50 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

Hope and Vale and Lytton for fifty years and
seen their trail crumble into the canyon, with
not a dozen pack-trains a year passing to the
upper country ? John Rose, who was one
of the men to find Cariboo, set out in the spring
of 63 to prospect the Bear River country. He
set out alone and was never again seen alive.
Cariboo Cameron, a ‘man from Glengarry,’
went back to Glengarry by the Ottawa and
established something like a baronial estate;
but he lost his money in various investments
and died in 1888 in Cariboo a poor man. Billy
Deitz, after whom a famous creek was named,
died penniless in Victoria; and the Scottish
miner who rhymed the songs of Cariboo died
unwept and unknown to history.

The romance of the trail is almost incredible
to us, who may travel by motor from Ashcroft
to Barkerville. In October ’62 a Mr Ireland
and a party were on the trail when snow began
falling so heavily that it was unsafe to pro-
ceed. They halted at a negro’s cabin. Out
of the heavy snowfall came another party
struggling like themselves. Then a packer
emerged from the storm with word that five
women and twenty-six men were snowbound
half a mile ahead. Ireland and his party set
out to the rescue; but they lost the trail and