Cariboo gold rush
The Cariboo gold rush is one in a chain of events that brought several hundred thousand people to western Canada between about 1858 and 1900. This chain began with the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858 and culminated with the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory . The gold rush that began in 1861 in the Cariboo area in the then British colony of British Columbia brought around 100,000 people to the remote area. The main town was Barkerville , which, in contrast to other gold areas, mainly attracted Europeans and fewer Americans. This was due to the raging there American Civil War together.
prehistory
The Cariboo Gold Rush is closely related to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush on the Fraser River , which began in 1858. Here evolved Vancouver to a central collection point for prospectors from California upstream by boat to Yale drove. Rumors kept coming up that gold had been found somewhere, including in the Cariboo area. So men who had come too late to get a profitable claim at Yale went looking again. Although gold was found at Horsefly Creek in 1859 by Peter Dunlevy, who was followed by gold discoveries at Keithley and Antler Creek the following year, the real gold rush did not begin until 1861.
The prelude
When the gold discoveries became known, reinforced by new discoveries at William's Creek (1862), a stream of gold prospectors rolled northwards. Billy Barker was one of the first successful prospectors in the Cariboo area, and new towns such as Barkerville, Keithley Creek , Quesnel Forks , Antler , Richfield , Quesnel , Fort Alexandria and Horsefly emerged . They were raised from the ground within a few months.
Many of the prospectors who had followed the Fraser Canyon gold rush between Lillooet and Yale three years earlier now moved north on the Cariboo Road . Others, however, followed news of gold discoveries around Colville or in Colorado , at Rock Creed or Big Bend. Many of the Americans at Fraser returned to the United States, which was torn by the Civil War. Therefore, the participation of the Americans in the Cariboo gold rush was considerably less than in the Fraser.
For many, Cariboo was only an intermediate stage to further gold discoveries (Omineca, Stikine). Probably more than 100,000 men moved to this sparsely populated region within a few years.
getting there
The gold discoveries and the stories of adventurers who got rich quickly reached Europe and the east coast of North America. Few could afford to sail to Panama by ship , cross the isthmus and sail north from Darién . Many therefore accepted the long, arduous and dangerous journey around Cape Horn . Most, however, went to Québec and New York . From there you drove to Saint Paul , Minnesota , then headed west via Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains . For some, it was down the Fraser to Quesnel by raft or boat , for others the Thompson River to Kamloops .
Successful steering attempts
In order to prevent countless, unpredictable men from rushing uncontrollably north, and at the same time to facilitate access for Europeans, the Royal Engineers built the Cariboo Road (also called Cariboo Wagon Road ) from 1861 to 1865 . It connected the Fraser at Yale - from there the river was no longer navigable - via the Lakes Route and Lillooet through the Thompson River valley with Ashcroft . From there it went on to Clinton , 100 Mile House and Williams Lake .
This avenue offered the government several advantages. On the one hand, it generated income through license fees that were incurred when boarding the ships on Vancouver Island . On the other hand, there were fewer provocations on the part of the Indians who tried to defend themselves against the ruthless and possessive immigrants. A private attempt to build a path through the Chilcot area from the west coast also failed because of the harsh nature and the resistance of the Homalco and Chilcotin Indians ( Chilcotin War ). After the experience on the Fraser River, the government was determined to prevent this chaos and outbreaks of violence from happening again, and above all to curb further immigration of Americans. The Hudson's Bay Company , which at that time was still a major power in what would later become western Canada, feared with good reason that this could lead to an annexation of the area, just as the Company had built its forts in the Oregon Country south of the 49th century in 1849 . Had lost latitude.
So it was important for the government to ensure "civilized" conditions. The first priests came to the region in 1861; Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and others used their services. Barkerville owned permanent houses and a hospital as early as 1864, a year after its creation, which remained the only one north of Kamloops until the 1930s . Of the twenty saloons there were at least some with music rooms, and in 1867 there was even a concert hall, a debating club, a Masonic lodge , a charity, a literary society and even a library (1864).
Denny's saloon, which still exists today, gives a good impression of the lifestyle of the time. It consists of two rooms, one of which contains a table with four chairs and the other a bar - hardly space for much more than 10 to 15 men. In contrast to Victoria , however, the local saloons did not open until 8 p.m. With a few exceptions, the British legal enforcement strategy worked better than the American one in California.
That was one of the accomplishments of Governor James Douglas . He made gold prospecting dependent on a permit, maintained a police force and a court. Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie was nicknamed "the hanging judge". He did not shy away from death sentences or forced labor and, to the horror of many Californians, took the statements of Indians and Chinese as seriously as anyone else. Douglas had asked him too, the lawyer from England.
The Barkerville fire in 1868 caused enormous damage, but the residents quickly rebuilt the city.
The end of Barkerville, the reconstruction and present gold
Barkerville initially slowly shrank after the end of the gold discovery. At the same time, Chinese immigrated, whose number in the Cariboo area rose from 200 to 300 to 1,100 to 1,200 between 1881 and 1884, according to a statement by local representative Charles Wilson. They acquired some of the abandoned claims, preferring to use the abandoned ones out of thrift. Despite the use of force, they prevailed against resistance from the whites.
But around 1900 the city was a ghost town , similar to Bullion or Antler Creek. Than during the Great Depression , the gold prices soared, was worth restore some exploration activities, so the city for several years arose again.
In 1958 the government decided to rebuild the gold rush town. The tourism project known today as "Barkerville Historic Town", which was built near old Barkerville, has also been a research project that has lasted for years and has resulted in meticulous reconstructions. Some of the houses were bought and restored and then moved to the new location.
Skygold Ventures Ltd. , a Vancouver-based company searching for precious metals in North America, and Wildrose Resources Ltd. maintain the Spanish Mountain property, which is located near the historic gold rush town of Barkerville. Gold was first discovered there in 1933 in quartz veins on the northwest side of Spanish Mountain. Isolated explorations were carried out until 1947. But it wasn't until 1970 that new holes were drilled and copper was found in abundance. It has been clear since 2002 that there is still a lot of gold there.
literature
- Beverley Boissery, Bronwyn Short: Beyond Hope. An Illustrated History of the Fraser and Cariboo Gold Rush. Dundurn Press, Toronto et al. 2003, ISBN 1-55002-471-X .
- Marie Elliott: Gold and Grand Dreams. Cariboo East in the Early Years. Horsdal & Schubart, Victoria 2000, ISBN 0-920663-71-0 .
- Don Waite: The Cariboo Gold Rush Story. Big Country Books, Blaine WA 1987, ISBN 0-88839-202-8 .
Web links
- Cariboo Gold Rush ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
- The Cariboo Sentinel - Barkerville Now & Then
- map
- Cariboo Gold Rush Roadhouses (1863-1900)
Remarks
- ↑ Not to be confused with the English name Caribou for the reindeer .
- ↑ A look at one of the streets in Barkerville (1869) can be found here ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Cf. The Cariboo Gold Rush Towns, Richfield ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ An example can be found here: Barkerville, Williams Creek, Cariboo .
- ↑ His other skills faded behind the success of his administration. He was also a map-maker and knew mathematics , he taught, was a diplomat and nature lover.
- ^ Frederic Dally: The Great Fire of Barkerville - 1868. An account of the destruction by fire of the town of Barkerville. online .
- ↑ Canada. Commission royale sur l'immigration chinoise: Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise rapport et témoignages , July 1884, pp. 65f.
