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 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of Quesnel. BC Highway 26, which follows the route of the Cariboo Wagon Road, the original access to Barkerville, goes through it.
Lillooet, formerly Cayoosh Flat, is a community on the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, about 240 kilometres (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 millimetres (13 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.
The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia along a plateau stretching from the 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 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, the location of Barkerville, which was the capital of the Cariboo Gold Rush and also of government officialdom for decades afterwards. This area, the Cariboo goldfields, is underpopulated today but was once the most settled and most powerful of the regions of the province's Interior. 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, the meaning changed to include a wider area than the goldfields.
British Columbia gold rushes were important episodes in the history and settlement of European, Canadian and Chinese peoples in western Canada.
William "Billy" Barker (1817–1894), was an English prospector who was famous for being one of the first to find a large amount of gold in the Cariboo of British Columbia. He also founded Barkerville which is preserved as a historic town.
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which earlier 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 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 Cayoosh Gold Rush was one of several in the history of the region surrounding Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. If estimates of its yield are true, it would be one of the richest single finds in the gold mining history of that province.
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.
Barkerville Provincial Park is a former provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, protecting the museum town of Barkerville, capital of the Cariboo Gold Rush, and environs. In 2006, the BC Ministry of the Environment transferred ownership of the 136-acre park to the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts for park purposes.
John Angus Cameron was a Canadian prospector, also known as "Cariboo Cameron".
Stanley was a gold rush town in the Cariboo region of British Columbia that began during the Cariboo Gold Rush.
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.
Francis Jones Barnard, often known as Frank Barnard Sr., was a prominent British Columbia businessman and Member of Parliament in Canada from 1879 to 1887.
The Willow River is a tributary of the Fraser River in the north-central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It enters the Fraser at the community of Willow River, just upstream from the city of Prince George, near the confluence of the McGregor River. Its source is in the Cariboo goldfields at Jack of Clubs Lake in the mining and arts community of Wells, British Columbia, near Barkerville.
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.
Coldspring House is an unincorporated locality and former roadhouse on the Cariboo Wagon Road in the Cariboo Country of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Located just east of the confluence of Lightning Creek and the Swift River between Quesnel and Barkerville along that route. Only 8 km east along that road from Cottonwood House, another roadhouse still operating as a store and campground today, as well as a provincial heritage property with a small museum. Just farther along the route, which is today's BC Highway 26, is Beaver Pass House. All date from the era of the Cariboo Gold Rush and were busy stopping places for travellers going to and from the goldfields.
Beaver Pass, elev. 1070 m (3510 ft), is a pass in the hillcountry of the northern Cariboo Plateau forming a divide between Lightning Creek (S) and Tregillus Creek, part of the Willow River drainage (N), located just northwest of Beaver Pass House, a locality along the route of BC Highway 26, which leads to Barkerville and Wells from its start at its junction with the Cariboo Highway (97) at the city of Quesnel.
Overlander Falls is a waterfall on the Fraser River in Mount Robson Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. It is popular for kayakers. The falls are reached by a short walking trail which starts on the Yellowhead Highway 2 km (1.2 mi) east of the Mount Robson visitor centre. The waterfall is named for the Overlanders expedition of 1862. A group of 175 men and 1 woman from Ontario travelled across the prairies and through the Rocky Mountains, intending to reach the Barkerville or Cariboo goldfields. Just west of Overlander Falls, the group split. About half continued down the Fraser River, eventually reaching Barkerville in late fall of 1862, but over a year had elapsed since Billy Barker's gold strike and there were no claims left to stake. The other half abandoned their dreams of gold and rafted down the North Thompson River to Fort Kamloops.
Mary Creek is a creek in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. The creek is located in Cottonwood Country which is between Quesnel and Barkerville. Mary Creek is small tributary of John Boyd Creek which flows into the Cottonwood River. Terry Toop discovered gold on Mary Creek in the fall of 1972. The nuggets found were $150 in value, and $2,200 in gold could be found in a single yard of gravel. Bullion in 15 and 20 pound lots was shipped to a refinery in Richmond. Photographs of the nuggets were published in newspapers along the coast. Other miners moved in and staked claims around the area, but the gold was depleted in 1975.
