Arts, Faculty of
Geography, Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Bunn, Agnus Macleod
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
Mining frontiers have rarely attracted the attention of geographers because of the transitory nature of settlement in such areas. However, a more stable pattern of settlement emerges if the area of study is broadened to include the supply centres for the mines and the transportation routes along which the supplies were carried. The permanent impact of mining on settlement occurred in these service centres and along the main transportation routes leading to the mines. This study examines the nature of the permanent impact on British Columbia of the gold rushes which occurred between I858 and 1866. These rushes established a new pattern of settlement which remained until the coming of the railway in 1885, and, later, they acted as guidelines in the development of settlement. The British Columbia frontier was part of a larger frontier which was opened in California in 1848 and spread northward and eastward in the ensuing twenty years. San Francisco early secured a dominant position as the manufacturing centre for this frontier area, and it retained this position throughout the period of the British Columbia gold rushes. As a result, British Columbia remained within San Francisco's hinterland from 1858 to 1885 and most of the gold mined was shipped to the San Francisco Mint to pay for manufactured goods. The main flow of gold arrived when the United States Government was in very great need of gold to hack its borrowing for the conduct of the Civil War. The determination of the Colonial Government of British Columbia to secure political autonomy in spite of economic dependence on the United States led to the construction of costly wagon roads from east to west across the mountain barrier of the Coast ranges. These roads funneled trade from the interior of the Province through the Lower Fraser Valley to New Westminster and Victoria and thus avoided the traditional Columbia fur trade supply routes which lay in United States Territory. The wagon roads inaugurated a new era of transportation, and determined the locations of all important subsequent transportation routes in the southwestern part of Mainland British Columbia. Land was a strong interest among those who arrived in the gold rushes, and, at times, this land interest rivalled their interest in gold. The group of settlements subsequently established in the Lower Fraser Valley formed the nuclei of many present day communities, and the system of land survey which guided some of these early settlements shaped subsequent patterns of transportation. In the Province as a whole the patterns of settlement established between 1858 and 1866 remained substantially the same until the coming of the railway in I885. With the coming of the railway the Province entered a new phase of economic development, but the broad lines of settlement which the gold rushes created remained dominant and today they are still evident in the spatial organization of economic activities. Gold initiated a pattern which was confirmed by the subsequent construction of the trans-continental railway, the growth of the forest industries, and the development of agriculture.
GOLD AND THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1858-1885 by ANGUS MACLEOD GUNN B.Ed., University of British Columbia, 1961 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Geography We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1965 In p r e s e n t i n g t h i s t h e s i s i n p a r t i a l f u l f i l m e n t o f t h e r e q u i r e m e n t s f o r an advanced degree a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f B r i t i s h C o l u m b i a , I a g r e e t h a t t h e L i b r a r y s h a l l make i t f r e e l y a v a i l a b l e f o r r e f e r e n c e and s t u d y . I f u r t h e r a g r e e t h a t p e r -m i s s i o n f o r e x t e n s i v e c o p y i n g o f t h i s t h e s i s f o r s c h o l a r l y p u r p o s e s may be g r a n t e d by t h e Head o f my Department o r by h i s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s . . I t i s u n d e r s t o o d t h a t c o p y i n g o r p u b l i -c a t i o n o f t h i s t h e s i s f o r f i n a n c i a l g a i n s h a l l not be a l l o w e d w i t h o u t my w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . Department o f Geography The U n i v e r s i t y o f B r i t i s h Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date r^K^- iw- 2 7 I^Ls ii ABSTRACT Mining f r o n t i e r s have r a r e l y a t t r a c t e d the a t t e n t i o n of geographers because of the t r a n s i t o r y nature of settlement i n such a r e a s . However, a more s t a b l e p a t t e r n of settlement emerges i f the a r e a of study i s broadened to i n c l u d e the supply c e n t r e s f o r the mines and the t r a n s p o r -t a t i o n r o u t e s a l o n g which the s u p p l i e s were c a r r i e d . The permanent impact of mining on settlement o c c u r r e d i n these s e r v i c e c e n t r e s and a l o n g the main t r a n s p o r t a t i o n r o u t e s l e a d i n g to the mines. T h i s study examines the nature of the permanent impact on B r i t i s h Columbia of the g o l d rushes which occ u r r e d between I 8 5 8 and 1 8 6 6 . These rushes estab-l i s h e d a new p a t t e r n of settlement which remained u n t i l the coming of the r a i l w a y i n 1 8 8 5 , and, l a t e r , they a c t e d as g u i d e l i n e s i n the development of s e t t l e m e n t . The B r i t i s h Columbia f r o n t i e r was p a r t of a l a r g e r f r o n t i e r which was opened i n C a l i f o r n i a i n 1 8 4 8 and spread northward and eastward i n the ensuing twenty y e a r s . San F r a n c i s c o e a r l y secured a dominant p o s i t i o n as the manu-f a c t u r i n g c e n t r e f o r t h i s f r o n t i e r a r e a , and i t r e t a i n e d t h i s p o s i t i o n throughout the p e r i o d of the B r i t i s h Columbia g o l d rushes. As a r e s u l t , B r i t i s h Columbia remained w i t h i n San F r a n c i s c o ' s h i n t e r l a n d from 1 8 5 8 to 1 8 8 5 and most of the g o l d mined was shipped to the San F r a n c i s c o i i i Mint to pay for manufactured goods. The main flow of gold arrived when the United States Government was in very great need of gold to hack i t s borrowing for the conduct of the C i v i l War. The determination of the Colonial Government of British Columbia to secure p o l i t i c a l autonomy in spite of economic dependence on the United States led to the con-struction of costly wagon roads from east to west across the mountain barrier of the Coast ranges. These roads funneled trade from the interior of the Province through the Lower Fraser Valley to New Westminster and Victoria and thus avoided the traditional Columbia fur trade supply routes which lay in United States Territory. The wagon roads inaugurated a new era of transportation, and deter-mined the locations of a l l important subsequent transpor-tation routes in the southwestern part of Mainland British Columbia. Land was a strong interest among those who arrived in the gold rushes, and, at times, this land interest rivalled their interest in gold. The group of settlements subsequently established in the Lower Fraser Valley formed the nuclei of many present day communities, and the system of land survey which guided some of these early settlements shaped subsequent patterns of transportation. In the Province as a whole the patterns of settlement established between 1858 and 1866 remained substantially the same u n t i l the"coming of the railway i n I885. With the coming of the railway the Province entered a new phase of economic devel-opment, but the broad l i n e s of settlement which the gold rushes created remained dominant and today they are s t i l l evident i n the s p a t i a l organization of economic a c t i v i t i e s . Gold i n i t i a t e d a pattern which was confirmed by the subse-quent construction of the trans-continental railway, the growth of the forest i n d u s t r i e s , and the development of agric u l t u r e . TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION '. 1 The Problem 1 The Methods 5 II. THE FAR WEST MINING FRONTIERS 8 Gold in the United States Economy 8 The California Gold.Rush 10 Movement of the Frontier 14 San Francisco's Hinterland 15 III. THE BRITISH COLUMBIA FRONTIER PRIOR TO 1858 . . 18 The Fur Trade 18 British Colonial Administration 21 IV. THE GOLD RUSHES OF THE PERIOD I 8 5 8 - I 8 6 6 . . . . 25 The I n i t i a l Impact 25 Movement into the Interior 3 1 The Scale of Gold Production 35 Administrative Impediments 38 V. ACCESS TO THE GOLD CENTRES 42 The Inherited Transportation System 42 The Transition from Pack-animal to Steamer and Wagon 45 The Wagon Road Era 47 v i CHAPTER PAGE VI. SUPPLY ROUTES AND SETTLEMENT 5 2 The Establishment of Supply Routes 52 Supply Routes and Commercial Centres 5^ Supply Routes and the Beginnings of Rural Settlement 6 3 VII. CONCLUSIONS 72 Local Factors 7 3 Generic Attributes ?6 Commercial Centres 76 Transportation Routes 77 Rural Occupance 78 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . 82 (///' LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE V i c t o r i a ' s Trade, 1 8 6 1 - 1 8 6 3 16 I I . M i n e r s on the F r a s e r , 1858 28 I I I . G o l d P r o d u c t i o n i n B r i t i s h Columbia 36 IV. G o l d P r o d u c t i o n i n B r i t i s h Columbia and C a l i f o r n i a 37 V. P o p u l a t i o n s o f V i c t o r i a , New Westminster and Y a l e 55 VI?. P o p u l a t i o n s o f San F r a n c i s c o , P o r t l a n d , V i c t o r i a and New Westminster 59 V I I . P o p u l a t i o n s o f P r i n c i p a l R u r a l Communities i n the Lower F r a s e r V a l l e y 70 WiV LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Lower Fraser Valley 91 '2) The Far West Mining Frontiers 11 3. Indian Population, 1835; Fur Trade Forts, 1805-184-9 19 j 2 The British Columbia Gold Rushes 30 5. Main Routes Before, During, and After the Gold Rushes 4-3 IP, Hierarchy of Service Centres, 1865 54-7. Lower Fraser Valley Pre-emptions 68 8) British Columbia: Populations of Selected Areas, 1857, 1870, 1961 80 ' X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank the following people and organizations for their help in the preparation of this thesis: the staffs of the Departments of History and Geography, University of British Columbia, particularly Dr. David Ward and Dr. Alfred Siemens of the Department of Geography for their advice, encouragement, and guidance; the Government Agents and their staffs in Vancouver and New Westminster; Provincial Archives, Victoria; Legal Surveys Division of the Department of Lands and Forests, Victoria. The author also wishes to acknowledge with thanks the assistance given by his wife in proof reading and in typing. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I . THE PROBLEM I n J a n u a r y of 1 8 5 8 t h e r e were fewer t h a n 2 0 0 w h i t e p e o p l e i n a l l o f M a i n l a n d B r i t i s h C o lumbia, and t h e s e p e o p l e were m a i n l y concerned w i t h the f u r t r a d e . They were l o c a t e d i n s i x t e e n f o r t s s c a t t e r e d t h r o u g h o u t the a r e a l a t e r known as the Colony o f B r i t i s h Columbia. From 1 8 5 8 t o 1866 a s e r i e s o f g o l d r u s h e s o c c u r r e d i n t h i s a r e a , and t h e s e r u s h e s b r o u g h t t o an end t h e e r a o f f u r t r a d i n g , f o c u s s e d w o r l d - w ide a t t e n t i o n on a h i t h e r t o unknown t e r r i t o r y , ' made a v a i l a b l e a s u b s t a n t i a l amount of c a p i t a l , and t h u s a t t r a c t e d a l a r g e number o f p e o p l e w i t h a v a r i e t y o f i n t e r e s t s : g o l d , l a n d , f o o d and accommodation s e r v i c e s , and t r a n s p o r t a t i o n . Between March and October o f 1 8 5 8 t h e F r a s e r Rush a l o n e ( F i g . 1) b r o u g h t some t h i r t y thousand Americans i n t o the F r a s e r V a l l e y i n the v i c i n i t y o f Hope ( F i g . 1). The i n t e r e s t o f b o t h B r i t i s h and American a u t h o r i t i e s was a c c o r d -i n g l y f o c u s s e d on t h i s p a r t o f the P a c i f i c N o r t h w e s t , and e x t e n s i v e e x p l o r a t i o n was promoted by the B r i t i s h C o l o n i a l O f f i c e . W i t h i n twenty y e a r s a new c o l o n y had been e s t a b -l i s h e d , new towns such as New Wes t m i n s t e r , Hope, Y a l e , L y t t o n ( F i g . 5 ) had emerged, and new f o r e s t i n d u s t r i e s had expanded to compensate for declining gold fortunes. The coming of the railway in 1885 introduced a new generative factor into the economy of British Columbia and so modified the influence of gold. But the inheritance of gold, though modest, persisted in a l l subsequent phases of the occupance of British Columbia so that, today, the early gold rushes are very important in terms of an understanding of the con-temporary scene. The settlement process represents the clearest record of the above technical, social, and economic developments, and so the present study investigates the effects of gold on rural and urban settlement, and on communication patterns. The focus of interest is the enduring impact of gold as distinct from i t s more publicized expressions in such things as mining ghost-towns and their associated landscape r e l i c s . Both the distinctive regional characteristics which differ-entiated the British Columbia gold rushes from those of other-countries, and the role of location in the rapid growth of some areas, are included in the investigation. Mining frontiers have rarely attracted the attention of geographers, partly because of the transitory nature of settlement in such places, and partly because the rapid changes of population and of economic fortunes made i t d i f f i -cult to secure reliable distributional data. E. W. Kersten's 3 study of Aurora, Nevada i s one of the few studies of a mining 1 f r o n t i e r . The r a p i d i t y of change, and the general insta-b i l i t y of the population, i n a gold rush f r o n t i e r of the early I860»s i s well i l l u s t r a t e d by R. W. Paul i n the f o l -2 lowing extract. Paul i s describing conditions t y p i c a l of Nevada and Montana but his description f i t s very closely the circumstances of the Fraser Gold Rush of 1858. The cycle started, i n most cases, with a r e a l or alleged d i s c o v e r y — i t might be e i t h e r - - i n an area l i t t l e known to white man. Quite commonly the area was one of d i f f i c u l t topography or climate. After a very b r i e f period of concealment by the o r i g i n a l discoverers, rumors would leak out and quickly become exaggerated. A disorderly crowd would then come rushing i n to the new El Dorado. Usually the leaders were a few veterans of previous s i m i l a r excitements, but the bulk of the popu-l a t i o n , being quite inexperienced, was bound to suffer disappointment and hardship . . . The early discoverers would s e l l out to the "tenderfoot", or the man with c a p i t a l , and push off on prospecting t r i p s into the surrounding area, thereby increasing the known area . . . A b r i e f period of f l u s h production (usually l e s s than six years) would follow . . . then depression followed by subsequent booms with increased c a p i t a l and technical a b i l i t y , or general decline . . . In either case the ultimate fate was the status of a ghost town. It i s easy to see how a geographer would be discour-aged from undertaking serious d i s t r i b u t i o n a l studies i n such an area. The ef f e c t of a gold mining f r o n t i e r on service E. W. Kersten, "The Early Settlement of Aurora, Nevada, and Nearby Mining Camps," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1964, p. 490. 