TheCariboo Road (also called theCariboo Wagon Road, theGreat North Road or theQueen's Highway) was aproject initiated in 1860 by the Governor of theColony of British Columbia,James Douglas. It was built in response to theCariboo Gold Rush to facilitate settlement of the area by miners. It involved a feat of engineering stretching fromFort Yale to Barkerville, B.C. through extremely hazardous canyon territory in theInterior of British Columbia. It was a precursor toBritish Columbia Highway 97, which largely follows the same route.
Between the 1860s and the 1880s the Cariboo Road existed in three versions as a surveyed and constructed wagon-road route. The first established road wasCariboo Wagon Road surveyed in 1861 and built in 1862 followed the originalHudson's Bay Company's Harrison Trail (Port Douglas) route from Lillooet toClinton,70 Mile House,100 Mile House,Lac La Hache,150 Mile House to the contract end aroundSoda Creek and Alexandria at the doorstep of the Cariboo Gold Fields. The second Cariboo Wagon Road (or Yale Cariboo Road) operated during the period of the fast stage-coaches and freight-wagon companies headquartered inYale: 1865 to 1885. From the water landing atYale, the road ran north via the spectacularFraser Canyon route overHell's Gate andJackass Mountain, connecting to the earlier Cariboo Road at Clinton. The third Cariboo Road was the revised route following the completion of theCanadian Pacific Railway in 1885. The railway station atAshcroft became the southern end of the wagon road. Much of theFraser Canyon wagon road was destroyed by the railway construction as well as by washouts and by the Great Flood of 1894 (interest in rebuilding this portion of the road would not occur until the construction plans for the Fraser Canyon Highway for automobiles in the 1920s).[1]
The road was a reaction to the high concentration ofgold in theCariboo region and the dangerous "mule trail", which was a rough-hewn cliff-side trail - wide enough only for one mule - that ran along the approximate route of the Cariboo Road. In order to lower supply-costs to the settlers in the Cariboo region, Douglas ordered the construction of a more viable and safe form of transportation to the gold-mining settlements. The colonial government employed locals[2] as well as theRoyal Engineers, Columbia Detachment ("sappers") who undertook amazing engineering feats, including the construction of toll bridges including the (original)Alexandra Suspension Bridge of 1863.
Building the road cost nearly one and a quarter million dollars, and left a standing debt of £112,780 after its completion, one of many infrastructure costs in servicing theGold Colony that forced its amalgamation first with Vancouver Island (1866), and then with Canada (1871 confederation). The Cariboo Road saw the transportation of over six and a half million dollars' worth of gold. Originally Douglas wanted to stretch the road across the continental divide intoRupert's Land (modern dayAlberta) but this plan was abandoned when Douglas retired in 1864.
The name Cariboo Road or Cariboo Trail is also informally applied to a toll road built by contractorGustavus Blin-Wright in 1861–1862 from Lillooet toWilliams Lake, Van Winkle and on toWilliams Creek (Richfield, Barkerville). This route was known also as theOld Cariboo Road, when the Lakes Route fromPort Douglas toLillooet had not yet been superseded by the Fraser Canyon route of the Cariboo Wagon Road proper. The mile-house names (e.g.100 Mile House), in the Cariboo are derived from measurements taken from the Mile '0' of this road, which is in the bend in the Main Street of Lillooet and commemorated there by a cairn erected in the 1958 Centennial Year. It was along this route that an attempt was made to useBactrian camels purchased from theU.S. Camel Corps for freight (1862), and also a tractor-style Thomson Road Steamer known as a "road train", one of the earliest motorized vehicles.
Most foot traffic from Lillooet to the Cariboo however, went by the "River Trail", far below the wagon road, which departed the Fraser Canyon atPavilion for the steep climb over Pavilion Mountain toClinton, where it merged with the newer Cariboo Road via Yale and Ashcroft (once the latter route was completed, that is). The River Trail continued along the Fraser Canyon as far asBig Bar and various routes spread towards Quesnel and Barkerville from there.
The Cariboo Road was featured on the television historical seriesGold Trails and Ghost Towns, season 2, episode 4.