Trails to Gold

Book excerpt: The pioneer roadhouses between Clinton and Barkerville provide a living heritage of the colourful era of the Cariboo gold rush. While thousands plodded toward Barkerville dreaming of pay dirt on Williams Creek, always seeking a faster route to the motherlode, a separate breed of settlers created the shelters that would ease their journey. The trail was everchanging, and when the rush was over the Cariboo-Chilcotin was left with a mosaic of roadhouses and a legacy to build on. These structures had their own stories, tales of wild nights and human heartbreak, sagas of sin and sincerity. In the first volume of Trails to Gold, the author described the early inns, primarily south of Clinton, which preceded the construction of the Cariboo Road between 1862 and 1865. This volume completes the story of the peak years of a gold rush that British Columbia will never forget.