Five hundred volunteer mine-workers built the road from Harrison Lake to Lillooet in 1858 at the rate of ten miles a day; and when the road was opened in September, packers' charges fell from a dollar to forty-eight cents and finally to eighteen cents a pound. But presently the trend of travel drew away from Harrison Lake to the line of the Fraser. At first there was nothing but a mule-trail hacked out of the rock from Yale to Spuzzum; but miners went voluntarily to work and widened the bridle-path above the shelving waters. From Spuzzum to Lytton the river ledges seemed almost impassable for pack animals; yet a cable ferry was rigged up at Spuzzum and mules were sent over the ledges to draw it up the river. When the water rose so high that the lower ledges were unsafe, the packers ascended the mountains eight hundred feet above the roaring canyon. Where cliffs broke off, they sent the animals across an Indian bridge. The marvel is not that many a poor beast fell headlong eight hundred feet down the precipice. The marvel is that any pack animal could cross such a trail at all. 'A traveller must trust his hands as much as his feet,' wrote Begbie, after his first experience of this trail.
Indian graves at Lytton, B.C. From a photograph.Indian graves at Lytton, B.C. From a photograph.
Indian graves at Lytton, B.C. From a photograph.Indian graves at Lytton, B.C. From a photograph.
But by 1862 cutting and blasting and bridge-building had begun under the direction of the Royal Engineers; and before 1865 the great road was completed into the heart of the mining country at Barkerville. Henceforth passengers went in by stage-coach drawn by six horses. Road-houses along the way provided relays of fresh horses. Freight went in by bull-team, but pack-horses and mules were still used to carry miners' provisions to the camps in the hills which lay off the main road. It was while the road was still building that an enterprising packer brought twenty-one camels on the trail. They were not a success and caused countless stampedes. Horses and mules took fright at the slightest whiff of them. The camels themselves could stand neither the climate nor the hard rock road. They were turned adrift on the Thompson river, where the last of them died in 1905.
There was something highly romantic in the stage-coach travel of this halcyon era. The driver was always a crack whip, a man who called himself an 'old-timer,' though often his years numbered fewer than twenty. Most of the drivers, however, knew the trail from having packed in on shanks's mare and camped under the stars. At the log taverns knownas road-houses travellers could sleep for the night and obtain meals.
On the down trip bags were piled on the roof with a couple of frontiersmen armed with rifles to guard them. Many were the devices of a returning miner for concealing the gold which he had won. A fat hurdy-gurdy girl—or sometimes a squaw—would climb to a place in the stage. And when the stage, with a crack of the whip and a prance of the six horses, came rattling across the bridge and rolling into Yale, the fat girl would be the first to deposit her ample person at the bank or the express office, whence gold could safely be sent on down to Victoria. And when she emerged half an hour later she would have thinned perceptibly. Then the rough miner, who had not addressed a word to her on the way down, for fear of a confidence man aboard, would present 'Susy' with a handsome reward in the form of a gaudy dress or a year's provisions.
Start from a road-house was made at dawn, when the clouds still hung heavy on the mountains and the peaks were all reflected in the glacial waters. The passengers tumbled dishevelled from log-walled rooms where the beds were bench berths, and ate breakfast in adining-hall where the seats were hewn logs. The fare consisted of ham fried in slabs, eggs ancient and transformed to leather in lard, slapjacks, known as 'Rocky Mountain dead shot,' in maple syrup that never saw a maple tree and was black as a pot, and potatoes in soggy pyramids. Yet so keen was the mountain air, so stimulating the ozone of the resinous hemlock forests, that the most fastidious traveller felt he had fared sumptuously, and gaily paid the two-fifty for the meal. Perhaps there was time to wash in the common tin basin at the door, where the towel always bore evidence of patronage; perhaps not; anyhow, no matter. Washing was only a trivial incident of mountain travel in those days.
