Lillooet, formerly Cayoosh Flat, is a community on the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, about 240 km (150 mi) 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 with an average of 329.5 mm (12.97 in) of precipitation being recorded annually. Lillooet has a long growing season, and once had prolific market gardens and orchard produce. It often vies with Lytton and Osoyoos for the title of "Canada's Hot Spot" on a daily basis in summer.
Events from the year 1858 in Canada.
Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Sir James Douglas, was a British Columbian fur trader and politician who became the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. He is often credited as "The Father of British Columbia". He was instrumental to the resettlement of 35 African-Americans fleeing a life of racial persecution in San Francisco, who arrived in the province aboard the steamship Commodore in what later became known as The Pioneer Committee. In 1863 Douglas was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the Crown.
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 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 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 Canyon" is often used to include the Thompson Canyon from Lytton to Ashcroft, since they form the same highway route which most people are familiar with, although it is actually reckoned to begin above Williams Lake, British Columbia at Soda Creek Canyon near the town of the same name.
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later joined 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 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, the route used went via a route known as the Columbia Valley, which is a lowland route connecting the mid-Nooksack River area with Cultus Lake and the lower Chilliwack River in the Upper Fraser Valley, about 80 km east of today's Vancouver. In 1858, T. G. Richards built the first brick building in Washington as an outfitter for those using the Whatcom Trail.
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. Over 30,000 men are reckoned to have travelled the route in, although by the end of the 1860s it was virtually abandoned due to the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road, which bypassed the region.
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, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. It was called Ned McGowan's War after one of the conflict's main antagonists.
Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park is a provincial park located in the Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada. It was established on March 26, 1984 to preserve a historically significant suspension bridge spanning the Fraser River.
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. It was founded by the British Crown, who appointed James Douglas, then governor of the neighbouring colony of Vancouver's Island as the colony's first governor. Richard Clement Moody was the colony's first chief commissioner of lands and works. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half of the present day Canadian Province of British Columbia. It did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast regions north of the Nass and Finlay Rivers, the regions east of the Rocky Mountains, or any of the coastal islands; an exception was made for the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands which was included in the colony's creation in 1858. The Stikine Territory was merged with it in 1863, and it was amalgamated in 1866 with the Colony of Vancouver Island to form a new Colony of British Columbia.
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 many white settlers to the Fraser Canyon area. Largely ignored by Canadian historians, it was one of the seminal events of the founding of the colony. Although it ended relatively peacefully, it was a major test of the new administration's control over the goldfields, which were distant and difficult to access from the centre of colonial authority at Victoria in the Colony of Vancouver Island.
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 brigades, following the Columbia River to the confluence of the Okanogan River, and then up that river's watercourse via Osoyoos, Skaha (Dog) and Okanagan lakes, then using a pass via Monte Creek to Fort Kamloops, at the confluence of the North and South Thompson rivers. From there, the route went west down the Thompson River either to the lower gold-bearing bars of the Fraser River between what is now Lytton, British Columbia and Yale, British Columbia, or via Hat Creek and Marble Canyon to the upper Fraser goldfields around present-day Lillooet, British Columbia. A shorter branch-route to the lower Thompson and lower Fraser Canyon diverged from the main route at the confluence of the Similkameen River and the Okanogan. Cayoosh and The Fountains are today's Lillooet, British Columbia and environs.
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 Kettle River where it is met by Rock Creek, and both streams turn east to where in times since developed the city of Grand Forks. The first claim was filed by an Adam Beam in 1860, and the rush was on, composed mostly of Americans and some Chinese, all of whom had come overland from other workings, either at Colville or Oregon or all the way from California.
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 Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail, sometimes referred to simply as the Brigade Trail, refers to one of two routes used by Hudson's Bay Company fur traders to transport furs, goods and supplies between coastal and Columbia District headquarters at Fort Vancouver and those in New Caledonia and also in Rupert's Land. Importantly the route was that used by the annual "Hudson's Bay Express", a shipment of the company books and profits to company headquarters.
This article is about Steamboats of the Lower Fraser River and Harrison Lake. The first steamboat on the Fraser River was the SS Beaver which entered Pacific waters in 1835. It was an itinerant supply for the Hudson's Bay Company roving throughout the lower Columbia River in Oregon and around coastal Washington, British Columbia and southeastern Russian America (Alaska), long before those political entities came into being.