2R. W. Paul, Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880, pp. 9-10. centres-and transportation routes was, however, both more permanent and more extensive for, in such cases, the decline of gold production in one mining camp would be offset by the appearance of a new mine within the hinterland of the service \ centre which supplied the f i r s t camp. In this way the cumu-,'lative needs of mining over large areas maintained the service centres. In the early days of most gold rushes the number of people employed in the service industries was equal to the number at work in the mines, as Paul has shown \ / Half the people in Boise Basin were engaged in (mining; the other half in serving those who mined. This jdivision of labor was not unlike that ascribed to Cali-/ fornia in i t s flush days. Merchants, lumbermen, hotel, \ restaurant, and saloon keepers, gamblers, theatrical /people, blacksmiths, lawyers, teamsters, ranchers, and lan occasional minister, a l l these could be seen thrusting their way through the crowded, crooked streets of the Basin's towns and camps. In time the size and importance of the service centres far outgrew the mining camps, and indeed the former became more and more independent of the minerals which had brought their f i r s t wealth. Sacramento and New Westminster, for example, soon outgrew their original function as mine service centres. Some of the transportation routes like the Yale-Cariboo Wagon Road remained important after gold production Ibid., p. 1 3 9 . 5 had declined, and formed a pre-existing pattern for later t r a f f i c in both highways and railways. In British Columbia various components of the contemporary spatial organization of economic a c t i v i t i e s , and significant elements of the cultural landscape, can be traced directly to the circum-stances and consequences of the gold rushes of 1858 and of the I860*s. II. THE METHODS The analysis of the impact of gold mining on settle-ment has both distributional and developmental dimensions and this study therefore f a l l s naturally into the category of historical geography. The approach of historical geog-raphy to settlement has matured over the past two decades as a growing body of case studies have demonstrated both i t s strengths and i t s weaknesses. Historical geographers have approached their data and problems both in terms of the reconstruction of past geog-raphies and in relation to regional development. Sequent occupance studies were among the f i r s t endeavour to relate ^A. H. Clark, "Historical Geography," American Geography: inventory and Prospect, 1954; H. C. Darby, The Domesday Geography of England, 4- vols., 1952-1962. settlement to the developmental process.-3 These studies saw settlement as a succession of stages of human occupance in which the enduring attributes of one stage were seen to affect i t s successor. The predominant purpose, however, was to ex-plain the contemporary scene. Frequently the stages, or cross-sectional views, were selected without a sense of historical priority, and often within periods of slow change where data was limited. As a result i t was d i f f i c u l t to understand the process of change i t s e l f . In recent years a promising line of development focusses on the geography of change as a f i e l d of investi-gation in i t s own right, in the context of a c r i t i c a l place and time. This study of the gold rushes of British Columbia may be considered as a study of geographical change in these terms. It deals with the spatial characteristics of an area which was experiencing rapid social and economic changes within a period of time clearly marked off at i t s beginning by the transition from fur trading to gold mining, and at i t s ending by the arrival of the trans-continental railway. D^. Whittlesey, "Sequent Occupance," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1929, pp. l62-To"5; P. E. James, "The.Blackstone Valley," Annals of the Asso-ciation of American Geographers, 1929, pp. 67-109; J. 0. M. Broek, The Santa Clara Valley. 6 A. H. Clark, "Geographical Change—a Theme for Economic History," Journal of Economic History, December, I 9 6 0 ; Clark, 7 The cultural and economic milieu of the area under study was the rapid advance of the "mining frontiers of the Far West" between 1848 and 1880. Technical, social, and economic aspects of the various developments in British Columbia were rooted in earlier activities in American areas to the south. The analysis thus opens with a survey of the development of western mining areas and their effect upon the rushes north of the International Boundary. This anal-ysis provides comparative data with which to understand the local and generic studies of British Columbia which follow. "The Coordinates of Historical Geography," Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, 1964. CHAPTER II THE FAR WEST MINING FRONTIERS I. GOLD IN THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY The opening of a series of mining frontiers in the West in 1848 coincided with a continental demand for gold— a demand which was greatest between 184-5 and 1865. Gold has always held a fascination for man. It was probably the f i r s t metal worked because ornaments are so easily shaped from i t . ' When trade developed to the point where barter systems became inadequate, gold was the metal chosen to back currency, and to establish a system of credit, largely because of i t s qual-i t i e s of malleability, duc t i l i t y , rareness, and freedom from tarnishing. That system of credit i s s t i l l a powerful factor in present day international relations as the following ex-8 tract from the Vancouver Times shows: Gold i s of l i t t l e commercial value and i t s demand stems only from medieval traditions that persist in the world of international finance. In spite of i t s use-lessness, demand for gold has been so great that i t is threatening to devalue the currency of the world's richest and most powerful nation. 'E. Bagley, The Story of River Gold and Its Recovery, p. 1. 8 Vancouver Times, January 8, I965. 9 That "most powerful nation," the United States, was experiencing a similar currency threat a l i t t l e over a hun-dred years ago because of the shortage of gold. A rapid in-crease in international trade was occurring.^ Tonnage had doubled between I838 and 1 8 4 - 9 . It doubled again in the f o l -lowing decade. This commercial growth, which reflected so accurately the cumulative progress of the Industrial Revolu-tion, was also marked by the appearance of larger, faster, and better-equipped ships. The immediate effect of the growth in trade was a new demand for gold to provide a larger basis for credit and currency. Californian gold was dis-covered at this time of great demand. The volume of Californian production was enormous— averaging over $70 million a year between 1852 and 1 8 5 4 — y e t , in spite of these large additions to the world's gold supply, the succeeding decade brought no diminution in world demand. The advent of the C i v i l War had created new credit needs within the United States and, indeed, in February of 1862, the United States Government was forced to issue the "Green-backs" as a new form of paper currency. The f i r s t issue was for $150 million, and the only gold backing i t received was the promise of interest payments in gold. The issue was in-7G. R. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, p. 195; W. P. Morrell, The Gold Rushes, Preface. tended to be a temporary measure but by June of 1865 there were greenbacks in circulation to the value of $500 million. Confidence in the greenbacks had by this time fallen, and $100 worth could be purchased for $35 of gold. Thus anyone holding gold could secure 15$ or more interest on an invest-ment, when the o f f i c i a l rate of interest was 6$, through the purchase of greenbacks by gold and the receipt of interest in gold. Under such circumstances a steady demand for the precious metal was inevitable. II. THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH In January of 1848 gold was discovered at Sutter's M i l l , to the east of Sacramento (Fig. 2), and so the f i r s t and best-known of the western mining frontiers appeared. Its i s o l a t i o n — a problem which was to be even more acute a decade later as the intermontane, and the more northerly sources of gold were exposed—is suggested in Paul's de-11 scription of the long trek westward in 1849: By steamer, sailing ship, and overland wagon tens of thousands of Americans departed in the early months of 1849. In wagons they toiled along the Oregon Trail to the Rockies, thence across the arid lands of Utah and Nevada to the f i n a l barrier of the Sierra Nevada. In sailing ships they fought heavy weather off Cape E. C. Kirkland, Industry Comes of Age, p. 18. Paul, op_. c i t . , p. 15. L e q e n d San. Francisco's hinterland in 186 5 400 miles S A N I FRANCISCO THE FAR WEST MINING FRONTIERS (R.W. PAUL : MINING FRONTIERS OF THE FAR WEST, 1848- 1880) A. M.G. 12 Horn, pumped endless hours to keep t h e i r leaky ships from sinking, and l i v e d on poor food and rationed drinking water. It has been estimated that the population of C a l i -f o r n i a p r i o r to the gold rush was approximately 14,000. By the close of 184-9 there were 100,000; by the l a t t e r part of 12 1852 there were 250,000; and by i860, 380,000. These figures are i n sharp contrast to the increases recorded f o r commercial or a g r i c u l t u r a l pioneer areas of the West. In Utah the Mormon colonizers were able to add 11,000 be-tween 1847 and 1850. Oregon, whose attractions were ad-ve r t i s e d across the nation, drew 10,000 s e t t l e r s between 1840 and 1848. Sudden growth of great proportions was to be t y p i c a l of the new mining f r o n t i e r s . Sudden decline was to be equally c h a r a c t e r i s t i c . Fortunately f o r the 1848 pioneers, C a l i f o r n i a pro-vided physical conditions unusually favourable for the simplest kind of placer mining. Placer deposits were shallow, r e l a t i v e l y accessible, and very extensive. Had i t been otherwise the Gold Rush would have ended within a few months, f o r most of the gold seekers were Ignorant of every-thing connected with mining. So r i c h were the v i r g i n de-posits that the only technique needed was to dig out the gold with a knife or shovel and wash i t i n a pan. The high spe-Ibid. 13 c i f i c gravity of gold ensured i t s retention when other mate-r i a l s were washed away. A few of the miners had previously worked gold deposits i n the Southeastern parts of the United States, and i n the l a t t e r part of 1848 these men introduced the "rocker" or "cradle." This instrument greatly increased production. During 184-9 and 1850 q u i c k s i l v e r was introduced as an a i d i n separating the very fine gold. Two years l a t e r , i n 1852, mining techniques passed beyond the point of using well-established methods, and the f i r s t of the d i s t i n c t l y C a l i f o r n i a n techniques—hydraulic mining—made i t s appear-13 ance. J When the Gold Rush began, C a l i f o r n i a had a small m i l i t a r y government which was unable to maintain law and order i n the many camps and towns scattered throughout the State. Finding themselves l e f t to t h e i r own devices, the new communities worked out t h e i r own solutions. Each l o c a l area formed i t s e l f into a d i s t r i c t , appointed a presiding o f f i c e r , drafted a code of laws, and kept a record of mining claims. A miners* jury, consisting of a dozen men or even the whole camp, would try cases of robbery and murder. Punishment was often severe and swift. In some areas self-appointed " v i g i -lance committees" were formed. These groups were semi-J. S. H i t t e l , Resources of C a l i f o r n i a , pp. 24-1-284. 