The Trail of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past
$26.95
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The Trail of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past by Mark Forsythe & Greg Dickson
Back of the book blurb: "The Fraser River gold rush, the most spectacular phenomenon in the history of British Columbia, exploded in the spring of 1859. A quiet outpost of the colonial fur trade was transformed almost overnight when some 30,000 gold-seekers, entrepreneurs and hangers-on rushed to the shores of the Fraser, and then followed the gold north to the Cariboo.
This is the story of the gold rush—a story that is 150 years old and still unfolding. It is the story of James Douglas, a mixed-race colonial governor determined to keep BC out of American hands; Matthew Baillie Begbie, a no-nonsense travelling judge; Chief Spintlum, a legendary peacemaker of the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson); Nam Sing, the first Chinese miner in the Cariboo, and Armor de Cosmos, a feisty politician who set off the first of many BC political fireworks. it is also the story of the Royal Engineers, black Americans who fled slavery, European fishermen who jumped ship and stayed on, unnamed women who made homes and raised children in the new colony, and First Nations whose ancestors had lived in the region for thousands of years and who first resisted the invasion, then reluctantly accepted it.
The story is told my British Columbians—historians, writers, broadcasters, scholars who are working now and those whose stories have outlived them, and scores of CBC listeners whose BC roots go back to the Trail of 1858 and beyond. More the 100 photos, illustrations and maps accompany this rich compendium of rich history and memory, bringing to life a profoundly pivotal event in the history of BC."
Back of the book blurb: "The Fraser River gold rush, the most spectacular phenomenon in the history of British Columbia, exploded in the spring of 1859. A quiet outpost of the colonial fur trade was transformed almost overnight when some 30,000 gold-seekers, entrepreneurs and hangers-on rushed to the shores of the Fraser, and then followed the gold north to the Cariboo.
This is the story of the gold rush—a story that is 150 years old and still unfolding. It is the story of James Douglas, a mixed-race colonial governor determined to keep BC out of American hands; Matthew Baillie Begbie, a no-nonsense travelling judge; Chief Spintlum, a legendary peacemaker of the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson); Nam Sing, the first Chinese miner in the Cariboo, and Armor de Cosmos, a feisty politician who set off the first of many BC political fireworks. it is also the story of the Royal Engineers, black Americans who fled slavery, European fishermen who jumped ship and stayed on, unnamed women who made homes and raised children in the new colony, and First Nations whose ancestors had lived in the region for thousands of years and who first resisted the invasion, then reluctantly accepted it.
The story is told my British Columbians—historians, writers, broadcasters, scholars who are working now and those whose stories have outlived them, and scores of CBC listeners whose BC roots go back to the Trail of 1858 and beyond. More the 100 photos, illustrations and maps accompany this rich compendium of rich history and memory, bringing to life a profoundly pivotal event in the history of BC."
