page_title: Old Cariboo Road
section_title: The Old Cariboo Trail
hierarchical_section_title: Old Cariboo Road / The Old Cariboo Trail
caption_attribution_description: English: This image was taken by myself c.1991 and is of the old 12 Mile Road House at Fountain, which is no longer extant but stood by the side of what is now Hwy 99, which follows the route of the Old Cariboo Road from Lillooet to Pavilion. The roadhouse had once been a combination stable and hostelry for travellers on the route, which at Fountain met the main wagon road and trail from Lytton and the lower Fraser Canyon and Yale (in those days the route via the Big Slide on Highway 12 was not usable). I am hereby donating this image to Wikipedia.
context_page_description: The Old Cariboo Road is a reference to the original wagon road to the Cariboo gold fields in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. It should not be confused with the Cariboo Road, which was built slightly later and used a different route.
  It was built from Lillooet to Alexandria, beginning in 1859, and was a precursor to the slightly later Cariboo Wagon Road that was built from Yale via Cache Creek-Ashcroft. Access to the start of the road at Lillooet was made by the Douglas Road or Lakes Route from Port Douglas, at the head of Harrison Lake.
  It is the mileages from Lillooet on the Old Cariboo Road, properly known as the Lillooet-Alexandria Road, that the "road house" placenames of British Columbia, such as 100 Mile House, are measured. The road was a toll-route and built by private contractor Gustavus Blin-Wright, a prominent British-Swedish entrepreneur in colonial British Columbia who also contracted to build roads and provide steamer services in the Kootenay region. Blin-Wright also operated the steamer which connected the end of the road at Alexandria with Quesnel.
context_section_description: From Wallula Gap on the Columbia River, the Old Cariboo Trail was built over the route of the Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail, which began at Fort Okanagan, near the Wallula Gap area on the Columbia River and passed north through Eastern Washington along the Columbia River to the Okanogan River and north into British Columbia.
  Hudson's Bay Company fur traders brigades followed this route up until 1847, when the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew from the Northwest. Cattle drives were common along this trail to supply the gold miners, who arrived in British Columbia in the late 1850s.
  In Washington Territory a wagon road from Wallula (Fort Nez Percés near Walla Walla) to the gold mining regions of British Columbia was known as the "Cariboo Trail" or the "Wallula-Okanogan Road". Connecting to the Oregon Trail at Wallula, it ran north across Quincy Flats past Moses Lake, then crossed the lower Grand Coulee at present day Coulee City. From there it turned north and crossed the Waterville Plateau to reach the Columbia River near Fort Okanogan. From there it followed the valley of the Okanagan River into Canada, connecting with the Okanagan Trail.  The section known in Canada as the Cariboo Trail departed from the northernmost of the Okanagan Trail routes near today's Savona to head up the Deadman River towards the initial strikes near Likely and Horsefly, British Columbia.
caption: 12 Mile Roadhouse, Fountain (burned down 1980s)
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