from its confluence with the Thompson at Lytton. The Nicoamen forms the extreme northeast boundary of the Cascade Mount ...

a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with 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 ...

at present-day Lytton. The rush overtook the region around the discovery, and was centered on the

Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major 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. Colloquially, the term "Fraser ...

from around

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...

and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

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

Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were ori ...

, just north of

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 abo ...

. Though the rush was largely over by 1927, miners from the rush spread out and found a sequence of other gold fields throughout the British Columbia Interior and North, most famously that in 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 ...

. 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, 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 San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

when the governor of the

Colony of Vancouver Island The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia ...

, James Douglas, sent a shipment of ore to that city's mint. People in San Francisco and the California gold fields greeted the news with excitement. Within a month 30,000 men had descended upon

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. 4,000 of these

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

pioneers settlers were Chinese. 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 gold rushes of California and Colorado. 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, but a continuing influx of newcomers replaced the disenchanted, with even more men storming the route of the

Douglas Road The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cattle Trail, which ...

to the upper part of

around

; others got to the upper canyon via the

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. The route was essentially the same as that used by the Hudson's Bay Company fur briga ...

and

Similkameen Trail Similkameen may refer to: * Similkameen Country or Similkameen District, or "the Similkameen", a historical georegion in British Columbia, Canada * Similkameen River, a river that runs through southern British Columbia, discharging into the Okanog ...

, and to the lower Canyon via the

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. The trail began on Bellingham Bay, at Fairhaven (now a Bellingham neighbourhood), the route used went via a r ...

and the

Skagit Trail Skagit ( ) may refer to: * Skagit peoples, Native American groups in the U.S. state of Washington **Upper Skagit, one of the two Skagit peoples **Lower Skagit, one of the two Skagit peoples **Skagit language, or Lushootseed, the traditional languag ...

. 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 is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

flooded into the newly declared Colony of British Columbia and disrupted the established balance between the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

rs and

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. The influx of prospectors included numerous European Americans and African Americans,

Britons British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mod ...

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

English Canadians English Canadians (french: Canadiens anglais or ), or Anglo-Canadians (french: Anglo-Canadiens), refers to either Canadians of English ethnic origin and heritage or to English-speaking or Anglophone Canadians of any ethnic origin; it is use ...

, Maritimers,

French Canadians French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

ns,

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

Belgians Belgians ( nl, Belgen; french: Belges; german: Belgier) are people identified with the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe. As Belgium is a multinational state, this connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultur ...

and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, and other European ethnicities, Hawaiians, Chinese,

Mexicans Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States. The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Indigenous linguistic groups and other languages brought to Mexi ...

West Indians A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use i ...

, and others. Many of those first-arrived of European and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

origin were

n by culture, and this included Maritimers such as

Amor De Cosmos Amor De Cosmos (born William Alexander Smith; August 20, 1825 – July 4, 1897) was a Canadian journalist, publisher and politician. He served as the second premier of British Columbia. Early life Amor De Cosmos was born William Alexander Smit ...

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 The Chilcotin War, the Chilcotin Uprising or the Bute Inlet Massacre was a confrontation in 1864 between members of the Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin) people in British Columbia and white road construction workers. Fourteen men employed by Alfred Wadd ...

of 1864, estimated there were 10,500 miners on the Fraser at the peak of the gold rush. This estimate was based on the

area and did not include the non-mining "hangers-on" population.

Richard Clement Moody and the Birth of British Columbia

When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London,

Richard Clement Moody Richard Clement Moody Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit of France (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British governor, engineer, architect and soldier. He is best known for being the founder and the first Lieutenant ...

was hand-picked by the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...

, under Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, to establish British order and to transform British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific." Barman, Jean. ''The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia''. Toronto: University of Toronto. p. 71. Moody arrived in

in December 1858, commanding the

Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment The Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers was a contingent of the Royal Engineers of the British Army that was responsible for the foundation of British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66). It was commanded by Colonel Richar ...

