Haphazard History

When you're transporting millions of dollars of gold for miners, especially in the late 1800's, the thing you value most is... trust. Trust in the bank, the assayers, and the people transporting your gold from the remote region of Williams Creek, Lillooet and others to banks in Vancouver. But who can you REALLY trust? And at what cost? Today we learn about the challenged life, and expensive lesson learned, of the Gold Escort.

The Hudson’s Bay Company had known about gold finds on the Fraser River since early in 1856, and they had kept word of this to themselves, quietly sending gold which had come in on trade to Fort Langley for safekeeping. However, when the company had amassed some 800 oz. of gold, they sent it to San Francisco to be refined, and the secret was out.

Some 30,000 prospectors and entrepreneurs passed through Victoria and Fort Langley during the spring and summer of 1858. James Douglas had three major concerns. First, since most of the newcomers were American, he feared that they would make an attempt to take over the territory in the name of the U.S. Secondly, he worried that there was insufficient policing for the influx of people, some of whom were rather shady characters.

The third problem was that Douglas’ colonial government was virtually broke. A colonial Gold Escort was eventually formed for the sole purpose of carrying gold from the current diggings to government assay offices at New Westminster or Victoria.

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The earliest recorded tourism visit to the Cariboo was by two English gentlemen, Lord Viscount Milton and Doctor Walter B. Cheadle.

Lord Milton was a young, willful aristocrat who had decided that he wanted to see Canada for himself, and Dr. Cheadle was retained by the Milton family to escort the impetuous young man to see to his health, and to ensure that no harm came to him.

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About a quarter mile south of Rudy’s Bridge, right in the middle of the Fraser River, there lies a small island with a steep, rocky shoreline on three sides and a gradual rocky beach in its lee.

It’s accessible in winter, and sometimes when the river is really low, but most of the time it’s surrounded by fast-flowing water.

Actually, it is quite an unremarkable island, not unlike many others up and down the river, but this little piece of land is known by the locals as the Mad Russian’s Island, and therein lies a story.

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For more than 50 years, from 1863 until 1917, the red and yellow B.C. Express Company’s stagecoaches transported mail, express, and passengers from Yale to Barkerville, an 800 mile return trip.

With the completion of the CPR Railway in 1886, however, the new community of Ashcroft became the major southern terminus of the stagecoach route. To those of us who grew up on a diet of western movies, the term “stagecoach” brings to mind images of masked men on horses waiting in Ambush, holding up terrified passengers and galloping off with sacks of gold.

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Thomas Menefee, according to his grave marker, was born in Kentucky, but some historians believe he was a native of Missouri. He migrated west to the California goldfields in the early 1850’s, but the land was already staked and that gold rush was largely finished. Menefee joined the many goldseekers moving northwards, prospecting the creeks and rivers along the way. He arrived in southern B.C. in 1858 with one of the first groups of men searching for gold in the Okanagan region.

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In 1867 the gold rush town of Barkerville, at the time the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco, was almost entirely demolished in a raging fire. Nearly the entire town was wiped out. Thankfully there were no fatalities despite the fire brigade/social club only using buckets. However, in todays episode we'll learn about what happened in the moments before and after this tragedy thanks to first hand accounts, learn about how it was entirely preventable despite the belief of a special kind of wood, and how the town was never really the same again.

This latest instalment of Haphazard History, written by Barry Sale, revisits the historic Barkerville fire of 1868.

During its peak, the gold rush town of Barkerville had more than 10,00 residents who lived in wooden buildings that were clustered in a haphazard manner along its main street in the Central Interior.

On September 16, 1868 the saloon caught fire and then the end of the day a total of 116 buildings were destroyed in the blaze. Fortunately there had been no loss of life, but property losses were estimated to be about $700,000, or around $12.7 million in today’s prices.

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The iconic bridge over the Fraser River some 25 kilometres west of Williams Lake on Highway 20, sometimes referred to as “the gateway to the Chilcotin” has an interesting and colourful history.

For eons, a natural slowing of the current in that area of the river made for a suitable crossing site. When the river is at its normal height, the current is usually peaceful enough for boats to cross, and when the flow of water is low, there are spots where animals can easily swim across.

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In August of 1866, Dally accompanied the Governor of the Colony, Arthur Edward Kennedy, aboard the H.M.S. Scout as they circumnavigated Vancouver Island and stopped off at many First Nations villages. His photographs taken on this trip especially those from Fort Rupert (Port Hardy), Comox, Cowichan, and Nanaimo were outstanding and continue to provide valuable anthropological evidence even today.

The following year, in 1867, Dally made a month-long trip up the Cariboo Wagon Road to Barkerville and the Cariboo gold fields. He took photographs all along the route as well as recording images of Barkerville itself and the mining operations in the vicinity of Williams Creek.

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