page_title: Cariboo Gold Rush
section_title: The Cariboo Wagon Road
hierarchical_section_title: Cariboo Gold Rush / The Cariboo Wagon Road
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Trasa Sobí cesty je vyznačená červenou a trasa parníků modrou barvou. Cesty k jiným nalezištím zlata jsou vyznačené tečkovaně. English: Route of the Cariboo Road in red. Steamboat travel in blue; dotted lines are alternate routes or routes to other goldfields. Trails, Roads and Water Routes in Colonial British Columbia. The Dewdney Trail was the dotted line across the south of the colony. Français&#160;: Tracé de la route Cariboo (en rouge sur la carte). Slovenčina: Trasa Sobiej cesty je vyznačená červenou a trasa parníkov modrou farbou. Cesty k iným náleziskám zlata sú vyznačené bodkovane.
context_page_description: The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which earlier joined the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly River, and on Keithley Creek and Antler Creek in 1860. The actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were widely publicized. By 1865, following the strikes along Williams Creek, the rush was in full swing.
  Towns grew up, the most famous of these being Barkerville, now preserved as a heritage site and tourist attraction. Other important towns of the Cariboo gold rush era were Keithley Creek, Quesnel Forks or simply "the Forks", Antler, Richfield, Quesnellemouthe, Horsefly and, around the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort of the same name, Alexandria.
context_section_description: The boom in the Cariboo goldfields was the impetus for the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road by the Royal Engineers, which bypassed the older routes via the Fraser Canyon and the Lakes Route (Douglas Road) via Lillooet by using the canyon of the Thompson River to Ashcroft and from there via the valley of the Bonaparte River to join the older route from Lillooet at Clinton.
  Towns along the Cariboo Road include Clinton, 100 Mile House and Williams Lake, although most had their beginnings before the Cariboo rush began. During the rush, the  largest and most important town lay at the road's end at Barkerville, which had grown up around the most profitable and famous of the many Cariboo mining camps. 
  The Cariboo Wagon Road was an immense infrastructure burden for the colony but needed to be built to enable access and bring governmental authority to the Cariboo goldfields, which was necessary in order to maintain and assert control of the wealth, which might more easily have passed through the Interior to the United States. 
  The wagon road's most important freight was the Gold Escort, which brought government bullion to Yale for shipment to the colonial treasury.  Despite the wealth of the Cariboo goldfields, the expense of colonizing the Cariboo contributed to the Mainland Colony's virtual bankruptcy and its forced union with the Island Colony, and similarly into Confederation.
caption: Route of the Cariboo Road in red. Steamboat travel in blue; dotted lines are alternate routes or routes to other goldfields. Trails, Roads and Water Routes in Colonial British Columbia. The Dewdney Trail was the dotted line across the south of the colony.
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