The passenger jumped for a place in the coach; the long whip cracked. The horses sprang forward; and away the stage rattled round curves where a hind wheel would try to go over the edge—only the driver didn't let it; down embankments where any normal wagon would have upset, but this one didn't; up sharp grades where no horses ought to be driven at a trot, but where the six persisted in going at a gallop! The passenger didn't mind the jolting that almost dislocated his spine. He didn't mind the negro who sat onone side of him or the fat squaw who sat on the other. He was thankful not to be held up by highwaymen, or dumped into the wild cataract of waters below. Outside was a changing panorama of mountain and canyon, with a world of forests and lakes. Inside was a drama of human nature to outdo any curtain-raiser he had ever witnessed—a baronet who had lost in the game and was going home penniless, perhaps earning his way by helping with the horses; an outworn actress who had been trying her luck at the dance-halls; a gambler pretending that he was a millionaire; a saloon-keeper with a few thousands in his pockets and a diamond in his shirt the size of a pebble; a tenderfoot rigged out as a veteran, with buckskin coat, a belt full of artillery, fearfully and wonderfully made new high-boots, and a devil-may-care air that deceived no one but himself; a few Shuswaps and Siwashes, fat, ill-smelling, insolent, and plainly highly amused in their beady, watchful, black, ferret eyes at the mad ways of this white race; a still more ill-smelling Chinaman; and a taciturn, grizzled, ragged fellow, paying no attention to the fat squaw, keeping his observations and his thoughts inside his high-boots, but likely as not to turn out the man whowould conduct the squaw to the bank or the express office at Yale.
If one could get a seat outside with the guards and the driver—one who knew how to unlock the lore of these sons of the hills—he was lucky; for he would learn who made his strike there, who was murdered at another place, how the sneak-thief trailed the tenderfoot somewhere else—all of it romance, much of it fiction, much of it fact, but no fiction half so marvellous as the fact.
Bull-teams of twenty yokes, long lines of pack-horses led by a bell-mare, mule-teams with a tinkling of bells and singing of the drivers, met the stage and passed with happy salute. At nightfall the camp-fires of foot travellers could be seen down at the water's edge. And there was always danger enough to add zest to the journey. Wherever there are hordes of hungry, adventurous men, there will be desperadoes. In spite of Begbie's justice, robberies occurred on the road and not a few murders. The time going in and out varied; but the journey could be made in five days and was often made in four.
The building of the Cariboo Road had an important influence on the camp that its builders could not foresee. The unknown ElDorado is always invested with a fabulous glamour that draws to ruin the reckless and the unfit. Before the road was built adventurers had arrived in Cariboo expecting to pick up pails of nuggets at the bottom of a rainbow. Their disillusionment came; but there was an easy way back to the world. They did not stay to breed crime and lawlessness in the camp. 'The walking'—as Begbie expressed it—'was all down hill and the road was good, especially for thugs.' While there were ten thousand men in Cariboo in the winter of '62 and perhaps twenty thousand in the winter of '63, there were less than five thousand in '71.
This does not mean that the camp had collapsed. It had simply changed from a poor man's camp to a camp for a capitalist or a company. It will be remembered that the miners first found the gold in flakes, then farther up in nuggets, then that the nuggets had to be pursued to pay-dirt beneath gravel and clay. This meant shafts, tunnels, hydraulic machinery, stamp-mills. Later, when the pay-dirt showed signs of merging into quartz, there passed away for ever the day of the penniless prospector seeking the golden fleece of the hills as his predecessor, thetrapper, had sought the pelt of the little beaver.
All unwittingly, the miner, as well as the trapper, was an instrument in the hands of destiny, an instrument for shaping empire; for it was the inrush of miners which gave birth to the colony of British Columbia. Federation with the Canadian Dominion followed in 1871; the railway and the settler came; and the man with the pick and his eyes on the 'float' gave place to the man with the plough.
