Kamloops, the ‘Conception Place’ of British Columbia or “How to Start a Colony with Two Pickle Jars of Gold.”
Kamloops, the ‘Conception Place’ of British Columbia or “How to Start a Colony with Two Pickle Jars of Gold.” In 2008, British Columbia celebrates 150 years since its birth by royal proclamation. The proclamation was issued by Queen Victoria and read by Governor James Douglas at Fort Langley, November 19, 1858, establishing that community’s claim to be: The Birth Place of British Columbia.
While the official ‘birth place’ of British Columbia occurred at the Hudson’s Bay post of Fort Langley; its ‘conception’ occurred 200 miles upriver at Thompson Rivers post (Kamloops), the oldest trading post in southern British Columbia! It was here at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers where the presence of gold in New Caledonia (former name for the area) would set in motion a plan leading to the proclamation of the colony of British Columbia.
In 1855, Donald McLean, was promoted from the Hudson’s Bay Company post at Alexandria to the Kamloops post as the Chief Trader. It was there gold was brought to him by First Nations people and he began trading with them to procure it. Most of the gold gathered by McLean is thought to have come from Tranquille Creek near Kamloops and Nicomen River near Spences Bridge. After that, McLean and his superiors in the Hudson’s Bay Company encouraged their own employees and the First Nations people to prospect and bring the gold to the Company. They even furnished the First Nations people there with tools to assist their search. To avoid disruption of the fur trade, they kept any word of this discovery from reaching the outside world.
By this time the fur trade was in decline and the HBC had begun to diversify with agricultural land holdings and herds of horses and cattle. The Company strategically planned to take advantage of the soon to be triggered gold rush. Of great concern was their fear that a sudden influx of prospectors from the south could lead to the United States laying claim to the region.
Preliminary discussions in England had been going on regarding the colonization of New Caledonia but it made sense that the HBC would stand to gain in a number of ways by controlling the timing of the actual announcement.
In the spring of 1857, James Houston, a Scottish sailor up from California found gold in Tranquille Creek in Kamloops and sold it to Donald McLean at the Thompson’s River Post. It was time to plant the seed. McLean had accumulated enough coarse gold to fill two pickle jars. He repackaged the gold for shipment by pack horse to his superior, James Douglas in Victoria who was the Chief Factor for the HBC and Governor of Vancouver Island. In December of 1857, James Douglas began to issue regulations on the prospecting of gold.
In the spring of 1858, Governor Douglas sent 800 ounces of gold by the HBC steamer ‘Otter’ to the San Francisco Mint to be struck into coins knowing what word of the gold’s arrival on April 3, 1858 would trigger. Of course there are no secrets in a gold town and the supervisor of the mint also happened to be a prominent member of the San Francisco Volunteer Fire Dept. Within hours of the next fire department meeting, rumours of a new gold find began to spread throughout California!
Starting in late spring of 1858, the first 400 prospectors arrived by steamer in Victoria. Over the next few months, thousands would travel up the Fraser and into the interior in search of gold. After previously losing territories to the American government due to the influx of miners in the California gold rush, Douglas now petitioned Queen Victoria to establish a Colonial Government as quickly as possible in New Caledonia.
It all started in Kamloops with Donald McLean and his two pickle jars of gold!