Stampede! The Rush to the Leech River

(Part 3)

The great gold rushes of the Fraser River and the Cariboo had passed Victoria by. From sleepy Hudson’s Bay Co. stockade to—overnight—a tent city of as many as 30,000 fortune seekers, it had drifted back into an economic slump.

‘Downtown’ buildings stood vacant, weeds grew in its main streets. The party, it seemed, was over.

All that changed—so it was fervently hoped—with news that members of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition had found paying quantities of ‘colour’ in the Sooke and Leech rivers.

Not on the Fraser and Thompson rivers. Not in the distant creeks of Cariboo, but just 10 miles, as the crow flies, from Victoria.

It was a whole new ball game.

Over the past two weeks we’ve seen how it slowly began. Next week in the Chronicles the rush begins!

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PHOTO: These headlines in the British Colonist came as a godsend to the merchants and unsuccessful miners biding their time in financially ailing Victoria.