14 m i l i t a r y i n organization. They captured and t r i e d alleged criminals i n secrecy, and f o r a time superseded a l l estab-l i s h e d forms of law enforcement. Many of the miners who came to B r i t i s h Columbia i n the Rush of 1858 had l i v e d i n communities ruled by v i g i l a n c e committees. I I I . MOVEMENT OP THE FRONTIER For ten years a f t e r the Sutter's M i l l discovery gold mining was confined to C a l i f o r n i a . Then quite suddenly the f r o n t i e r moved to the Fraser i n I 8 5 8 . W. J. Trimble has 1/4. summarized the reasons for t h i s sudden change: Conditions i n C a l i f o r n i a early i n I858 were favorable fo r a swift and great exodus of population to a promising f i e l d . Production was decreasing . . . Moreover, the conditions and methods of production were changing. At f i r s t i t had been comparatively easy f o r men to f i n d good claims which could be cheaply worked . . . but now, with the exhaustion of the surface layers, there was increasing necessity for the employment of c a p i t a l on a large scale and of resort to corporate methods i n order to work the deep diggings. The Fraser Gold Rush was, however, short-lived. Most of the thousands who s a i l e d from San Francisco (Fig. 2 ) i n A p r i l and May were back by October. But there were other promising new sources of gold. In 184-9 came the discovery of gold and s i l v e r i n Western Nevada (Fig. 2 ) , one of the most l u c r a t i v e of a l l mining opportunities. Between I860 -"-^W. J. Trimble, The Mining Advance into the Inland Empire, p. 2 6 . 15 and 1862 g o l d d i s c o v e r i e s were made i n Idaho, and i n Montana between 1862 and 1864- ( F i g . 2). B r i t i s h Columbia recovered i t s r e p u t a t i o n with new d i s c o v e r i e s i n 1861. The E a s t e r n Rockies, and e s p e c i a l l y P i k e s Peak, a t t r a c t e d miners from the M i s s i s s i p p i V a l l e y as w e l l as from C a l i f o r n i a . During the 1850*s and I860 ,s there was a simultaneous advance i n t o the i n t e r i o r of the Far West from both the P a c i f i c Coast and the M i s s i s s i p p i V a l l e y t o e x p l o i t the m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s . The d i v i d i n g l i n e between these two advances was the e a s t e r n boundary of San F r a n c i s c o ' s h i n t e r l a n d ( F i g . 2). The extent of the t o t a l p o p u l a t i o n movements i s suggested by the popu-l a t i o n s of s e v e r a l Western S t a t e s f o r the year 1866. There were 50,000 people i n Nevada; 20,000 i n Idaho; and 20,000 i n Montana, and the v a s t m a j o r i t y of these came with the g o l d r u s h e s . ^ There were no l e s s than 200 mining camps i n 16 Nevada a t t h i s time, and 100 i n Idaho. IV. SAN FRANCISCO'S HINTERLAND In the movement eastward and northward from C a l i -f o r n i a , San F r a n c i s c o remained the predominant supply and market c e n t r e . The e s t a b l i s h e d oceanic commercial connec-P a c i f i c Coast Business D i r e c t o r y , I867. W. P. M o r r e l l , The Gold Rushes, p. 194. . 16 t i o n s , and the pioneer steamboat companies i n the Great Valley and along the Coast enabled San Francisco to esta b l i s h i t s primacy over a large area extending from the Stikine River i n the North to a point just east of the Colorado i n the South (Fig. 2). Even B r i t i s h Columbia, one thousand miles away, was supplied by San Francisco and, by the early 1860's, B r i t i s h Columbia's trade was conducted much more heavily with 17 San Francisco than with Great B r i t a i n (Table I ) . ' TABLE I VICTORIA'S TRADE, I86I-I863 England to V i c t o r i a San Francisco to V i c t o r i a 1861 $0.5 m i l l i o n $1.2 m i l l i o n 1862 0.7 m i l l i o n 2.4 m i l l i o n 1863 1.3 m i l l i o n 1.9 m i l l i o n 1 The eastward extension of San Francisco's hinterland was l i m i t e d by competition from those advancing westward from the M i s s i s s i p p i Valley, and from Utah traders who ex-tended t h e i r influence as f a r as the Nevada border and into southeastern Idaho. On the Upper Missouri steamboats were able to d e l i v e r f r e i g h t at Fort Benton at lower prices than 'M. Macfie, Vancouver Island and B r i t i s h Columbia, pp. 106-107. 17 18 San Francisco merchants could provide. The most common items sent into the interior from San Francisco were food, clothing, hardware, and mining supplies. Along with the returning gold came the miners who wanted to spend their earnings in "the cit y . " In fact, this type of tourism came to be an important part of the San Francisco economy. The economic expansion of the city was very rapid, ' and i t s population, which had been less than a thousand in 184-8, had grown to 36,000 by 1852, and to 57,000 by i860. At the time of the Fraser Rush, San Francisco's position on the Pacific Coast was very secure, and i t was natural that the economic l i f e of the Fraser Valley should be dominated by men from California. The Californian Gold Rush of 1848 was the f i r s t of many western mining frontiers. The Fraser was the second frontier and so British Columbia became the goal of a l l those who could no longer find rich diggings in California. oThese Californians brought their mining s k i l l s to the Fraser but the application of these s k i l l s was considerably influenced by the regulations and taxes imposed by the British Colonial Administration. H. M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, p. 276. CHAPTER III THE BRITISH COLUMBIA FRONTIER PRIOR TO 1858 I. THE FUR TRADE The impact of the discovery of gold in British Columbia was complicated by the presence of the long-standing fur trade monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Miners and business men from California were not able to move into this new frontier with the same degree of freedom as they were able to exercise in such places as Nevada and Idaho. San Francisco's economic Influence remained dominant in a l l the gold mining areas of British Columbia, but the long history of British occupance affected the form of that influence in each local i t y . For sixty years after the establishment of Mackenzie's trading post on the Peace River in 1792, there was an active British fur trade west of the Rockies, with fur trade forts being established westward from the Peace and from the Columbia (Fig. 3). These forts were located near the con-centrations of Indian population (Fig. 3) since much of the fur trade depended on the Indians. The forts marketed the furs and received their provisions by means of pack-animal trains. The most favoured of the routes by which provisions reached the forts were the fur brigade t r a i l s . Leqend O 50O Indians @ Forf Miles ao o 100 200 FJ9. 3 INDIAN POPULATION, 1835 FUR TRADE FORTS, 1805 1849 A.M.G. 20 In 1 8 3 9 the Hudson's Bay Company e s t a b l i s h e d a sub-s i d i a r y o r g a n i z a t i o n , the Puget's Sound A g r i c u l t u r a l Company. There were three reasons f o r t h i s departure from a t r a d i -t i o n a l f u r trade economy. In the f i r s t p l a c e the Hudson's Bay Company undertook the p r o v i s i o n of food f o r Russian f u r t r a d e r s i n A l a s k a i n exchange f o r extended f u r t r a d i n g r i g h t s i n the areas b o r d e r i n g A l a s k a , and the e x i s t i n g Company food s u p p l i e s were inadequate f o r t h i s demand. In the second p l a c e , the l a r g e i n f l u x of s e t t l e r s i n t o Oregon threatened B r i t i s h i n t e r e s t s n o r t h of the Columbia. I t was hoped t h a t the Puget Sound settlement would e s t a b l i s h pre-emption r i g h t s i n f a vour of B r i t i s h s e t t l e r s when the i n t e r n a t i o n a l boundary would be extended to the P a c i f i c . The t h i r d reason f o r the new a g r i c u l t u r a l p o l i c y was the d e c l i n i n g f u r t r a d e . The supply of f u r s was d e c r e a s i n g , and the European markets were o f f e r i n g l e s s money f o r f u r s . The Hudson's Bay Company was t h e r e f o r e f o r c e d to broaden i t s economic base by producing and marketing a v a r i e t y of a g r i c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t s . The attempt a t a g r i c u l t u r a l settlement proved d i s a s -t r o u s . Pew men were w i l l i n g to exchange the r e l a t i v e l y com-f o r t a b l e l i f e of the f o r t f o r the hazards of p i o n e e r farming. A d m i n i s t r a t o r s who had spent a l i f e t i m e i n the f u r trade were not equipped to undertake the p l a n n i n g of a g r i c u l t u r a l settlements. " Furthermore, as M. A. Ormsby has pointed out, 20 there was an inflexible outlook on marketing at this time. z-""7 The eyes of the Bay men remained fixed on London, ( their traditional mart. Trans-Pacific trade to Canton had not been established; and neither the California nor , the Hawaiian market had been greatly expanded. A l l the \ time- American pedlars had been busy shuttling from f Pacific port to Pacific port . . . . II. BRITISH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION , The Treaty of Washington fixed the International Boundary at the 49th Parallel, and the Hudson's Bay Company was faced with the problem of east-west transportation across the mountains to replace the old Columbia route which now lay in American territory. The Company developed a new brigade t r a i l from Hope to Kamloops, and this route served — - 21" ~ ~ the needs of. the fur traders^until I8fj8.__ The establishment of the International Boundary brought to an end the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company and a l l the other acti v i t i e s of the Hudson's Bay Company south of the 49th Parallel. Under these changed circumstances the Hudson's Bay Company, conscious of their failures, and fearful of further 19 H. H. Bancroft, History of British Columbia, p. 211. 20 M. A. Ormsby, British Columbia; A History, p. 81. Bancroft, op_. c i t . , pp. 177-178. 21 22 American encroachment, appealed for the replacement of their chartered trading rights by colonial rule. Colonial status would ensure British military protection, which included the North Pacific Fleet. The Company, however, hoped to restrict colonial government to Vancouver Island, where limited settle-ment along the lines of privately-sponsored colonization -.could be encouraged. The mainland, by the retention of i t s original status, could be preserved as a game reserve for the continuance of the fur trade. This scheme also envisaged the s t r i c t control of coastal trade, while the Company's monopoly of geographical data would ensure the effective isolation of the mainland from private encroachment. In 184-9 the British Government granted colonial status to Vancouver Island, a status which gave absolute control to the Colonial Office while delegating a l l financial responsi-b i l i t y to the new Colony. For most of the period 184-9-1858, James Douglas was both Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Com-pany, and Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island. This •dual role unfortunately involved conflicting interests. His many years with the fur Company had served to entrench his primary loyalty to their interests, and consequently the rights of the new settlers who were beginning to take up land on the Island were often restricted. The terms of government In the new Colony made i t mandatory for the Company to en-23 I courage settlers since the main source of revenue was to be land sales. However, the conditions associated with settle-ment were so restrictive that only fifteen people took up ^land in the f i r s t three years of the new Colony. The f i r s t d i f f i c u l t y experienced by the settlers was the cost of moving to Vancouver Island. For every hundred (acres purchased, at the fixed price of one pound per acre, a settler was obliged to bring out, at his own expense, three families or six single persons. Only British subjects i 22 [could buy land at this time. At this same time, land was i, 'available in United States territory at one f i f t h this price. 2-* In Oregon land was free to bona fide settlers. When, after the tedious six months voyage, the new arrivals reached the Island, they met numerous frustrations. A l l supplies had to be purchased from the Company store at prices inflated by the sales to Californlan miners. His produce had to compete in the market with the output of the Company farms which were large and well established. P o l i t i c a l l y he was l i t t l e better than a medieval serf. The slow process of settlement in the Colony of Vancouver Island, and the retention of the mainland solely 2 2P. F. Palmer, "Fiscal History of British Columbia," p. 20. 2^A. Begg, History of British Columbia, p. 195. 24 for furs, meant that settlement was very l i m i t e d i n 1 8 5 7 . The t o t a l non-Indian population of Vancouver Island was one thousand while the Mainland was les s than two hundred. The d i s t r i b u t i o n of population on the Mainland was dependent on the d i s t r i b u t i o n of Indians, and on the continuance of the fur trade (Fig. 3 ) . When, therefore, the whole fur trade collapsed at the time of the f i r s t gold rush i n 1 8 5 8 , both the d i s t r i b u t i o n of population, and the t o t a l number of people, were profoundly changed. CHAPTER IV THE GOLD RUSHES OF THE PERIOD I 8 5 8 - I 8 6 6 I. THE INITIAL IMPACT Gold was discovered in British Columbia in 1 8 5 6 , but James Douglas, the Governor of Vancouver Island and Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, was able to suppress the news for two years. The developments in California since 1848 were well known to him, and he had every reason to be-lieve that a gold rush to British Columbia would mean the end 1 of the fur trade, and possibly the loss of British territory ' to the Americans. But news of gold could not be kept secret for long, and when i t was known that a shipment of eight hundred ounces of gold was sent from Victoria to the. San Francisco mint in February of 1 8 5 8 a tremendous exodus of Californian miners occurred. In April, five hundred miners arrived from California, double that number in May, more than seven thousand in June, seven thousand in July, while eight thousand more who could not afford even deck passage made their way overland. In a l l some thirty thousand Californians started for the Fraser River Mines in the Spring and Summer 24 of I858. R. A. Billington and F. W. Howay both use Lewis R. C. Lundin Brown, "British Columbia Essay," p. 3; 26 and Dry-den's record of marine history as sources for these figures. 