ne

Pe

b Boe
I
i

18 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

these flakes and nuggets washed down to the
sand-bars of the Fraser? Gold had also been
found in cracks in the rock along the river.
Whence had it come? The man farthest up-
stream in spring would be on the ground first
for the great find that was bound to make
some seeker’s fortune. So all stayed who
could. Fortunately, the winter of ’58-’59 was
mild, the autumn late, the snowfall light, and
the spring very early. Fate, as usual, favoured
the dauntless.

In parties of twos and tens and twenties,
and even as many as five hundred, the miners
began moving up the river prospecting. Those
with horses had literally to cut the way with
their axes over windfall, over steep banks, and
round precipitous cliffs. Where rivers had to
be crossed, the men built rude rafts and poled
themselves over, with their pack-horses swim-
ming behind. Those who had oxen killed the
oxen and sold the beef. Others breasted the
mill-race of the Fraser in canoes and dugouts.
Governor Douglas estimated that before April
of ’59 as many as three hundred boats with
five men in each had ascended the Fraser.
Sometimes the amazing spectacle was seen of
canoes lashed together in the fashion of pon-
toon bridges, with wagons full of provisions