Introduction

This section is dedicated to helping the public access primary source material made available from the BC Archives. Diaries , journal, letters, and memoirs of the Cariboo Gold Rush era are now available through this web site. This section includes accounts of the Cariboo Gold Rush Era by the following characters of the Cariboo Gold Rush:

Fredrick Dally: BC Archives MS - 2443 pgs 1-17.
Speaks in his diary that the road from Yale to Lytton is, "...probably the most wonderful in the world".

John Boyd: BC Archives MS - 2788 files 14, 17.
Real miners certificates of John Boyd, proprietor of Cottonwood House.

George Anderson: BC Archives MS - 1876.
Certificates and documents from 1864. Reports of gold quartz left for Assay by his company Rising Sun Comp.

Land Act of 1884
1884 - 1899 Pre-emption documents of Isaac Saul, proprietor of 59 Mile House, and of Dog Creek. Also Thomas Saul, Antonette Felkner, William Pinchbeck, and more!

Thomas McMicking: Published Journal, NW 971E pgs 1-54.
An account of a journey overland from Canada to British Columbia during the summer of 1862

Alexander Anderson: BC Archives MSS 559, Vol. 2, Folder 1.
Journal of an Expedition under command of Alex C. Anderson. Discussing the practicability of a communication with the Interior, for the import of the annual supplies, 1846.

A.T. Bushby: BC Archives MS - 0809 vol. 2
Journal of trip to the Cariboo from New westminster, stay there of about 3 months and return to Westminster, 1872

Royal Engineers 1858-1863.
links to items in the BC Archives holding collection.

John B. Wilkinson BC Archives MS - 0048.,
Letters to brother about the Cariboo Wagon Road April 2nd, 1860 to September 12th, 1862

Charles Evans Diary: BC Archives MSS 720.
Biographies of Charles and Jane Evans, Early British Columbians (Victoria, Yale, Chilliwack)

Madelon Cruickshank's Autograph Book BC Archives MS 2712.
Pages of her Journal

Kinahan Cornwallis
Cornwallis was a traveler who had spent some time in Australia before he came to B.C. to see if the reports he had heard about the riches to be made were true. He published a book in 1858 which had highly accurate maps of where gold was likely to be found; rich claims were staked at nearly all of the sites he mentioned.