A unique product to celebrate a formative event in the history of both Canada and British Columbia. Many of those who went to Cariboo stayed in and developed the region’s newly established towns.

Beginning in 1861, intrepid seekers of wealth from as far south as California began to hear tales from men just returned from Horsefly River, Keithley Creek, and Antler Creek in British Columbia’s Cariboo region—tales of rivers flowing with gold so close to the surface it hardly required panning. Chinese miners called it Gold Mountain.

The dangerous trip to the early Cariboo Gold Fields cost lives, supplies and pack animals. The Cariboo Wagon Road was essential to the success of the Cariboo Gold Rush, but its high cost almost pushed the British colony into virtual bankruptcy. Giving prospectors and the government access to Cariboo gold meant quarrying and building by hand a massive highway through mountains of rock, across deadly canyons and rolling glacial rivers, in regions virtually untouchable for eight months of the year.

One fascinating side-story of the Cariboo Gold Rush was the short-lived use of camels as pack animals. In 1862, an enterprising local merchant, Frank Laumeister, having learned that the American government had successfully used camels for transport in Texas, Arizona, and California, brought 21 camels to carry loads through the Fraser River canyon to the Cariboo. People believed camels could work without water for days on end and travel unprecedented distances with massive loads. Unfortunately, the camels carried rather standard loads for rather standard distances. Their desert-evolved feet could not withstand B.C.’s treacherous mountain terrain. Although the government eventually banned them from Cariboo to save life and limb, the camels themselves went on to live diverse lives—some producing heirs into the early 1900s.

By the end of 1863 with the rich Williams Creek discovery, more than 100 companies had staked 3,000 claims near Barkerville in the Cariboo. Nearly $4 million in gold had been mined that year alone—a massive amount for the time, equivalent to tens of millions of dollars today. Although most of the gold was extracted during the first five years of the Cariboo Gold Rush, many claims were still being worked in 1900. Provincial records indicate that at least 2,592,385 ounces of gold were extracted from the region between 1858 and 1898.

A highly collectible coin that commemorates the 150th anniversary of a fascinating moment in Canadian colonial history.