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 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 (then Quesnellemouthe).
When the Cariboo Road proper was built, it converged with the existing route of the Old Cariboo Road at Clinton, and followed the earlier road to Alexandria, but was extended up the Fraser from there to Quesnel (thereby eliminating the need for steamer travel on that stretch of the upper Fraser) and completed eastward from there to Barkerville.
It was along this route that an attempt was made to use Bactrian camels purchased from the U.S. Camel Corps for freight, and also a tractor-style Thomson Road Steamer known as a "road train", one of the earliest motorized vehicles.
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.[1]
The Old Cariboo Road started at Lillooet (or 0 Mile House) where it directly went to Alexandria. From there a steamboat service was provided to Quesnellemouthe (now Quesnel) where it ended. A trail from there then went east to Barkerville where gold was discovered. From Lillooet there was a trail that went south to Lytton. This was part of the Old Cariboo Road that avoided the Fraser Canyon. By 1864 a new Cariboo road was built, which took a different route, although from Clinton to Alexandria much of the Old Cariboo Road was used for the newer Cariboo Road.
Dorpat, Paul; Genevieve McCoy (1998). Building Washington: A History of Washington State Public Works. Tartu Publications. p.70. ISBN0-9614357-9-8.
Further reading
Gold Mining and the Early Development of British Columbia, Winifred Emily Foster, M.A.* Thesis (History), University of California, 1936. FC 3822.4F68
The Development of Communications in Colonial British Columbia, Helen Ferguson, M.A. Thesis (History), University of British Columbia, 1939 FC 3822 F47
Gold and the Early Settlement of British Columbia,, Angus MacLeod Gunn, M.A. Thesis (Geography), University of British Columbia, 1961. FC 3822.4 G95 1965 c.1
Halfway to the Goldfields - A History of Lillooet, Lorraine Harris, J.J. Douglas, North Vancouver, 1977
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