The episode of Cariboo is so recent that the bibliography on it is not very complete.British Columbia, by Judge Howay and E. O. S. Scholefield, provincial librarian, is the last and most accurate word on the history of that province, though one could wish that the authors had given more human-document records in the biographical section. In a very few years there will be no old-timers of the trail left; and, after all, it is the human document that gives colour and life to history. It was my privilege to know some of the Overlanders intimately. One of the companies who rafted down the Fraser came from the county where I was born; and though they preceded my day, their terrible experiences were a household word. With others I have poled the Fraser on those very tempestuous waters that took such toll of life in '62. Others have been my hosts. I have gone up and down the Arrow Lakes in a steamer as a guest of the man who came through the worst experiences of the Overlanders. Chance conversations are shifty guides on dates and place-names. For these, regarding the Overlanders, I have relied on Mrs MacNaughton'sCariboo.
Gosnell'sBritish Columbia Year Bookand Hubert Howe Bancroft'sBritish Columbiaare very full on this era. Walter Moberly's pamphlets on the building of the trail and Mr Alexander's casual addresses are excellent. Old files of the KamloopsSentineland the VictoriaColonistare full of scattered data. Anderson'sHand Book of 1858, Begbie's Report to the London Geographical Society, 1861; Begg'sBritish Columbia;Fraser's Journal; Mayne'sBritish Columbia, 1862; Milton and Cheadle'sNorth West Passage, 1865; Palliser'sReport, 1859; Waddington'sFraser River Mines—all afford sidelights on this adventurous era. On the prospector's daily life there is no book. That must be learned from him on the trail; and on many camp trips in the Rockies, with prospectors for guides, I have picked up such facts as I could.
Alexander, Mr, his tragic experience on the Fraser,77-8; quoted,93,111.
Anderson, James, the Scottish miner poet,50,90,95-8.
Antler Creek,44.
Barker, Billy,47.
Barkerville,46; life in,94-8; the Cariboo Road terminus,103.
Begbie, Sir Matthew Baillie, chief justice of British Columbia,37,38,39,88; his popularity with the miners,91-4,102,108,111.
Big Canyon,34.
Black, John, Presbyterian 'apostle of the Red River,'57.
British Columbia, proclaimed a crown colony,37; and the building of
the Cariboo Road,100-1; and the miners,109. See Cariboo, Fraser
river, Vancouver.
Cameron, Cariboo,47-8,50.
Cameron, Mrs,89.
Cariboo, prospecting in,41-5; the mad rush for,45-6,51-2,53-4; the mines a freakish gamble,47-8; changes in,107-9. See Barkerville and Overlanders.
Cariboo Road,19; the building of the,82,99-103; its effect on the mines,107-9; stagecoach travel on,103-7.
Cariboo Trail, perils of the,50-51; evolution of,64. See Cariboo Road.
China Bar,35.
Cridge, Rev. Edward,6.
Dallas, Alexander, governor of Rupert's Land,55.
Deitz, Billy,44,50.
Douglas, Sir James, governor of Vancouver Island,5,8,10; quells disturbances on the Fraser,35-7,37-8; governor of British Columbia,37,38; builds the Cariboo Road,101.
Edmonton, the Overlanders at,61.
Finlayson, Roderick, chief trader at Victoria,1-3,5,6,8
Fort George, the Overlanders at,81,84.
Fort Langley, British Columbia proclaimed at,37,100.
Fraser, Colin, and the Overlanders,64-5.
Fraser, Simon, explorer,81.
Fraser Canyon14,19,64
Fraser river, the quest for gold on,8-9,10,11-22,27-32,51-2; disturbances among the Indians,33-5; and the whites,37-40; the Overlanders on,70,71-2. See Gold-fields, Miners.
Gold, prospecting for,17-18,20-21,27-8; the lure of the 'float,'
21-2,23-5,25-6,28; mining for,29-30. See Gold-fields, Miners.
