1858 Fraser River Gold Rush

Mini-doc on the Fraser River Gold Rush, which began in 1858 after gold was discovered on British Columbia’s Thompson and Fraser rivers. Word got out and in 1858 a lot of Americans from California flocked to the “new diggings“ on the Fraser River. Until the arrival of the miners, the area of mainland British Columbia was a land under the control of First Nations and the Hudson’s Bay Company. James Douglas, without any authority, created the colony of British Columabia in 1858 with himself as the governor. The Fraser Gold Rush was short-lived but started the prospecting for gold throughout BC. It directly lead to the Cariboo Gold Rush of 1861. In 2009 the BC Provincial Capital Commission did a series of short history docs about various aspects of BC. With the end of the PCC in March of 2014 it was not clear what would happen to these videos so I thought I would post them to ensure they remain online.