. Moody had hoped to begin immediately the foundation of a capital city, but upon his arrival at

Fort Langley Fort Langley is a village community in Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It has a population of approximately 3,400 people. It is the home of Fort Langley National Historic Site, a former fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company ...

he learned of an outbreak of violence at the settlement of Hill's Bar. This led to an incident popularly known as " Ned McGowan's War", where Moody successfully quashed a group of rebellious American miners. Governor Douglas placed restrictions on immigration to the new

British colony The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...

, 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 The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...

and

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'pamux, the

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

people of the Canyon. This led to the

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 occurr ...

. Miners wary of venturing upriver beyond Yale began to use the

Lakes Route The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cattle Trail, which ...

to Lillooet instead, prompting Douglas to contract for the building of the

, 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 is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation ...

1858, with the beating of Isaac Dixon, a freed American black. He was the town barber and in later years was a popular journalist in the

. Dixon was beaten by two men from

Hill's Bar Hill's Bar is a long-abandoned ghost town located in the Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, Canada. The site of the former boomtown is situated near the right bank of the Fraser River, between Yale and the mouth of Emory Creek. The epon ...

, 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 was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly established British authority on the British Columbia mainland (which had only just been declared a colony th ...

. Its potential to provoke United States annexation ambitions within the goldfields, prompted the governor to send newly appointed Chief Justice Begbie, the colony's chief of police

Chartres Brew Chartres Brew (31 December 1815 – 31 May 1870) was a Gold commissioner, Chief Constable and judge in the Colony of British Columbia, later a province of Canada. Brew's name was conferred on two mountain summits in British Columbia, b ...

and a contingent of

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

and

Royal Marines The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious warfare, amphibious light infantry and also one of the :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, five fighti ...

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

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

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

", with an estimated population of 16,000. This title was also briefly held by

Port Douglas Port Douglas is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Douglas, Queensland, Australia, approximately 60 km north of Cairns. In the , Port Douglas had a population of 3,504 people. The town's population can often double, however, with the in ...

, Yale, and later on by

Barkerville 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. BC Highway 26, which ...

. 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 proliferated around the colony, with notable gold rushes at Rock Creek, the Similkameen, Wild Horse Creek and the Big Bend of the Columbia River spinning immediately off the Fraser rush, and gold exploration soon after led to the

Omineca Gold Rush The Omineca Gold Rush was a gold rush in British Columbia, Canada in the Omineca region of the Northern Interior of the province. Gold was first discovered there in 1861, but the rush didn't begin until late in 1869 with the discovery at Vital Cree ...

and the

Stikine Gold Rush The Stikine Gold Rush was a minor but important gold rush in the Stikine Country of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The rush's discoverer was Alexander "Buck" Choquette, who staked a claim at Choquette Bar in 1861, just downstream from ...

, which led to the creation of the

Stikine Territory The Stickeen Territories , also colloquially rendered as Stickeen Territory, Stikine Territory, and Stikeen Territory, was a territory of British North America whose brief existence began July 19, 1862, and concluded July of the following year. ...

to the colony's north. The

Fort Colville Fort Colville was a U.S. Army post in the Washington Territory located north of current Colville, Washington. During its existence from 1859 to 1882, it was called "Harney's Depot" and "Colville Depot" during the first two years, and finally " ...

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

was also a spin-off of the Fraser Gold Rush, as many miners from the Fraser headed there once news of the strike in US territory reached the mining camps. Many others moved on to a gold rush in Colorado.

References

* ''McGowan's War'', Donald J. Hauka, New Star Books, Vancouver (2000) * ''British Columbia Chronicle,: Gold & Colonists'', Helen and G.P.V. Akrigg, Discovery Press, Vancouver (1977) * ''Claiming the Land: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to British Columbia'', Dan Marshall, University of British Columbia, Ph.D. Thesis, 2002 (unpublished)

Gold rush

Richard Clement Moody and the Birth of British Columbia

Related conflicts

Aftermath

See also

References

Further reading