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CHAPTER TWO
The Early Gold Rush

N the early days of 1849, the peaceful quietude of

Victoria was suddenly awakened by the arrival of
straggling groups of nondescript wanderers with
packs on their backs and leather bags belted
securely round their waist, close to their pistols. They
sought out Roderick Finlayson, then chief trader for
the Hudson's Bay Company. They wanted provisions
from the store... rice, flour, ham, sugar, tobacco...
and shovels, picks, iron ladles from the smithy. Fin-
layson was in a quandary ... to grant the demands
of the “argonauts’” was to shorten the days of the
fur trader, for the miner sounded the knell of fur
trading, and yet, these men were insistent and backed
their demands by producing gold nuggets from their
leather pouches. They volunteered little information
as from whence they had come and whither they
were going. Presumably they were seeking new gold
fields, but who ever heard of finding gold in New
Caledonia!

Rumours gradually crept into the company’s forts

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