"The Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia" by Agnes Christina Laut. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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Agnes Christina Laut. The Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia
The Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. THE ‘ARGONAUTS’
CHAPTER II. THE PROSPECTOR
CHAPTER III. CARIBOO
CHAPTER IV. THE OVERLANDERS
CHAPTER V. CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER VI. QUESNEL AND KAMLOOPS
CHAPTER VII. LIFE AT THE MINES
CHAPTER VIII. THE CARIBOO ROAD
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
Agnes Christina Laut
Published by Good Press, 2021
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The snowfall had been heavy in ’58. In the spring the Fraser rolled to the sea a swollen flood. Against the turbid current worked tipsy rafts towed by wheezy steamers or leaky old sailing craft, and rickety row-boats raced cockle-shell canoes for the gold-bars above. Ashore, the banks of the river were lined with foot passengers toiling under heavy packs, wagons to which clung human forms on every foot of space, and long rows of pack-horses bogged in the flood of the overflowing river. By September ten thousand men were rocking and washing for gold round Yale.
As in the late Kootenay and in the still later Klondike stampede, American cities at the coast benefited most. Victoria was a ten-hour trip from the mainland. Whatcom and Townsend, on the American side, advertised the advantages of the Washington route to the Fraser river gold-mines. A mushroom boom in town lots had sprung up at these points before Victoria was well awake. By the time speculators reached Victoria the best lots in that place had already been bought by the company’s men; and some of the substantial fortunes of Victoria date from this period. Though the river was so high that the richest bars could not be worked till late in August, five hundred thousand dollars in gold was taken from the bed of the Fraser during the first six months of ’58. This amount, divided among the ten thousand men who were on the bars around Yale, would not average as much as they could have earned as junior clerks with the fur company, or as peanut pedlars in San Francisco; but not so does the mind of the miner work. Here was gold to be scooped up for nothing by the first comer; and more vessels ploughed their way up the Fraser, though Governor Douglas sought to catch those who came by Puget Sound and evaded licence by charging six dollars toll each for all canoes on the Fraser and twelve dollars for each vessel with decks. Later these tolls were disallowed by the home authorities. The prompt action of Douglas, however, had the effect of keeping the mining movement in hand. Though the miners were of the same class as the ‘argonauts’ of California, they never broke into the lawlessness that compelled vigilance committees in San Francisco.