2-^ But the turmoil of the times was not to be so easily tabulated. Ships accepted more than their o f f i c i a l number of passengers, in many cases twice the number con-sidered safe. R. C. Mayne states that the Sierra Nevada landed nineteen hundred people in Victoria on July f i r s t , yet she sailed from San Francisco the previous month with 26 a "maximum" of nine hundred passengers. The f i r s t focus of mining activity and population movement was at the junction of the Thompson and the Fraser Rivers. Many aspiring miners travelled overland by a variety of routes but the vast majority came by way of Victoria, from which point they made their way as best they could, using canoes or boats, to the Fraser canyon area. The Fraser River experiences an annual rise of water level between June and September which is caused by melting snow in the interior. The rush to the Fraser Canyon was not inhibited by this freshet for Bancroft maintains that although this factor was known to the Californians" many of them f e l t they could work the dry diggings as they.had done in California. R. A. Billington, The Far Western Frontier, p. 246; F. W. Howay, British Columbia, p. 17. 2^Lewis and Dryden, Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, p. 6 9 . p. 46. ?6 R. C. Mayne, British Columbia and Vancouver Island, 27 Indeed the real obstacle to the early miners of the f ( dry ravines of British Columbia was the much greater over-\burden of glacial material compared with the Californian (valleys. Only hydraulic mining was to expose fu l l y the dry 27 diggings of British Columbia. ' As soon as i t was known I (that a waiting period of two months or more was necessary to allow the river to subside and therefore permit access to the ( (river bars, the return to California began. Boredom and the i ( very high cost of l i v i n g in Victoria were factors contributing ^ to this premature return to San Francisco. For those who had reached the Fraser before May, or were willing to wait out the period of high water, there were rich bars to exploit. The lower limit of profitable exploitation was five miles down-stream from Hope. The upper limit was set by the l o g i s t i c a l problems of supply, and was located about one hundred miles upstream from Hope. The maximum number of miners known to have been at work on the Fraser at any one time in 1858 was ten thousand six hundred (Table II). These miners worked in the sides of the Canyon and on the exposed bars in the river. The 2 7Bancroft, op_. c i t . , p. 440. 2 8 E . 0. S. Scholefield and R. E. Gesnell, A History of British Columbia, Vol. I, Part I, p. l 6 l . 28 TABLE II MINERS ON THE FRASER, 1858 Location Number of Miners Between Hope and Yale 4 , 0 0 0 Hope 500 Yale . . 1 ,300 Between Yale and Lytton 300 Lytton 900 Between Lytton and Lillooet 3 , 6 0 0 Total 1 0 , 6 0 0 29 equipment employed was the pan and rocker, and at least half a million dollars worth of gold was extracted "before the end of the year. The Fraser Canyon was only a suggestion of more lucra-tive sources for, to every miner from California, the pres-ence of fine gold, such as they were finding in the Lower Fraser bars, meant larger, richer, deposits farther upstream. J. W. Finch has explained the reasons for such expectations. 2^ \ The fineness of placer gold i s generally greater than \ that of the lode gold from which i t is derived, and i t s i degree of fineness increases as distance from i t s source increases owing to the leaching action of streams that transport i t . The low stage of the Fraser early in 1859 allowed access to the interior of the Colony. By March, fifteen hundred had l e f t for the Upper Fraser by boat. Another fifteen hundred went by the Harrison t r a i l (Fig. 4).-^ ° As the centre of mining shifted upstream, the tech-nology of extraction advanced at a far greater rate than had occurred in the early years in California because the expe-rience of California stimulated the transition from a large labour force to company operations.' John Damon's reports of 2 ^ J . W. Finch (ed.), Ore Deposits of the Western States, P. 23. 3°British Columbia Papers, Part III, p. 6. the winter of 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 5 9 , as recorded by R. E. Lindgren, show this transition.^ The transition from the cradle to the sluice is evident everywhere . . . The day of the "Pan" man i s over . . . The miners, in view of the more rigorous climate, are preparing for winter by building cabins and establishing themselves permanently along the river. This advance in technology, the d i f f i c u l t i e s of extraction, and the rather limited yield from the mines, combined to accelerate the process of abandonment. Victoria, which had experienced a flood of miners in 1858, now witnessed an ebb-tide of almost equal proportions so that, by the end of 1859» most of those who had arrived in 1858 had departed.-^2 II. MOVEMENT INTO THE INTERIOR The waning interest in the Fraser was arrested by -fthe discovery of gold in Antler Creek late in i 8 6 0 . The deposits had a regular yield of $50 per day per man. The discoveries at Antler Creek were followed by those of Lightning Creek, and then by Williams Creek which became the richest and best-known of a l l the Cariboo creeks with i t s renowned D i l l e r , Barker, and Camerontown claims. A l l these J R. E. Lindgren, "John Damon and the Fraser River Rush," Pacific Historical Review, p. 190. 3 2Bancroft, o_>. c i t . , p. 4-70. 32 places were in the vicini t y of Barkerville (Fig. 4 ) at the heart of the Cariboo mining region. By l 8 6 l these creeks -were being worked and the year's output exceeded $2 million. The discoveries of i 8 6 0 and l 8 6 l marked the beginning of an intensive phase of exploration for gold in the interior C.f British Columbia. Indeed, the mobility of the miners was |so great that the Colony as a whole might be regarded as the {unit of production during the early years of the 1 8 6 0's. In a l l there were six important gold rushes between 1 8 5 8 and 1866: Fraser, Stikine, Cariboo, Peace, Kootenay, and Big Bend (Fig. 4 ) . Of these, the Fraser and Cariboo were by far the most important, the Fraser because i t was the f i r s t rush and because i t attracted the largest number of miners, and the Cariboo because i t was the most sustained and lucrative. Furthermore, i t was these two rushes which had the most en-during effect on the growth of settlement and the development of transportation systems. The Cariboo gold rush coincided with the opening of the 1862 mining season. By June f i r s t summer had advanced /sufficiently to permit work in the mines, and six thousand / miners were in the vicini t y of Barkerville ready to begin digging as soon as claims could be recorded. The deep dig-gings on Williams Creek were the focus of interest. These diggings were located some f i f t y to eighty feet below the 3 3 surface along the beds of former river channels, and they were destined to be the main source of Cariboo wealth for many years. The peak year of gold production in the Cariboo was 1 8 6 4 . Ten thousand miners were at work on Williams Creek in that year, and the yield for the year exceeded $3 million. These three years of production persuaded Government authorities that gold mining in the Cariboo was an established industry, and that costly wagon road; con-struction could therefore be undertaken on the strength of future gold yields. The Stikine Rush in 1 8 6 1 attracted eight hundred miners who took up claims along the lower one hundred and f i f t y miles of the Stikine River. The Peace Rush, which occurred In the following year, attracted a smaller number than the Stikine. The significance of these two rushes l i e s $ in the profound effect they hadon the map _of British Colum-bia.,.. The 1858 northern boundary of the Colony (Fig. 4 ) was pushed northward into the area now known as the Yukon one year after the beginning of the Stikine Rush. The Peace Rush created hopes of new gold fields east of the Rockies and so, in I863, the British Columbia boundary was moved eastward to a line coincident with the present border. The northern boundary, at the same time, was withdrawn southward to 60°N, thus establishing the present-day boundaries of the Province. 3k In the F a l l of I863, just as the Cariboo production was hearing i t s zenith there came reports of a new f i e l d in the Kootenays. The main diggings were on Wild Horse Creek, ji tributary of the Kootenay, about f i f t y miles north of the International Boundary.(Fig. 4). The location of the mines /threatened the plan of the Governor of British Columbia to idraw a l l trade through the Fraser River. One thousand men were at work on Wild Horse Creek in 1 8 6 4 , and a further thousand arrived in I 8 6 5 , . In these two years,' $1 million of j gold was mined, and a l l the mining supplies were provided from the American side of the border. Immediate efforts were made /to build supply routes via the Fraser but before these t r a i l s and roads could be constructed, the news of the Big Bend dis-c o v e r i e s had started to draw men away from the Kootenays. Some twelve hundred miners were at work in the Big Bend area in I 8 6 5 , and the total production for I 8 6 5 and 1866 was less than $ 1 million. The more northerly location (Fig. 4 ) of the vBig Bend mines compared with the Kootenays enabled the Colo-n i a l Government to compete with the Americans in supplying \these mines, ^ The decline of the Big Bend mines in 1866 marked the f end of an important series of gold rushes. For the twenty •years which followed, gold production decreased steadily. 35 33 Table III shows the extent of this drop in production.-^ III. THE SCALE OF GOLD PRODUCTION The total output of gold from the British Columbia mines for the period 1 8 6 1 to 1 8 6 6 , that i s , from the begin-ning of the Cariboo mining to the end of the Big Bend mining, is tabulated in Table IV along with the Californian output for the same period. The average annual output for these six years was: British Columbia, $ 3 , 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 ; California, $ 3 1 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 . The yield of the Californian mines was approx-imately ten times that of British Columbia. Yet the total 'population of California was twenty times that of British Columbia. This ratio of twenty to one gradually changed in the years following 1866 u n t i l i t stood at forty to one in 1 8 7 0 . One of the principal reasons for the disparity be-tween the populations sustained by gold in these two areas lay in the administrative problems which the miners encoun-tered in British Columbia, and in the failure of the British authorities to u t i l i z e the gold for the economic growth of ••^Notes on Placer-Mining in British Columbia, British Columbia Department of Mines and Petroleum Resources, p. 1 0 . 3^M. A v Ormsby, History of British Columbia; A. Begg, History of British Columbia; W. J. Trimble, Mining Advance into the Inland Empire; G. M. Dawson, Geological Survey of Canada Report; L. M. Scott, "The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold," Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 1 9 1 7 , p. 1 5 7 . 36 TABLE III GOLD PRODUCTION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA (i n m i l l i o n s of dol l a r s ) Years Total Production 1858-1862 I 9.9 I 8 6 3 - I 8 6 7 1 6 . 3 1868-1872 9.9 1873-1877 9.0 1878-1882 5.6 1883-1887 3.8 Total $5^.5 TABLE IV GOLD PRODUCTION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND CALIFORNIA (in thousands of dol l a r s ) Year B r i t i s h Columbia C a l i f o r n i a 1861 $2,666 $40,000 1862 2,856 35,000 1863 3 ,913 30,000 1864 3,735 27,000 1865 3,^91 29,000 1866 2 ,622 25,000 38 the Colony. IV. ADMINISTRATIVE IMPEDIMENTS The high cost of mining gold in British Columbia was a discouragement to American miners from the beginning. Min-ing licences and other charges unknown in the United States were levied by the Governor of British Columbia. A l l new arrivals had to take out a miner's licence costing ~$ff)a month even though many of the newcomers did not intend to mine.35 In addition, $2 head money was charged on everyone entering British Columbia; $ 1 2 a trip was taken from every ship entering the Fraser River, and 10 per cent tax was lev-ied on a l l goods imported. These charges meant that American miners worked only when the diggings were very rich, and they •left the Country with their gold as soon as returns began to ' f a l l , leaving the Country impoverished rather than enriched by their stay. Quite apart from their taxation policies there were other serious administrative weaknesses. It took two years to establish an assay office. Private companies had estab-lished assay offices in San Francisco within a year of the A. Fish, "The Last Phase of the Oregon Boundary Question," Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 1 9 2 1 , p. l 6 l ; F. W. Howay, The Fraser River Mines, p. 4-. 3 9 f i r s t rush to California. There was a branch of a private San Francisco1 assay office in Victoria a year before the Government Office was in operation. When the Government Office f i n a l l y began, bars were marked in sterling values, '>and" these bars had to be taken to private assay offices to be converted to dollars before they were useful currency. /The result was that the Government bars sold at a 2 per cent discount compared with privately assayed bars.-^ A gold ex-port tax was urged from the beginning by the gold commis-sioners in the f i e l d , as a substitute for the mining licences. The experience of Australian authorities during the Gold Rush in that Country in the 1850*s had shown that a gold export 37 tax was the preferable of the two methods. The Govern-ment dejcJ!deJ^o^impose the tax just when the Kootenay mines wer^^penij^_jyn_jspite of the fact that these mines were^very close to the United States border and indeed received a l l thjsir^^p^pli_e.s_fx_om It was impossible to collect_thls tax from_the Kootenay miners because of the ease with which, gold could be sent into the United States. Further-more, Cariboo..miners could send their gold southward via the ^6R. L. Reid, The Assay Office and the Proposed Mint, P. 2 3 . 3 ? J . D # Rogers, H i s t o r i c a l Geography of the B r i t i s h Colonies, p. 2. 