Fraser gold 1858!

by Netta Sterne

"Now we have seen the Gold and seen the men who dig it, and are satisfied" - thus wrote an on-the-scene observer for American frontier newspapers in April 1858, confirming fabulous rumours about gold strikes in the British possessions. Waves of miners from the American West already were on their way to the Fraser River country, joining hundreds of Indians, Vancouver Island colonists, and former fur trade employees in excavating for riches. The year 1858 would prove to be the most eventful in western Canadian history. This volume chronicles the remarkable events of 1858, largely in the words of those who were there - "miners and prospectors, merchants and entrepreneurs, officers and statesmen, and 'the media' of the day, those American and British newspaper reporters who were privileged to cover one of the great stories of the century."