Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.

The Gold Rush

People with gold nuggets in hand, Yukon Territory.
People with gold nuggets in hand, Yukon Territory. Photo by Leonard Frank (VPL # 14972)

Related Guides

There were two major gold rushes in British Columbia - one occurring around 1858 on the Fraser River and the other in 1862 in the Cariboo district.

Useful Websites

A very comprehensive site on the old town and gold mining from the Cariboo Goldfields Historical Society, the Royal BC Museum and BC Heritage.

This site, maintained by the Cariboo Sentinel, has historical information, online issues of the Gold Rush Trail Journal, and information on what's happening at the historic town site.

BC Archives website of photos and text describing this Gold Rush of the 1860s.

A BC Heritage website with historical documents, images, and other multimedia information on the Cariboo Wagon Road, Barkerville, and Yale.

Digital Library Resources
Culture and History Subject Icon

A selection of historical images of Vancouver and British Columbia from the 1880s to the 1980s.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone

Recommended Titles

Cover Image for Barkerville, Williams Creek, Cariboo: A Gold Rush Experience
Wright, Richard
Call Number
971.175 W95d1
Publication Year
1998
The stories of the men and women who dug for gold on Williams Creek are told in this new, revised edition of a Canadian bestseller. This book brings to life the men and women of the creeks, who came in search of gold and left their mark on B.C. history.
Cover Image for Gold and Grand Dreams: Cariboo East in the Early Years
Elliott, Marie
Call Number
971.175 E467g
Publication Year
2000
This is the story of entrepreneurs Sam Adler and the Barry Brothers, administrators Phillip Nind and William Stephenson, far-sighted engineer John Hobson, and those grizzled prospectors, the 'Snowshoe Boys'. It is also the story of Chinese miners, Native residents, and the few women who made the long trek to Cariboo East.
Cover Image for Gold at Fortymile Creek: Early Days in the Yukon
Gates, Michael
Call Number
971.91 G25g
Publication Year
1994
The book, based on the accounts of dozens of prospectors, follows the first gold-seekers from their arrival in 1873 until the stampede to the Klondike in 1896. Gates captures the essence of these early years of the gold rush, about which very little has been written.
Marty, Ken & Roberts, Mike & Barlee, N. L. & CHBC (Television station : Kelowna, B.C.)
Call Number
971.1 G61f
Publication Year
1987
Gold Trails and Ghost Towns is a historical documentary show first produced for Canadian syndication, created and produced by Kelowna television station CHBC-TV and hosted by Mike Roberts with historian storyteller Bill Barlee. Mike and Bill discussed history of the old West by prospectors around 1900 in British Columbia.
Cover Image for The Klondike Gold Rush
Arrowsmith, Doug & Gold, L. Harvey
Call Number
971.91 K6621a
Publication Year
2015
Renowned as the richest gold strike in North American mining history, the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) set off a stampede of over 100,000 people on a colossal journey from Alaska to the gold fields of Canada's Yukon Territory.
Cover Image for Yukon Gold: High Hopes and Dashed Dreams
Preyde, James & Preyde, Susan
Call Number
971.91 P94y
Publication Year
1995
High hopes and Dashed dreams celebrates the centennial of the Klondike Gold Rush.

Contact Us

Northwest History Index

This card index in Special Collection provides access to the Northwest History Collection, a heritage collection covering the early history and exploration of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

The collection includes:

  • magazine and newspaper articles
  • pamphlets
  • books
  • chapters in books
  • many other resources

As of August 1998, no new material has been added to the Northwest History Index. It is continued by the British Columbia Index.