40 Kootenays to the United States, so they too evaded payment. The tax was dropped a year after i t was introduced. The Australian experience should not have been duplicated in British Columbia without careful consideration of local dif-ferences. Equally unwise was the gold escort project of the / " - ' /British Columbia Government in which the Government provided fast stages to carry gold along the Cariboo Road. The one essential requirement in a gold escort, from the miners' viewpoint, was security, and this the Government was un-willing to guarantee for any of i t s escorts. The result was ^•^a loss of eighty thousand dollars in operating costs in two years. During this time the private express companies, re-flying on their past performance, retained the confidence of the miners, and made substantial profits. The gold rushes of the period 1858 to 1866 attracted a very large population into the interior of British Columbia and this population, in spite of high legal costs and dif-c< f i c u l t terrain, extracted gold equal in quantity to one tenth of the Californian production. Nevertheless, administrative \ weaknesses on the part of the British Colonial Authorities \ forced many miners to leave the Colony prematurely, and encouraged others to send their gold directly to San Fran-cisco rather than to Victoria or New Westminster. Thus capital which might have contributed to the economic growth of B r i t i s h Columbia was used to b u i l d up the economy-San Francisco. CHAPTER V ACCESS TO THE GOLD CENTRES I. THE INHERITED TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM The discovery of gold and the changes in the govern-ment of British Columbia profoundly affected the pattern of transportation. Within the f i r s t year of the Fraser Gold Rush, age-old t r a i l s gave way to wagon roads, and canoes were replaced by steamers. The traditional fur t r a i l followed the Athabasca Valley to the Northern Forts and thence to I Kamloops, the Okanagan, the Columbia, and the Sea (Fig. 5). After the 1846 Treaty of Washington a new t r a i l entirely with-in British Columbia was opened. This route l e f t the Fraser at Hope, followed the Coquihalla to the Tulameen River, and from there to Kamloops (Fig. 5). This t r a i l was much infe-r i o r to the Columbia Valley and, at the time of the 1858 Gold Rush, the original route was used for a brief period of ' time, thus linking the f i r s t gold rush with an early pattern of fur trade transportation.^9 The use of this earlier route was, however, shortlived, and by the Fall of 1858 the Fraser ^^H. Ferguson, "Trails and Roads," p. 1. 39A.C. Anderson, Handbook and Map to the Gold Region of Fraser's and Thompson*s Rivers. Ff«3.6- MAIN ROUTES B E F O R E , DURING A N D A F T E R THE G O L D R U S H E S /steamers were the dominant means of access for the vast ma-Before the Fraser River route was fully established as the quickest and the easiest means of access for the mines, another overland route, the Whatcom Trai l (Fig. 4-), .tive head of navigation, this t r a i l offered some competition . to the Victoria-Langley route, since i t was much closer to \ the gold fields than was Victoria. Furthermore, since i t was based on American territory, i t was an attraction for United States citizens. Certainly the inhabitants of Whatcom were not slow to point out the advantages of their site and situation as this extract from The Northern Light shows: Every American who has the least spark of national pride should avoid Victoria, and everything that i s British. We have ample land communication, over our own s o i l , almost to the very threshold of the different mining regions, where the unjust and i l l i b e r a l policy of the Hudson's Bay Company f a i l s to reach. Pack animal transportation supplemented water trans-portation in the early stages of mining in the Fraser Valley, but in the narrow canyons of the Lower Fraser miners had to ho UR. L.. Reid, "The Whatcom Trails to the Fraser River Mines in I858," Washington Historical Quarterly, 192?, p. 199. flourished for a time. As long as Langley was the effec-The Northern Light, Whatcom, September 4, 1858. walk from the end of water connections, carrying with them sufficient supplies for, at most, a few weeks. To eliminate this serious supply problem, Douglas, in August of I 8 5 8 , authorized the construction of mule t r a i l s from Yale to Lytton, and from the north end of Harrison Lake to Lillooet (Fig. 5)» Within a month both t r a i l s were usable, and for the 1859 season there was no problem of packing supplies from the head of steamer navigation at Douglas or Yale to Lillooet (Fig. 5 ) . II. THE TRANSITION FROM PACK ANIMAL TO STEAMER AND WAGON As long as t r a i l s and not wagon roads were needed, Governor Douglas was able to supervise the construction of adequate transportation. When the need for wagon roads of eighteen feet in width became apparent on the Harrison-Lillooet T r a i l , Governor Douglas was faced with a new chal-lenge, and the technology of fur trade transportation pro-vided him with l i t t l e help in facing this challenge. In the circumstances he decided to widen the Harrison-Lillooet T r a i l so that, at a later time, i t could be converted into a wagon road. But the result was unsatisfactory. When Lt. Palmer of the Royal Engineers inspected the widened t r a i l British Columbia Papers, Part II, p. 6; Part III, p. 46 in 1859, with a view to conversion to a wagon road, he was amazed at the technical errors. Port Douglas at the north end of Harrison Lake (Fig. 5) was located in a small, almost inaccessible cove quite unsuitable for large steamers or bad weather conditions; the gradient of the t r a i l was much too steep because i t had been constructed along the west bank of 43 the Harrison River. J The mule t r a i l to the Upper Fraser was a slow and ex-pensive operation which became more and more unsuitable as the distance from the head of navigation increased. When mining reached the Cariboo, the time occupied on the Yale-Barkerville mule t r a i l was approximately one month. A team of say thirty-two animals could take four tons of freight, and make the return trip three times in a six month season. By contrast, fast freight was able to make the same return jour-ney in eight days once wagon roads were available. But more serious than the time delays was the expense of a system which was wholly dependent on a pack animal method of sup-plying necessities. Freight was a dollar a pound from Yale to Quesnel. Five years later, the cost of freight on the same route, under wagon road conditions, was fifteen cents -^Lt. Palmer, "Report on the Harrison-Lillooet Route," Royal Geographical Society, 1861. 47 44 a pound. On June seventh, 1 8 5 8 , the steamer "Surprise" made the f i r s t steamer trip beyond Port Langley. On July twentieth, the "Umatilla" reached Fort Y a l e . ^ On the twenty-eighth of July the same steamer navigated the Harrison River and the 46 ' Harrison Lake. From this time onward river steamers domi-nated the transportation pattern of British Columbia just as they had dominated most of San Francisco's hinterland in the previous decade. Indeed, the steamers which were found on the Fraser were mostly American even when they ran under the 47 British flag and were based on Victoria. III. THE WAGON ROAD ERA The development of steamer transportation in British Columbia, though revolutionary when compared with the canoes of the fur trade period, was no more than an extension of developments in the Far West of the United States. But with the arrival of the Royal Engineers in the early part of 1859» a new phase of transportation was initiated. These one ^ B r i t i s h Columbian, May 4, 1864. ^ F . W. Howay, History of British Columbia, p. 3 2 . ^ D a i l y Victoria Gazette, July 2 8 , 1 8 5 8 . ^ E . W. Wright (ed. ), Lewis and Dry den's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, pp. 8 2 , 9 8 . 48 hundred and f i f t y men were hand-picked technicians, chosen by the Colonial Secretary from a larger group of volunteers. They were chosen for their a b i l i t i e s to survey, map, operate printing machinery, and construct roads. They brought to British Columbia the very best of the technical a b i l i t i e s of mid-nineteenth century industrial England. Their lasting imprint was the Cariboo Wagon Road which became famous •Y throughout the whole of the Far West Mining Frontier. The Engineers brought wagon road transportation to British Columbia: f i r s t the Harrison-Lillooet Road, then the Hope-Similkameen Road, and f i n a l l y the Yale-Cariboo Road from Yale to a point halfway between Clinton and Barkerville (Fig. 5). The Cariboo Road was built under the direction of Walter Moberly who anticipated an early railway link with Eastern Canada, and the route for such a railway was in his 48 mind as he planned the route for the wagon road. The Cariboo Road was extended to Barkerville, and the road from--Cache Creek to Savona Ferry was built by men who had learned the art of road construction from the Engineers (Fig. 5). Frequently, when the new road coincided with an old t r a i l , there was insufficient space to build an eighteen foot road or the gradient of the t r a i l was unsuitable. Consequently 48 W. Moberly, "History of Cariboo Wagon Road," Vancouver Art, Historical and Scientific Association, 190?-1908. 49 substantial re-routing was e s s e n t i a l . ^ The Cariboo Road was finished in I 8 6 5 and, in that year, 1600 tons of freight were carried over the Road to supply the mining communities around Barkerville.-^ A mule train system of transportation would have been quite inade-quate for such a demand, for 130 mule trains, or 4 , 0 0 0 ani-mals, would have been needed to move this amount of freight. By 1872 the peak of gold production in the Cariboo had passed but there was s t i l l sufficient mining activity to maintain a regular service, every three days, of a mule or ox wagon from Yale to Barkerville 1 The problems of transportation in British Columbia in the early 1860's were greatly increased as a result of the ^! development of an effective International Boundary. This Boundary was legally established in 1 8 4 6 , but the modest commercial demands of the succeeding twelve years were unable to make permanent changes. The natural grain of the terrain f a c i l i t a t e d travel in north and south directions and t r a f f i c continued to flow in these directions until the beginning of the Fraser Gold Rush. With the large influx of Americans in ^Royal Engineers Map of August, 1861. 5°0. 0. Winther, The Old Oregon Country, p. 2l6; British Columbian, January 17, 1866. ^1A. C. Anderson, "The Dominion at the West," 1872, P. 6 3 . 50 the gold rushes, and the associated risk of American annex-ation of British Columbia, i t became necessary to establish "east-west transportation routes north of the International Boundary which could compete with north-south routes. The preservation of British influence in the Pacific Northwest justified the high cost of constructing these new east-west routes. Thus the high costs and the d i f f i c u l t i e s of building a wagon road through the Fraser Canyon were accepted on the grounds that the road was v i t a l to the economic autonomy of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The fundamental differences between the needs of pack animals and the terrain requirements of wagons led to the construction of wagon roads in new locations. The pack i t r a i l s were narrow and, because of the need of natural fod-^i der for the animals, they were often established close to meadows and prairies even when better routes were available elsewhere. The wagon roads, because they had to carry larger and heavier loads, were wider, and the availability of fodder .at road houses made i t unnecessary to route them via meadows and prairies. Furthermore, wagons, could not be taken up the steep slopes frequently used by the animal trains. Consequently, a l l of the wagon roads of the l860*s were built in new locations and the routes of the pre- J existing brigade t r a i l s were bypassed (Fig. 5). These 51 wagon roads represented large c a p i t a l investments and so ? they were r e l a t i v e l y permanent. Settlements grew up along t h e i r routes, and these settlements i n turn determined the i paths of subsequent transportation systems and t h e i r asso- j elated settlements. CHAPTER VI SUPPLY ROUTES AND SETTLEMENT I . THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SUPPLY ROUTES ^ At the begi n n i n g of the f i r s t g o l d rush two areas / f e l t the impact of the movements of people and goods, the p r e - e x i s t i n g s e t t l e m e n t s such as V i c t o r i a , F o r t Langley, / F o r t H o p e F o r t Y a l e , and the mines such as H i l l ' s Bar and V Boston Bar. But w i t h i n a very sho r t p e r i o d of time some of these p l a c e s were being bypassed as the mining i n t e r e s t s h i f t e d to new l o c a t i o n s and as new systems of a d m i n i s t r a -t i o n and t r a n s p o r t a t i o n were e s t a b l i s h e d . The i n a u g u r a t i o n of steamer s e r v i c e s as f a r as Yale terminated F o r t Langley*s f u n c t i o n as the head of r i v e r n a v i g a t i o n . When, i n 1859» N^ew Westminster was made the c a p i t a l c i t y of the new Colony (^Jthe d e c l i n e of F o r t Langley f u r t h e r a c c e l e r a t e d . A s i m i l a r p r o c e s s of d e c l i n e o c c u r r e d around F o r t Hope a t the begin-/ n i n g o f 1859 as mining a c t i v i t i e s moved upstream. .--"Other p l a c e s because of t h e i r l o c a t i o n and f u n c t i o n f a r e d d i f f e r e n t l y . V i c t o r i a , because i t was a f r e e p o r t , and because i t was s t a r t e d e a r l i e r , r e t a i n e d i t s p o s i t i o n as c h i e f t r a d i n g centre f o r the mines. New.Westminster became the cen t r e o f a d m i n i s t r a t i o n f o r the independent Colony of B r i t i s h Columbia, and i t a l s o became the trans-shipment 53 point for ocean-river t r a f f i c . Yale, especially after the opening of .the Cariboo wagon road, served-as_ the. river-road trans^sh-ipment-point--for.most of British Columbia's supplies in th~eT860's. The pattern of population growth and decline was evident in many settlements throughout the period of the^ gold rushes. Many mining camps expanded rapidly only to be abandoned while other settlements, in those areas which could survive conditions of a changing technology of transportation, experienced steady and enduring growth. By 1865 a stable pattern of service centres and transportation routes had evolved. These expressed the functional relations between San Francisco, Victoria, and New Westminster: by steamer be-tween Victoria, New Westminster, and Yale, and by wagon along "the Cariboo road (Fig. 6). The populations of Victoria, New Westminster, and Yale for 1871 and 1885 are shown in Table V. Throughout this period of time Victoria remained the largest city on Vancouver Island and New Westminster and Yale, in that order, the two largest centres on the Mainland. Thus the hierarchy of size of the service centres established 5 2 B r i t i s h Columbia Directory, 1886; Census of Canada, 1870 and 1881; H. H. Bancroft, History of British Columbia, p. 707. 