The Cayoosh Gold Rush was one of several in the history of the region surrounding

Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. If estimates of its yield are true, it would be one of the richest single finds in the gold mining history of that province. Cayoosh Creek is a relatively major tributary of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual ...

, merging with the outflow from

Seton Lake Seton Lake is a freshwater fjord draining east via the Seton River into the Fraser River at the town of Lillooet, about long, in area and lies at an elevation of . Its depth is . The lake is natural in origin but was raised slightly as part o ...

before joining the larger river at Lillooet. Six miles (9.5km) upstream from that confluence was a large waterfall,

Cayoosh Falls Cayoosh, derived from Spanish ''caballo'' like cayuse, is a placename in British Columbia, Canada. It may refer to: *the basin of Cayoosh Creek, sometimes spelled Cayuse. Also used in reference to Cayoosh Canyon, which is the lower valley of th ...

(now inundated by a private estate's small hydroelectric dam and powerplant). In early 1884 staking of gold claims on Cayoosh Creek between the falls and the

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...

began and by the end of the year there were 600 men working that section of the creek - all of which had been fully staked by the end of the year. What distinguishes the mining activity on Cayoosh Creek from other mining operations at that time was that all of the 300 claimholders were Chinese, word-of-mouth having spread through their community throughout the

Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser ...

and the

Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the caribou that were once abundant in the region. The Cariboo was the ...

of the find such that all claims were staked by the time any non-Chinese found about it. Local government agent and claims recorder

Caspar Phair Caspar Phair (died 1933) was one of the early settlers of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada, arriving about 1877 to take up the role of the village's school teacher. He emigrated from Ireland. Caspar Phair became Lillooet's Government Agent, a ...

, who presided over the issuing of claims, in 1887 estimated C$6-7 million in gold had been taken out, in a decade when the official total gold revenue for the entire province was only about C$1.5 million. By the end of the decade the claims were exhausted but the renewed interest in the Lillooet region helped spur a wave of new exploration in the area, which had been bypassed for the most part during the

Fraser Canyon Gold Rush The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's ...

a few decades earlier. The discovery of the famous (but largely worthless) Golden Cache Mine farther up Cayoosh Creek, the various mines of

Bridge River goldfields A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

and a profitable mine at

McGillivray Falls McGillivray may refer to: People * McGillivray (surname) Places * McGillivray Creek (British Columbia), a creek in the Lillooet Country of British Columbia ** McGillivray, British Columbia (formerly McGillivray Falls) in the Lillooet Country of ...

on Anderson Lake, to the west of Seton Lake, are all the result of the Cayoosh Gold Rush.

Sources

*''Short Portage to Lillooet'', Irene Edwards, self-published, Lillooet, various editions, out of print. *''Halfway to the Goldfields'', Lorraine Harris, Sunfire Books, one edition, out of print. *''The Great Years'', Lewis Green, Tricouni Books Vancouver 2001 *''Bridge River Gold'', Emma de Hullu and others, self-published, 1971, out of print. {{Financial bubbles British Columbia gold rushes History of British Columbia Lillooet Country