As the gold rush of 1858 pushed up the Fraser River, ever further into the canyon and beyond, it became obvious that some kind of road would need to be built. The first version of the Cariboo road used an older Hudson Bay route from Lillooet through a chain of Lakes and rivers to Harrison lake and then the Fraser River. Starting from Port Douglas a virtually "volunteer" force of miners (each in fact paying a $25 bond as a guarantee of working till the end of the project) tore a four foot trail out of the wilderness. They connected Port Douglas at the upper end of Harrison Lake with the south end of Lillooet Lake. During the same season they finished the other portage trails to reach Anderson and then Seaton Lake, thus connecting to Lillooet on the upper Fraser. By 1860 there were steamers running regular routes on all three lakes and shortly there was also a wooden rail tram way pulled by horses over the Anderson - Seaton Lake portage. It was a cumbersome trail, a virtual quagmire at times but it was possible to take mule trains through to the Interior and reach the gold fields. Shortly the Royal Engineers were at work building the trail into a real wagon road which made both Port Douglas and Lillooet the key supply depots for the gold rush for a number of years.
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All text and images
© Quesnel & District Museum and Archives unless otherwise
noted. Thanks to the B.C. Archives for permission to show various
images. Thanks to the BC Encyclopedia for permission to quote information
on the roadhouse communities. Thanks to the Living Landscapes Project,
the Royal British Columbia Museum, Ministry of Community, Aboriginal
and Women's Services for their support of site development.
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