5 4 d u r i n g the g o l d r u s h e s p e r s i s t e d t h r o u g h the e n s u i n g twenty-y e a r s . B a r k e r v i l l e ? Y a l e r V i c t o r i a New Westminster San F r a n c i s c o F i g u r e 6 . H i e r a r c h y o f S e r v i c e C e n t r e s , 1 8 6 5 . I I . SUPPLY ROUTES AND COMMERCIAL CENTRES I n 1 8 5 7 , V i c t o r i a c o n s i s t e d o f o n l y s i x houses grouped a r o u n d a s i n g l e wharf a t t h e s i t e o f the p r e s e n t h a r b o u r , w h i l e t h e Company's F o r t was l o c a t e d on t h e n o r t h e a s t s i d e o f the h a r b o u r . The main anchorage f o r s h i p s was f o u r m i l e s west o f V i c t o r i a , a t E s q u i m a l t , and a r o a d connected t h i s p l a c e w i t h V i c t o r i a . $ 3 E s q u i m a l t was the h e a d q u a r t e r s o f t h e B r i t i s h N o r t h P a c i f i c F l e e t . I t had a l a r g e h o s p i t a l , and i t was t h e r e s i d e n c e o f s e v e r a l o f f i c i a l s o f the Colony o f Vancouver I s l a n d . I t s p o p u l a t i o n was about e q u a l t o t h a t o f ^3R. C. Mayne, B r i t i s h Columbia and Vancouver I s l a n d , 1864, pp. 2 5 - 3 1 . TABLE V POPULATIONS OF VICTORIA, NEW WESTMINSTER, AND YALE Place Year Population Victoria 18?1 3,300 Victoria 1885 12,000 New Westminster 1 8 7 1 600 New Westminster 1885 4,000 Yale 1871 200 Yale 1885 600* ^Exclusive of railway workers. 56 Victoria, and R. C. Mayne considered i t to be preferable tor YVictoria as the site of a commercial town. With the discovery of gold, however, a l l new activity was concentrated around the existing administrative and com-mercial centre—the Port. Victoria reaped the benefits of [Douglas' instructions which insisted that a l l persons pro-Iceeding to the British Columbia mines must f i r s t obtain a 1 Igold. mining licence in Victoria, and then travel by ships /operating under a Hudson's Bay Company charter from Victoria (_to the Fraser River. Newcomers therefore had no alterna-trv^bjrt_to_ma.ke_-Victoria. Jthei-r—f-i-rs-t-ob-j-ective. The arrival of these people sustained a land boom while their licence fees provided public capital. At one time the Company safe in Victoria had as much as two million dollars in safe keeping.^ It was clear to the newcomers that every large mining / j area had i t s central "city," and that Victoria might well be-come the San Francisco of the Fraser. Accordingly, in I 8 5 8 , / land speculation occurred on a large scale In Victoria and, / I at times, i t rivalled the rush to the gold mines as the < ^Papers Relative to the Affairs of British Columbia, Part I, p. 12. 55 H. H. Bancroft, History of British Columbia, p. 359,. 57 following ar t i c l e in an English magazine shows. On the 21st of June the Hudson's Bay Company put 6400 acres of land on the market. Lots measured 60 feet by 120 feet, and were sold at f i r s t for 25 dollars, then 7 5 , then 100 when a further 1200 lots were put on the market . . . A similar demand for land prevailed in some other places in Vancouver's Island; the universal expec-tation, of course, being that much of the gold to be dis-covered would find i t s way thither. Some of these lots sold within a few days for amounts as high as two thousand dollars. Commercial acti v i t i e s soon contrib-uted to the rapid growth of the City as many San Francisco i x\firms established branch houses there. Over two hundred buildings went up in the course of two months to house these ^branch firms. By October most of the Californians had returned, and Victoria was l e f t with a residue of some three thousand new residents. By the end of 1859 many of these had drifted away and, thereafter, population fluctuated from year to year, expanding up to six thousand in I863, then declining to three thousand once more in 1866. This population total was main-tained u n t i l 1871."^ But even in the most prosperous years ^Chamber's Journal, September 18, 1858, p. 185. 5 7 F . E. Walden, "Social History of Victoria," 1951, p. 40. 5 8Paciflc Coast Business Directories, 1863 and 1867; Victoria Directories, 1863 and 1871; Census of Canada, 1871. 58 of 1862 and I 8 6 3 , when gold production was at i t s highest, F. E. Walden points out that there was l i t t l e permanent in -vestment in Victoria. ^ — Victoria was never destined to emulate San Francisco or indeed Portland. It had a smaller hinterland than either of these two American c i t i e s , and this hinterland was shared with New Westminster. Furthermore, the established position of San Francisco as a manufacturing centre, at the time of the f i r s t British Columbia gold rush, determined Victoria's 'role as a distributing centre. The population figures l i s t e d • in Table VI show the erratic growth of New Westminster and Victoria as compared with the steady growth of San Francisco and Portland. 6 0 New Westminster was selected in February of 1859 as the site for a new capital to replace Fort Langley, which had been the capital since the formation of the new Colony in the pre-vious November. This site was chosen by Colonel Moody, the officer in charge of the Royal Engineers, and consequently military considerations were pre-eminent. Fort Langley was on the south side of the River, and therefore was considered •^Walden, op_. c i t . , p. 47. 6°R. H.Brown, Historical Geography of the United States; Portland: Its History and Builders, p. 24-0; Pacific Coast Business Directory, 1867. 59 TABLE VI POPULATIONS OP SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND, VICTORIA, AND NEW WESTMINSTER San Francisco Portland Victoria New Westminster 1849 5,000 1850 35,000 1857 60,000 1859 3,000 200 1860 3,000 1863 6,000 1,200 1865 6,000 1870 10,000 3,000 600 60 v u l n e r a b l e i n the event o f an American a t t a c k on B r i t i s h C olumbia. I t was a l s o s i t u a t e d on d e f e n c e l e s s low ground. I n c o n t r a s t , the n o r t h shore s i t e o f New W e s t m i n s t e r , w i t h i t s s t e e p s l o p e s and t h i c k f o r e s t c o v e r , was seen as an i d e a l m i l i t a r y p o s i t i o n a l t h o u g h I t s c o n d i t i o n s o f t e r r a i n and v e g e t a t i o n were f a r from s u i t a b l e f o r a g r i c u l t u r a l s e t t l e -ment. Moody's e n t h u s i a s m r e f l e c t s h i s r e a s o n i n g i n r e l a t i o n 61 t o t h e new c a p i t a l . I t i s a most i m p o r t a n t s p o t . I t i s p o s i t i v e l y mar-v e l l o u s how s i n g u l a r l y i t i s formed f o r the s i t e o f a l a r g e town (not a s m a l l one) t o be defended a g a i n s t any f o r e i g n a g g r e s s i o n . I t i s not adapted f o r a s m a l l m i l i -t a r y p o s i t i o n . . . . The f e a t u r e s a r e t o o e x t e n s i v e f o r t h a t . I t i s a case o f d e t a c h e d Earthworks and i n t r e n c h e d Camps. A m i l i t a r y man would d e l i g h t i n i t . . . . Woods f e l l e d p o i n t s outwards--marshes i n u n d a t e d — m u z z l e s o f a few guns s t a r i n g you i n the f a c e j u s t where you thought y o u r s e l f most s e c u r e . Moody, i n h i s c h o i c e o f the new c a p i t a l , had i n mind more t h a n a f o r t i f i e d s i t e t o r e s i s t American I n v a s i o n s . He a l s o wanted a v a r i e t y o f s u p p l y r o u t e s c o n n e c t i n g New West-m i n s t e r w i t h o t h e r p l a c e s , t o be used i n the event o f the F r a s e r R i v e r n o t b e i n g a v a i l a b l e . H i s f i e l d n o t e s o f 1859 i n d i c a t e t h a t he even e n v i s a g e d a c a n a l between the s o u t h shore o f the F r a s e r a t New Westminster and Mud Bay, a r a i l w a y l i n k e x t e n d i n g eastward a c r o s s Canada, and a r o a d d i r e c t l y R. C. Moody, " P e r s o n a l L e t t e r t o a F r i e n d i n E n g l a n d , " B r i t i s h Columbia H i s t o r i c a l Q u a r t e r l y , 1951, p. 9 3 . 6 2 northward toward Burrard Inlet. These plans increased the land speculation which occurred around Burrard Inlet, Mud Bay, and the general environs of New Westminster (Fig. 7 ) and they also encouraged the development of New Westminster ^/as the principal commercial centre on the Mainland in pre-\ ference to Fort Langley, the traditional commercial centre^ on the Fraser. New Westminster, however, grew only modestly. The problem of clearing the tree cover was particularly hazard-ous as Mayne has pointed out. ^ The work of clearing the bush has been the great drawback to the progress of New Westminster. Dr. Campbell and I went to examine a part a l i t t l e north of where the town stands, and so thick was the bush that i t took us two hours to force our way in rather less than a mile and a half. In spite of these clearing d i f f i c u l t i e s , the f i r s t sales of town lots were substantial. On two days of June 1859 > 3 1 0 out of a possible 3 1 8 lots were sold at an average price of $ 3 0 0 per lo t . In the ensuing few years, the pur-chase of large acreages in the immediate hinterland of the new city assumed enormous proportions (Fig. 7 ) . Newcomers 6 ? R. C. Moody, Manuscript, Provincial Archives, Victoria, ^Mayne, op_. cit.", p. 142. ^^Papers Relative to the Affairs of British Columbia, Part III, p. 1 6 . 62 were s t i l l s p e c u l a t i n g on another San F r a n c i s c o of the North i n s p i t e o f the l i m i t e d growth o f V i c t o r i a s i n c e 1858. Some of the h i g h e s t o f f i c i a l s of the Colony p a r t i c i p a t e d i n these s p e c u l a t i o n s . Lot books of the p e r i o d show the f o l l o w i n g names a g a i n s t purchases around B u r r a r d I n l e t : C a p t a i n John P a l l i s e r , C o l o n e l R. C. Moody, Major G. H. F o s t e r , Attorney-Ca .66 General ry, and Admiral B a y n e s . ^ p, w. L a i n g says of these e n t r i e s : I t i s q u i t e e v i d e n t t h a t l a n d s p e c u l a t i o n was the (motive, l a r g e l y , f o r the a c q u i s i t i o n o f l a n d i n the v i c i n -M t y of New Westminster, the C a p i t a l of the Colony, and the a c q u i s i t i o n of l a n d on B u r r a r d I n l e t , E n g l i s h Bay, and F a l s e Creek. New Westminster had 250 people i n i860, 1200 i n I863, and 600 i n 1866 and i n 1871.^ i t was s m a l l e r than V i c t o r i a but l a r g e r than Y a l e . The h i e r a r c h y ^ o f s i z e r e f l e c t e d the commercial^jLmportance. of. -eaoh~plac.e_Cgr the number of b u s i -ness e s t a b l i s h m e n t s i n V i c t o r i a i n 1866 was 230, whereas New Westminster.had-80, .and Yale 40, 6 8, Most of these e s t a b l i s h -ments d e a l t with e s s e n t i a l s u p p l i e s and s e r v i c e s — f o o d s t o r e s , ^ L o t Books, Government Agent's Land.Vault, New Westminster. ^ F . W. La i n g , " C o l o n i a l Pre-emptions on the Mainland of B r i t i s h Columbia," P r o v i n c i a l A r c h i v e s , V i c t o r i a . ^W. E. I r e l a n d , New Westminster: The Royal C i t y . go . P a c i f i c Coast Business D i r e c t o r y , I 8 6 7 . 6 3 hotels and boarding houses, mining equipment stores, and legal offices. III. SUPPLY ROUTES AND THE BEGINNINGS OF RURAL SETTLEMENT While land interest near the commercial centres was motivated by the expectation of a rapid increase in land values, land interest elsewhere was stimulated by the presence of transportation routes leading to the mines (Fig. ?). The most frequently used routes experienced the highest degree of interest and so the Lower Fraser Valley received as many land claims as the rest of British Columbia, during the period of the gold rushes, in spite of the fact that contemporary writ-ers regarded the Lower Fraser Valley as quite inferior to the interior of the Colony in terms of suitability for agricul-t u r e . 6 9 Prior to the gold rushes the only non-Indian settle-ment in the Lower Fraser Valley were the two Hudson's Bay Company forts at Langley and Hope (Fig. 7 ) . Fort Hope was typical of forts throughout British Columbia. It had been established in 184-9 and carried a complement of less than a dozen men.''0 In addition to trading in furs, i t provided for ^Mayne, op. .cit., p. 3 7 1 . ?°M. Ormsby, British Columbia: A History, p. 7 0 . some of the food requirements of the men by means of local small-scale farming of such crops as oats, barley, potatoes, green vegatables.? 1 Mayne's report outlines a typical Hudson's Bay Company fort.'' 2 A l l Hudson's Bay posts are much alike. . . . They are built usually in the form of a square . . . of about a hundred yards. . . . This space is picketed in with logs . . . 15 to 20 feet high. . . . In two of the corners is usually reared a high wooden bastion . . . each bastion carrying six small guns, six or twelve pounders. Inside the pickets are six houses—four for residence, one for the Indian trading store, and one for storing the furs. Fort Langley on the other hand was not typical of forts generally and stood in sharp contrast to Fort Hope. Farming and salmon fishing had become the main occupation of the Hudson's Bay Company men, and the fur trade had been / relegated to second place. The arable acreage had been ex-tended southward toward Langley Prairie where a minimum of clearing was required, and a variety of products for export was being produced. In 184-2, 7 5 0 bushels of wheat, 5 0 0 bushels of oats, and 6 0 0 bushels of peas were harvested. Smaller quantities of beef, pork, and butter were also produced. 7 1 F . W. Howay_, British Columbia, p. 5 8 9 ; R. C. Mayne, British Columbia and Vancouver Island, p. 385« ^Mayne, op_. c i t . , pp. 