Chronicles of Canada Volume 23 - The Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia

Here is the gold rush history forgot. While the world's attention turned to California in '49 and later to the frozen Yukon, a quieter revolution unfolded in the remote mountains of British Columbia. In 1859, prospectors first struck pay dirt in the Cariboo region, and by 1861, thousands had descended upon its rugged valleys, transforming wilderness into thriving towns and forcing a remote colony into existence. Agnes C. Laut, one of early Canada's most celebrated historians, reconstructs this pivotal chapter with vivid detail: the desperate journeys over mountain passes, the fortunes won and lost in muddy creek beds, the Indigenous peoples whose lands were irrevocably altered, and the politicians who saw in the rush the very future of a province. The Cariboo Trail is more than a chronicle of gold. It is the story of how a wilderness became Canada.