Gold-fields, the price of commodities in,13,16-17,29,47,96,105; 'claim jumping,'40; unused gold a curse,88-9,104; hurdy-gurdy girls,89-90,96,104.
Hope,29,36,38,42.
Horse Fly Creek,41.
Howay, Judge, quoted,11,110.
Hudson's Bay Company, and the quest for gold,1-4; and Vancouver Island,5-6; and the diggings on the Fraser,16,100; and the Indians,34-5; and the Overlanders,55,57,60,61-3.
Indians of the Fraser, and the quest for gold,12-13; their hostility,33-6; and the Overlanders,81. See Shuswaps.
Ireland, Mr, his rescue party,50-1.
Kamloops,86-7.
Keithley, Doc,42-4.
Langley,37,100.
Lightning Creek,45.
Long Bar,35.
MacDonald, Sandy,42-4.
M'Gowan, Ned, his affair on the Fraser,37-40.
M'Kay, James, chief trader at Fort Ellice,60.
Mackenzie, Alexander, explorer,81.
Maclean, chief factor at Kamloops,4.
M'Loughlin, John,34.
M'Micking, Thomas, captain of the Overlanders,58-9,69,72.
MacNaughton, Mrs, quoted,71,84,110.
Mayne, Lieutenant, and the Yale riots,38,39,111.
Miners, in the wilds,26; disappointed gold-seekers,13,16; some lucky prospectors,22-5,47-51; the miner and his boy,26-7; their packhorses,27,103; form vigilance committees,33-5; their rough-and-ready justice,89; their chivalry,89,91; the effect of sudden wealth on,94-6; a device for concealing gold,104,106-7; an instrument for shaping empire,109. See Fraser river, Gold, Gold-fields.
Moberly, Walter, his experiences on the Fraser,16,17,111.
Moody, Colonel, and the Yale riots,37-9.
Muskeg and slough, the difference between,65n.
Overlanders, the, at St Paul,54; their meeting with the Sioux warriors,55; on the Red River steamer,54,55-6; and the Hudson's Bay Company,55,57,60,61-3; at Winnipeg,56-7; on the trail to Edmonton,57-61; and the husky-dogs,60,62-3; reach Yellowhead Pass,62,63-7; cross the Divide and reach the Fraser,68-72; the party separate,71,73; on the Fraser,73-81,83-4; a question for psychologists,77-8; a gruesome story,78-9; reach Quesnel,81,84; Kamloops,85-7.
Prospecting for gold on the Fraser,17-22,25-6,27-9,30-32,40; some lucky prospectors and their fate,47-51; theory regarding gold deposits,48-9.
Psychology, a question of,77-8.
Queen Charlotte Islands, discovery of gold in,3.
Quesnel,81-3,84.
Quesnel Lake,41.
Red River, the first steamer on,54-6; Red River carts,56-7.
Rose, John,42-4,50.
Saskatchewan, the quest for gold on the,63-4.
Shubert, Mrs, with the Overlanders,60,66,67,73,86.
Shuswaps, the, and the Overlanders,71,72,73,74,83,84.
Sioux, the,54-5.
Snyder, Captain, leads attack on the Indians,34-5.
Spuzzum, a fight with Indians at,34-5.
Stout, Ed,44.
Taché, Mgr, bishop of St Boniface,55,56.
Vancouver Island, the first Council and Legislative Assembly of,5and note. See Victoria.
Victoria, and the quest for gold,1,5,6-7; and the rush for the Fraser,7-8,9,10; and the matrimonial scheme,90-91. See Vancouver Island.
Weaver, George,42-4.
William's Creek,44,45,48.
Winnipeg,56-7.
Work, John, chief factor at Victoria,6.
Wright, Captain Tom, a Yankee skipper on the Fraser,16,38.
Yale,9,13,16,29,33,34,36,37-40,42.
Yellowhead Pass,64,67,68.