The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1892-10-22
cANADA's Ell DORADO.
The short but Brilliant History of Gold
Mining In British Columbia.

The short but Brilliant History of Gold
Mining In British Columbia.
i 1t may almost be said that the his
tory of gold-mining there is the histor,
OF British Columbia. Victoria, tn,
capital. was Hudson Bay post estab
lished in 1s43, and Vancouver, Queer
Charlotte's, and the other islands, a,
well as the mainland. were of interest
to only few white men as parts of 9
great fur-trading field with small In
dian population The first nugget o.
gold was found at what i:
now called Gold Harbor, on the
west coast of the Queen Charlotte
islands, by an Indian woman, in 1851.
part of it, weighing four or five
ounces, was taken by the Indians to
Fort Simpson and sold The Hudson
Bay Co., which has done a little
in every line of business in it's day, sent
brigantine to the spot, and found q
quartz vein traceable eighty feet, and
yielding high percentage of gold.
Blasting was begun and the vessel was
loaded with ore; but she was lost on
l S.AO ASeNA a wy az AL hntIlCdn YES
sci, ashore at Esquimault, near Vic
toria, was purchased, renamed the Re-
covery, and sent 10 Gold Harbor with
thirty miners, who worked the vein un-
til the vessel was loaded and sent to
England. News of the mine travelled,
and in another year small feet of yes
sells came up from San Francisco: but
the supply was seen to be very limited,
and after twenty thousand dollars in
all had been taken out, the field was
abandoned
In 1885 gold was found by Hudson
Bay Co. employee at Fort Colville, now
in Washington state, near the boundary.
Some Thompson River (B. c.. Indians
who went to Walla Walla spread a re-
port there that gold, like that discov-
cred at Colyille, was to be found in the
valley of the Thompson. A party of
Canadians and half-breeds went TO the
region referred to and found placers
nine miles above the mouth of the river.
By 1858 the news and the authentica-
tion OF it stirred the miners of Califor-
MIA, and an astonishing invasion of the
virgin province began. 1t is said that
in the spring of 1858 more than
twenty thousand persons reached
Victoria from San Francisco by sea
distending the little fur-trading post
OF a few hundred inha bitants into
what would even now be called a con-
siderable city; city of canvas, how
ever. simultaneously third as MANY
miners made their way to the new
province on land. But the land was
covered with mountains and dense
forest; the only route to its interior for
them was the violent, almost boiling,
Fraser river, and there was nothing on
which the lives of this horde of men
could be sustained. BY the end of the
year out of nearly thirty thousand adj |
venturers only a tenth part remained. |
Those who did stay worked the river
bars of the lower Fraser until in five
months they had shipped from Victoria
more than half a million dollars
worth of gold. From historical |
point of view it is a peculiar
coincidence that in 1859, when the
attention of the world was thus first at
'racted to this new country. the char
'er of the Hudson Bay Co. expired, and |
he territory passed from its control to
become like any other crown colony.
In 1850 the gold-miners, seeking the
source of the flour" of gold they found
n such abundance in the bed of the
liver, pursued their search into the
leart and almost the center of that
orbidding and unbroken territory.
The Quesnel river became the seat of
heir operations. Two years later came
mother extraordinary immigration.
This year was not surprising, for one
thousand five numbered miners had in
ne year QsGD taken out two million
ollars in gold-dust from certain creeks
a what is called the Cariboo district.
nd one can imagine (if one
oes not remember) what fabulous
ales were based upon this fact. The
econd stampede was of persons from
II over the world, but chiefly from En-
land, Canada, Australia and New Zea-
Ind. After that there were new
finds almost every year, and the
liners worked gradually northward /,
NTH, about 1874, they had travelled
1rough the province, in at one end and I
ut at the other, and were working the I
obituaries of the Yukon river in the ]
orth. beyond the sixtieth parallel.
r. Dawson estimates that the total
leld OF gold between 1858 and 1888 was
a, los, So4; the average number of
liners employed each year was AIRS, :
nd the average earnings per man per !.
ear were s622.-Julian Ralph, in Har-
IRIS Magazine. Ia