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 . ^^o. 0 . Wlnther, The Old Oregon Country, p. 6 8 . 65 Fort Langley's farming activities had a substantial influence on later settlement. The surveys conducted in that area were modified by the location of the farmlands (Fig. 1). Lots 21 and 22 of group 2, the Langley Prairie extensions of the Hudson's Bay Company farms, as well as several smaller lots near the River at McMillan Island, can clearly be identified as irregularly shaped units in an otherwise regular matrix (Fig. 1). Furthermore, the i n i t i a l purchasers and pioneers of land in this area were retired Company men and they settled alongside the Company farms. The f i r s t legal provision for settlement in the Lower Fraser Valley beyond the establishment of these two forts and their associated lands was the survey and auction of land to British subjects in Lulu Island, Pitt Meadows, and Burrard Peninsula in October 1859. The system of survey em-ployed by the Royal Engineers was the block and range. The blocks measured three miles square and each block was divided into 36 sections. In order to reduce the costs of surveying only the areas required for immediate sale were surveyed. After 1870 when a general system of six mile townships was adopted for the whole of the Lower Fraser Valley, the areas covered by the block and range system were retained in their original form (Fig. 1). The price of the newly surveyed land was high, $2.50 66 per acre, in keeping with the British Colonial policy of raising revenue locally through the sale of land. Conse-quently sales were slow throughout November and December of 1859, and Governor Douglas became increasingly apprehensive over the lack of revenue. By January of I860 financial pres-sure forced him to reduce the price to $1 per acre, the lowest price ever permitted by the Colonial office. Sales increased considerably as a result of the price reduction but the^total revenue was s t i l l far below the amount needed. Accordingly Governor Douglas took an unprecedented step and opened unsurveyed lands to the general public. Never be-fore in the history of British Colonial Administration had un-surveyed lands been made available to the public. Under the new regulations anyone could pre-empt 160 acres on payment of a registration fee of $2 provided the land was occupied imme-diately. There was the option for every such pre-emptor of the purchase of an unlimited amount of additional land on payment of a f i r s t installment of half the price of the land, that i s 50 cents per acre. One hundred and sixty dollars worth of improvements had to be carried out on the basic 160 acres, the f u l l price of $ 1 6 0 paid, and an o f f i c i a l survey conducted before the t i t l e to the land was given. Some people were able to take advantage of administrative weak-nesses and evade the responsibility for improvements. How-67 ever, the unique circumstances which required both a certif-icate of improvements from the Magistrate, plus the survey which followed the certificate of improvements, served to act as a double check against widespread evasion of improvements. Consequently the majority of the original pre-emptions repre-sented areas of land improvement. The pre-emptions recorded between 1859 and 1863 were numerically equal to half the pre-emptions recorded between 1864 and 1884, both in the Lower Fraser Valley and in British Columbia as a whole. The years 1859 to I863 were also the years of strongest gold interest so gold and land interests appeared at the same time. Thus, contrary to the commonly f held view that land interest in British Columbia occurred \ later than that of gold, when gold interest was high, land /interest was high, and when gold interest waned, as happened Rafter 1866, land interest waned. These characteristics are evident in the Lower Fraser Valley, the main focus of land interest from I859 to 1884 (Fig. 7 ) . The pre-emptions for two five-year periods are shown (Fig. 7 ) , the f i r s t period coinciding with the time of increasing gold interest, and the second with the time of waning gold interest. The years R. E. Call, "Pre-emption of Crown Lands Between 1871 and 1913," (unpublished Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, I 9 5 6 ) ; Absolute Fees Books, Land Registry, New Westminster, 1870. 69 L864 to 1866 are omitted in order to distinguish the two peri-pds. The total number of pre-emptions in the earlier period' [was approximately double that of the later period. Further-more, the early pre-emptions are closely related to the routes J to the mines whereas those of 1867-71 reflect the increasing interest in areas away from.the gold mine transportation routes. Each one of these pre-emptions represented an individual pre-emptor's name, and the average size of holding was 160 acres. The land pre-empted and improved between 1859 and 1871 / formed the basis of many of the communities which emerged in / the Lower Fraser Valley for, in 1871, two-thirds of those who lived in rural communities were located in Ladner, Chilliwack, Langley, Lulu Island, Sumas, and Mud B a y — a l l places which formed early concentrations of pre-emptions (Figs. 7,1 and Table VII). 7^ Two of these places, Lulu Island and C h i l l i - ^ wack, were the main agricultural centres in 1871. The average rate of growth for these places from 1871 to 1884 was equal to the rate of growth for the Lower Fraser Valley generally (Table VII). The development of settlement on Vancouver Island and /the beginnings of both urban and rural settlement elsewhere in the 1860's were governed by location relative to the main British Columbia Directories, 1871 and 1886. TABLE VII POPULATIONS OF PRINCIPAL RURAL COMMUNITIES IN THE LOWER FRASER VALLEY 1871 Population 1885 Population Ladner 6 0 340 Chilliwack 130 320 Langley 9 0 220 Lulu Island 40 180 Sumas 80 120 Mud Bay 40 100 transportation routes to the mines. V i c t o r i a and New Westminster both grew as a r e s u l t of the mining population '^and mining supplies which passed through them. Land pur-chases i n the period 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 6 6 occurred almost exclusively 'along the routes to the mines. In the Lower Fraser Valley, i / ;which was the p r i n c i p a l focus of land purchases and pre-emptions, land and gold interests were concurrent, and the unusual l e g a l circumstances which secured widespread im-/ provement of land led to the establishment of small but permanent communities. CHAPTER VII CONCLUSIONS The g o l d rushes of the p e r i o d 1858 to 1866 e s t a b l i s h e d s e t t l e m e n t i n B r i t i s h Columbia. Gold a c t e d as a c a t a l y s t , r e p e a t e d l y ; , _ ^ o O T j t n l t i a t e and a c c e l e r a t e change. The sudden fo r m a t i o n of the new Colony of B r i t i s h Columbia, the un-t i m e l y death of the f u r - t r a d e , and the world-wide p u b l i c i t y g i v e n to B r i t i s h Columbia w i t h i n a few months of the f i r s t g o l d rush were a l l symptoms of a c c e l e r a t e d change. I f there had not been a s e r i e s of g o l d rushes, B r i t i s h Columbia would ^probably have f o l l o w e d the p a t t e r n of settlement c h a r a c t e r i s -t i c o f the r e s t of Western Canada where a g r i c u l t u r a l commu-) n i t i e s evolved i n the wake of the t r a n s - c o n t i n e n t a l r a i l w a y . .•Under these circumstances the f i r s t areas to be s e t t l e d would have been i n the e a s t e r n p a r t of the P r o v i n c e , and the r a t e of settlement would have been very much slower. The ! t r a n s - c o n t i n e n t a l r a i l w a y c o u l d not have reached B r i t i s h •Columbia b e f o r e 1880, so t h a t the g o l d rushes gave an im-\petus to settlement a g e n e r a t i o n before i t would otherwise have been expected. The c o n c l u s i o n s which may be drawn from the s e t t l e -ment of B r i t i s h Columbia between the years I858 and 1885 f a l l i n t o two c a t e g o r i e s . In the f i r s t p l a c e there are l o c a l 73 factpxs-,which r e l a t e to the unique c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of B r i t i s h Columbia. P o l i t i c a l autonomy and economic dep_end-ence uppoi_jfehe--Unlte^ among these f a c t o r s . . P r o x i m i t y t o the U n i t e d S t a t e s and remoteness from B r i t a i n i n c r e a s e d the .degree-of economic, .dependence. Remote-ness from B r i t a i n a l s o hampered the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of the \Colony while l o c a l p h y s i c a l problems made the cost of p o l i t -) ( i c a l independence very h i g h . In the second p l a c e B r i t i s h \ Columbia manifested many of the g e n e r i c a t t r i b u t e s of g o l d rushes. The l a s t i n g impact of g o l d o c c u r r e d i n the major s e r v i c e areas r a t h e r than i n the mining areas while the framework of f u t u r e settlement was e s t a b l i s h e d by the t r a n s -p o r t a t i o n r o u t e s developed to meet the needs of the mines. I. LOCAL FACTORS The overwhelming m a j o r i t y of the immigrants who poured i n t o B r i t i s h Columbia i n I858 were American. T h e i r experience i n C a l i f o r n i a made f o r r a p i d e x p l o i t a t i o n of the F r a s e r mines, but the ^oJLd__they mined poured i n t o San F r a n c i s c o ' s c o f f e r s and strengthened the American economy r a t h e r than the y o u t h f u l Canadian economy. Moreover B r i t i s h Columbia became p a r t of San Franc i.s c o,'s. _h 1 nt e r l a n d and, as 7 6 W. N. Sage wrote: W. N. Sage, "The Why and Wherefore of B r i t i s h 74 The omnipresence of the Great Republic was a factor of v i t a l importance to British Columbia. San Francisco was the metropolis of the Pacific Coast . . . letters s from British Columbia to the outside world, including the British Isles, were sent to San Francisco. . . . Post offices in British Columbia had to keep a supply of American stamps. The Victoria Gazette complained of the attractive power of San Francisco as the f i r s t wave of miners receded from the Colony: 7 7 The proximity of California to this Colony has been productive of many serious drawbacks to i t s rapid growth. Discouraged men in the Golden State in 1849 were unable generally to pay their passage back to the point whence they came. . . . Here however i t costs so l i t t l e in time and money to reach the country from which the bulk of our population migrated that the most t r i f l i n g causes are sufficient to set an exodus on foot. The effect of proximity to the United States was heightened by the immense distance from Britain. Few British ^of f i c i a l s had ever visited British Columbia and considerable ignorance of i t s physical conditions prevailed. 7 8 Yet the British Colonial office controlled the economy of the new Colony, and land policy_and l o a n ^ p j D l i ^ ; ^ administration^which. were jealously_.c-0.ntro.lled.-from London. P. F. Palmer points out the detrimental effects of these two Columbia," Historical Essays, p. 79. Victoria Gazette, October 7, 1858. ^8Chamber's Journal, September 25, 1858. p o l i c i e s i n the 1860's:^9 Colonial land p o l i c y (with i t s " s u f f i c i e n t " price which was fine for Eastern Canada with no gold, or Au s t r a l i a with no contiguous competitor for land) had a profound e f f e c t on the f i s c a l history of B. C. The slow settlement of the mainland made the early i n t r o -duction of a d i r e c t tax on land impossible. . . . Only by a reduction i n the price of land considerably below/ the price of contiguous American land could any r e a l impetus have been given to settlement i n B r i t i s h Columbia, since, other things being equal, Americans preferred to establish themselves under t h e i r own f l a g . . . . The loan p o l i c y contributed to the d e t r i -mental ef f e c t of the land policy . . . i n I867 Seymour wanted to negotiate a loan of $250,000. The request was peremptorily refused. B r i t i s h _p.ol.icy. i n s i s t e d that colonies be s e l f -supporting economically, providing l o c a l l y for a l l adminis-t r a t i v e and service costs. This policy was quite e f f e c t i v e i n the Colony of Vancouver Island, where services were minimal and where the administrative structure was ex-tremely simple. When the Colony of B r i t i s h Columbia was established, and when so l d i e r s , s a i l o r s , and a new host of Colonial o f f i c i a l s had to be paid out of l o c a l funds, an altogether new s i t u a t i o n arose. When, a d d i t i o n a l l y , new roads had to be cut through the coastal mountain b a r r i e r , to control the economy of the Colony, the cost of p o l i t i c a l 80 independence became very high indeed. 7 9 P . P. Palmer, " F i s c a l P o l i c y , " pp. 39^-397. 80 A. Harvey, A S t a t i s t i c a l Account of B r i t i s h Columbia, Ottawa, I867. 76 II. GENERIC ATTRIBUTES In spite of the problems of p o l i t i c a l autonomy and American exploitation of the mines, gold secured many of the enduring characteristics of gold rushes. In the f i r s t place world-wide publicity was quickly established for a hitherto ' • 8 l unknown area, as W. K. Lamb has pointed out. The discovery of gold f i r s t brought the mainland to the attention of the world. Nootka Sound episode and the Colony of Vancouver Island.made Vancouver Island somewhat familiar, but the mainland was completely un-known territory. In the second place, although gold mining was ephemeral i t /created administrative and supply centres around which a nucleus of resident population gathered. This nucleus of j commercial centres and rural communities, though small, proved to be the core around which later settlement and development occurred. Commercial Centres; Victoria, New Westminster, and Yale competed for a trade area barely one-twentieth that of \ San Francisco, and their size and the scope of their eco-nomic a c t i v i t i e s were, accordingly, modest throughout the period of the gold rushes. Nevertheless, these centres set 8lW. K. Lamb, ,fThe Transforming Touch of the Gold Rush," The Miner, October 1 9 3 6 , p. 3 7 . 