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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 first region of the interior north of the lower Fraser River and its canyon to be settled by non-indigenous people, and played an important part in the early history of the colony and province. The boundaries of the Cariboo proper in its historical sense are debatable, but its original meaning was the region north of the forks of the Quesnel River and the low mountainous basins between the mouth of that river on the Fraser at the city of Quesnel and the northward end of the Cariboo Mountains, an area that is mostly in the Quesnel Highland and focused on several now-famous gold-bearing creeks near the head of the Willow River. The richest of them all, Williams Creek, is the location of Barkerville, which was both the capital of the Cariboo Gold Rush and of government officialdom for decades afterwards (it is now a museum town).
The Cariboo goldfields are underpopulated today but were once the most settled and most significant of the regions of interior British Columbia. As settlement spread southwards of this area, flanking the route of the Cariboo Road and spreading out through the rolling plateaus and benchlands of the Cariboo Plateau and lands adjoining it along the Fraser and Thompson rivers, the meaning changed to include a wider area than just the goldfields.
The grasslands of the Cariboo are home to the regionally endangered American badger (Taxidea taxus jeffersonii).
As early as 1861, Governor Douglas used the name Cariboo to describe the area in dispatches to Britain. [1] : 38
North Cariboo:
Central Cariboo:
South Cariboo:
Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia, which grew in importance during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.
British Columbia gold rushes were important episodes in the history and settlement of European, Canadian and Chinese peoples in western Canada.
The Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It was built in response to the Cariboo Gold Rush to facilitate settlement of the area by miners. It involved a feat of engineering stretching from Fort Yale to Barkerville, B.C. through extremely hazardous canyon territory in the Interior of British Columbia.
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later became the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly River, and on Keithley Creek and Antler Creek in 1860. The actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were widely publicized. By 1865, following the strikes along Williams Creek, the rush was in full swing.
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton. The rush overtook the region around the discovery and was centered on the Fraser Canyon from around Hope and Yale to Pavilion and Fountain, just north of Lillooet.
The Cariboo Mountains are the northernmost subrange of the Columbia Mountains, which run down into the Spokane area of the United States and include the Selkirks, Monashees and Purcells. The Cariboo Mountains are entirely within the province of British Columbia, Canada. The range is 7,700 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi) in area and about 245 km in length (southeast–northwest) and about 90 km at its widest (southwest–northeast).
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 although some definitions include the Bonaparte Plateau between that river and the Thompson, but it properly is a subdivision of the Thompson Plateau. The portion of the Fraser Plateau west of the Fraser River is properly known as the Chilcotin Plateau but is often mistakenly considered to be part of the Cariboo Plateau, which is east of the Fraser.
The Quesnel River is a major tributary of the Fraser River in the Cariboo District of central British Columbia. It begins at the outflow of Quesnel Lake, at the town of Likely and flows for about 100 kilometres (60 mi) northwest to its confluence with the Fraser at the city of Quesnel.
Cariboo was one of the twelve original electoral districts created when British Columbia became a Canadian province in 1871. Roughly corresponding to the old colonial electoral administrative district of the same name, it was a three-member riding until the 1894 election, when it was reduced through reapportionment and became a two-member riding until the 1916 election, after which it has been a single-member riding. It produced many notable Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), including George Anthony Boomer Walkem, third and fifth holder of the office of Premier of British Columbia and who was one of the first representatives elected from the riding; John Robson, ninth Premier of British Columbia; and Robert Bonner, a powerful minister in the W.A.C. Bennett cabinet, and later CEO of MacMillan Bloedel and BC Hydro.
Likely is an unincorporated community in British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the Cariboo region of the province, and is situated where the west arm of Quesnel Lake empties into the Quesnel River. Roads from Likely lead southwest to Williams Lake, northwest to Quesnel, south to Horsefly, and north to Barkerville. Likely is in the Quesnel Highland, a transition zone between the Cariboo Plateau and the Cariboo Mountains.
Clinton is a village in British Columbia, Canada, located approximately 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Cache Creek and 30 km south of 70 Mile House.
Barnard's Express, later known as the British Columbia Express Company or BX, was a pioneer transportation company that served the Cariboo and Fraser-Fort George regions in British Columbia, Canada from 1861 until 1921.
Soda Creek is a rural subdivision 38 km north of Williams Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Located on the east bank of the Fraser River, Soda Creek was originally the home of the Xat'sull First Nation. Soda Creek Indian Reserve No. 1 is located on the left (E) bank of the Fraser River, one mile south of the Soda Creek BCR (CN) station, 431.10 ha. 52°19′00″N122°16′00″W
The Big Bend Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Big Bend Country of the Colony of British Columbia in the mid-1860s.
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 different route.
The Enterprise was a passenger and freight sternwheeler that was built for service on the Soda Creek to Quesnel route on the upper Fraser River in British Columbia. It was built at Four Mile Creek near Alexandria by pioneer shipbuilder James Trahey of Victoria for Gustavus Blin Wright and Captain Thomas Wright and was put into service in the spring of 1863. Her captain was JW Doane. The Enterprise was the first of twelve sternwheelers that would work on this section of the Fraser from 1863 to 1921. Though she was not large, she was a wonderful example of the early craft of shipbuilding. All of the lumber she was built from was cut by hand and her boiler and engines had been brought to the building site at Four Mile packed by mule via the wagon road from Port Douglas, 300 miles away.
Victoria was a passenger and freight sternwheeler that was built for service on the Soda Creek to Quesnel route on the upper Fraser River in British Columbia. She was built at Quesnel by pioneer shipbuilder James Trahey of Victoria for Gustavus Blin-Wright and Captain Thomas Wright and was put into service in the spring of 1869 to augment the service of Enterprise also built by Trahey for the Wrights. Although the Victoria's hull was new, her engines and boiler had originally been in the Prince of Wales from Lillooet Lake.
Cottonwood River is a tributary of the Fraser River in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Rising at the confluence of the Swift River and Lightning Creek at Coldspring House in the Cariboo goldfields of the northern Cariboo Plateau, it flows northwest and then turns southwest to join the Fraser just north of the city of Quesnel, which is at the confluence of the Quesnel River with the Fraser.
Cottonwood Canyon is a canyon along the Fraser River in the North Cariboo region of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located west of the Cariboo Mountains on the Fraser River south of its confluence with the east-flowing West Road River and north of its confluence with the northwest-flowing Cottonwood River just northwest of the city of Quesnel, The first European explorer was Simon Fraser (explorer) who ran the rapids on the first of June, 1808. One of his canoes became stranded and had to be pulled out of the canyon with a rope. It was one of the obstacles for gold rush-era steamboats operating on the Fraser from Quesnel to Fort George and up the Nechako and Stuart Rivers to Stuart Lake.
Cottonwood, including the Cottonwood Ranch and Cottonwood House, is an unincorporated settlement in the North Cariboo region of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Originally a ranch, it is located in the northern Cariboo Plateau, just 8 km northwest of Coldspring House, which is at the confluence of the Swift River and Lightning Creek, which is the beginning of the Cottonwood River. Lightning Creek was one of the more famous of the gold-bearing creeks of the Cariboo Gold Rush.