B.C.’s First Gold Rush

“Great excitement has been recently produced in Victoria by the exhibition of a nugget of pure gold weighing 14 ounces, procured by the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company from the Indians of Queen Charlotte’s Island. There is a generally prevalent impression founded on the discovery of gold in that island in the year 1851, that it will yet become a productive gold field.”

Note the reference to 1851.

That’s a full six years before the first reports of the discovery of placer gold by First Nations prospectors began to seep out of the B.C. Interior and, in turn, start one of history’s greatest gold rushes to ‘Fraser’s River’ the following year.

The resulting rush, and an even greater treasure hunt in the Cariboo, placed virtually unknown mainland British Columbia on the world map, and set it on course to becoming Canada’s westernmost province.

But who remembers the Queen Charlotte (Haida Gwaii) gold rush of 1850, with its reports of fabulously rich gold deposits that were jealously guarded by its fierce residents?

White prospectors were persona non grata—the Haidas guarded their seaside ‘mines’ to the point of committing piracy. It’s a great story as you’ll see in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: It was a gold nugget such as this that sparked an unwelcome rush to the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1850. —www.coinnews.net