77 a pattern for subsequent developments. In 1871, and again ^ i n 1885, in spite of the steady decrease in gold production, their commercial activities were greater than ever and, with the exception of the coal mining centre at Nanaimo, they re-) mained the largest concentrations of population in the Prov-ince. Today, Victoria and New Westminster are the second and third c i t i e s , respectively, of British Columbia. Transportation Routes. The wagon road emerged as a new system of transportation in the l860*s in sharp contrast to the foot and pack t r a i l s which provided access for the fur traders. The technical requirements of the wagon roads differed markedly from the earlier systems of land communi-cation and so their locations rarely coincided with those of the older t r a i l s . The new settlements which appeared during ( he , M , b o o B S were Xocate* near t h e wagon r o a d S , an, so subsequent transportation systems, in following the existing O p /settlements, followed the routes of the wagon roads. A l l the main links between the Lower Mainland and the rest of British Columbia and of Canada follow one or more of the wagon roads established in the 1860's. The.two trans-Canada railroads follow the canyon road. The Trans-Canada Highway follows the old Cariboo Road to,Cache Creek and then follows F. W. Howay, History of British Columbia, p. 397. 78 the Cache Creek-Savona wagon road. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway follows the Harrison-Lillooet wagon road for 70 miles south from Clinton while the Hope-Princeton Highway follows the old Similkameen wagon road, for 30 miles east from Hope (Fig. 5). Rural Occupance. The purchase of country lands along ^he main transportation routes was an absorbing interest when ^the gold rushes were at their peak, and was of lesser interest when gold interest waned. The scale of gold-land rushes was much more extensive than has hitherto been recognized, for the number of pre-emptions taken out in the five years of greatest gold excitement was equal to half the number of pre---emptions in the succeeding twenty years. Frequently i t has been assumed that gold miners turned to land only when there was no gold to rnine.8-^ Indeed the picture of land occupancy which emerges is a very different one from that of the tradi-tional pioneer settler in the West. In the Lower Fraser Valley, for example, within the confines of an area of less than 1000 square miles, and over a period of less than a \ dozen years, trading, mining, and agriculture shared equally an the economic l i f e of the area. Those who arrived in the 8 W^. E. Ireland, "The Historical Evolution of the Present Settlement Pattern," Transactions of the Seventh British Columbia Natural Resources Conference, 1954, p. 199. 79 gold rushes were substantially influenced by economic opportunities other than gold. Furthermore, the pre-options which, at f i r s t , only represented areas of improved land with occasional pockets of agriculture had a profound influence on the location of many present-day communities (Figs. 7 and 1). The new populations established in the Lower Fraser Valley and in the Cariboo each represented twenty per cent of the total population of British Columbia at the end of the period of the gold rushes (Fig. 8). In succeeding decades, as gold mining declined, the proportion of the total population in the Lower Fraser Valley continued to in-crease while that of the Cariboo dropped substantially. The proportion of the total population on Vancouver Island also dropped substantially as the temporary advantages i t held during the gold rushes came to an end. Most of the changes which occurred in the settlement of British Columbia as a result of the gold rushes were completed within a short period of time. By 1866 the main patterns of transportation and population distribution were i established and the succeeding two decades added l i t t l e to (these patterns. The next big change was to await the arrival of the railway, and the expansion of the forest industries which accompanied the coming of the railway. But the co-L e q e n d 1961 Census boundaries I.2.3-..I96I Census d iv is ions a ) 1857 Non-Indian population and percentaqe of provincial total d i t t o 1870 1961 Population and percentaqe of provincial fatal Mi les BRITISH COLUMBIA"- POPULATIONS OF SELECTED AREAS , 1857.1870,1961 A . M . G . 81 ^/ordination of urban centres, r u r a l communities, and trans-portation routes had already been established, and i t i s to the f i r s t sequence of occupance by American miners and B r i t i s h > o f f i c i a l s and engineers that the major outline of the s e t t l e -~Jment"^attern of B r i t i s h Columbia owes i t s present form. Gold jinitiated a pattern which was confirmed by the subsequent / construction of the trans-continental railway, the growth of V.the forest i n d u s t r i e s , and the development of agr i c u l t u r e . BIBLIOGRAPHY A. BOOKS 8 3 Bagley, E. The Story of River Gold and Its Recovery. Vancouver, 1917. Bancroft, H. H. History of British Columbia. San Francisco, 1 8 8 ? . " . History of California. San Francisco, 1 8 9 0 . Begg, A. History of British Columbia. Toronto, 1894. Billington, R. A. The Far Western Frontier, 1 8 3 0 - 6 0 . New York: Harper's, 1 9 5 6 . Brown, R. H. Mirror for Americans. New York: American Geographical Society, 1 9 4 3 . . Historical Geography of the United States. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948. Chittenden, H. M. History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 19^2. Clark, A. H. Three Centuries and the Island. Toronto: University of Toronto, i 9 6 0 . Darby, H. C. The Domesday Geography of England. Cambridge: University Press, 1 9 6 2 . Dawson, G. M. Geological Survey of Canada Report. Ottawa: Government of Canada, 1 8 8 7 . Duff, W. The Upper Stalo Indians. Victoria: Provincial Archives, 1 9 5 2 . . The Impact of the White Man on the Indians. Victoria: Provincial Archives, 1 9 6 5 . Egerton, H. E. Historical Geography of the British Dominions. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1 9 1 7 . Finch, J. W. (ed.). Ore Deposits of the Western States. New York: American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1 9 3 3 . Galbraith, J. S. The Hudson's Bay Company as an Imperial Factor. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 9 5 7 . 84 Howay, F. W. British Columbia. Vancouver: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company"^ 1914. . The Fraser River Mines. Victoria: Provincial Archives, 1926. Innis, H. A. The Fur Trade in Canada. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930. Ireland, W. E. New Westminster, The Royal City. New Westminster, i960. James, P. E. (ed.). American Geography: Inventory and Prospect. Association of American Geographers. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 195^-. Kirkland, E. C. Industry Comes of Age. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, I96I. McCaskill, M. Gold Rush: West Coast, South Island (N. Z.). New Zealand Geographical Society, 1962. Morgan, D. L. (ed.). Guide to the Manuscript Collection of the Bancroft Library. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Morrell, W. P. The Gold Rushes. New York: The Macmillan Company, l 9 4 l . Nelson, D. Fort Langley_, 1827-1927. Vancouver Art, Histori-cal and Scientific Association, 1927. Notes on Placer-Mining in British Columbia. Department of Mines and Petroleum Resources. Victoria: Queen's Printer, 1963. Ormsby, M. British Columbia: A History. Toronto: Macmillans, 1958. Paul, R. W. Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. Portland, Its History and Builders. Chicago: J. Gaston, 1911. Publications of the Government of British Columbia, 1871-1947. Victoria: King's Printer, 19^7. 85 Reid, R. L. The Assay O f f i c e and the Proposed Mint. V i c t o r i a : P r o v i n c i a l A r c h i v e s , 1926. Rogers, J . D. H i s t o r i c a l Geography of the B r i t i s h C o l o n i e s . V o l . VI, Pa r t 1. Oxford: The Clarendon P r e s s , 1907. Sage, W. N. 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The T r a n s p o r t a t i o n F r o n t i e r : T r a n s - M i s s i s s i p p i West, T8"6"5-1890. New York: H o l t , Rinehart and Winston, I96T. Wright, E. W. (ed. ) . Lewis and Dryden's Marine H i s t o r y of the P a c i f i c Northwest. P o r t l a n d , I895. B. CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS Anderson, A. C. Handbook and Map to the Gold Regions of F r a z e r 1 s and Thompson's R i v e r s . San F r a n c i s c o , I858". . The Dominion a t the West. V i c t o r i a , 1872. Brown, R. C. L. B r i t i s h Columbia Essay. New Westminster, I 8 6 3 . Census o f Canada, I 8 7 1 , 1881. Chamber's J o u r n a l . London, England, 1858. 86 Field Notes and Early Legal Survey Maps, Legal Surveys Division, Department of Lands and Forests, Victoria, British Columbia. Gold Discovery Papers. Colonial Office, London, 1859. Harvey, A. A Statistical Account of British Columbia. Ot t a wa, 1 Qo~T. H i t t e l , J. S. Resources of California. San Francisco, I863. 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Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1 9 3 6 . Hall, W. N. "The Royal Engineers in British Columbia." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1 9 4 0 . Laing, F. W. "Colonial Pre-emptions on the Mainland of British Columbia." Provincial Archives, Victoria, 1 9 3 9 . Lot Books, New Westminster. Macdonald, M. "History of New Westminster, 1 8 6 1 - 1 8 7 1 . " Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1 9 4 7 . 88 Minghi, J. V. "Some Aspects of the Impact of an Inter-national Boundary on Spatial Patterns." Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, I962. Moody, R. C. Manuscript. Provincial Archives, Victoria. Ormsby, M. A. "Okanagan Valley." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1931. Palmer, P. F. "Fiscal Policy of British Columbia in the Colonial Period." Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, 1932. Reid, J. A. S. "The Road to Cariboo." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1942. Siemens, A. H. "Mennonite Settlement in the Lower Fraser Valley." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, I960. Thrupp, S. L. "East Kootenays." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1929. Trueman, A. S. "Northern Mining in British Columbia." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1935. Walden, F. E. "Social History of Victoria in the Colonial Period." Department of History, University of British Columbia, 1951 . Wrinch, L. A. "Land Policy on Vancouver Island." Master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1932. D. PERIODICALS British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Victoria Provincial Archives, 1958. Clark, A. H. "Geographical Change—A Theme for Economic History," Journal of Economic History, December i 9 6 0 . Cumberland, K. C. "Middle Island Ascendant: New Zealand in 1881," New Zealand Geographer, Vol. II, p. 9 5 . 89 Darby, H. C. "The Domesday Geography of Norfolk and Suffolk," Geographical Journal, 1935, p. 4-32. Fish, A. "The Last Phase of the Oregon Boundary Question," Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 1921, p. l 6 l . Forde, C. D. "Human Geography, History, and Sociology," Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1939, p. 2 1 7 . Ireland, W. E. "The Historical Evolution of the Present Settlement Pattern," British Columbia Natural Resources Conference, 1 9 5 4 , p. 1 9 9 . James, P. E. "The Blackstone Valley of New England," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1929, p~ 67. Kemble, J. H. "The Panama Route to the Pacific Coast, 1848-1869," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. VII, 1938, p. 1. Kersten, E. W. "The Early Settlement of Aurora, Nevada, and Nearby Mining Camps," Annals of the Association of Ameri-can Geographers, 1964, p. 4 9 0 . Lamb, W. K. "The Transforming Touch of the Gold Rush," The Miner, 1 9 3 6 . Lindgren, R. E. "John Damon and the Fraser River Rush," Pacific Historical Review, 1945, p. 190. Poppleton, I. L. "Oregon's First Monopoly," Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. IX, No. 3, 1908, p. 274. Reid, R. L. "The Whatcom Trails to the Fraser Mines in 1858," Washington Historical Quarterly, 1927, p. 199. Sage, W. N. "The Gold Colony of British Columbia," Canadian Historical Review, December, 1 9 2 1 . Scott, L. M. "The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold," Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 1917. Ward, D. "A Comparative Historical Geography of Streetcar Suburbs in Boston, Massachusetts, and Leeds, England, 1850-1920," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1964, p. 477. Whittlesey, D. "Sequent Occupance," Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 1929, p. 162. 9 0 E. NEWSPAPERS B r i t i s h C o l o n i s t . December 1 1 , I 8 5 8 . B r i t i s h Columbian. February 1 3 , 1861 and August 2 7 , I87O. Cariboo S e n t i n e l . June 6 , I 8 6 5 . Northern L i g h t . J u l y 3, 1 8 5 8 . Times. London, 1 7 8 5 . Vancouver Times, 1 9 6 5 . V i c t o r i a Gazette, J u l y 2 8 , I858. STS Of SURVEYS A N D M A P P I N G HHST STATUS EDITION - SHEET 92 3 N A L TOPOGRAPHIC SERIES Tu.VjuWt l«nu»-» E- W B A S S E T T D E P U T Y MINISTER OF L A N D S DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS BRITISH COLUMBIA H O N O U R A B L E R. G . WILLrSTON. MINISTER G. 5 . A N D R E W S . DIRECTOR O F S U R V E Y S A N D M A P P I N G RRST EDITION -mm 6*. 195A SHEET 92)NAL TOPOGRAPHIC SYSTEM DEPARTMR NT OF LANDS AND FORESTS BRITISH COLUMBIA HONOURABLE R. G . WILLISTON, MINISTER t. w HAsscrr. occuty MINISTER or LANDO G S ANDRFW-V DIRECTOR OF S U R V E Y S A N D MAPPING SECOND STATUS EDITION A*** J* mo SHEET 92 H / s w „r.n,R» I , — 'iJtr . . > H A n P E J . . , »'«l • f-t Hurboui 0 4V A . N C Q t t v ^ - H - ; , i O U V E R . ' ' £ \ j I T i Vat- * out-i is* 12 r» 5 T - M r am L o n g FIELD P K . Tl> 6 R J W.7 L L. ©/ O ^ E T M C N A MT, •. . - MT. • DOWNING DOUGLAS V : • • . 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Geography
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Graduate
Gold and the early settlement of British Columbia: 1858-1885
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