SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING

The Fraser River has been a source of placer gold for more than 150 years. The Department of Mines of British Columbia reported a yield of $28,983,106 in the period from 1860 to 1869. This placer gold at today’s price would be worth more than 290 million dollars. The bulk of this gold came from the Fraser River bars and the Cariboo District farther north.

Between Hope and Yale, which was the centre of the mining, there were probably more than 30 bars named and worked; while between Yale and Lytton there were more than 50, and upon them all the miners were at work with rocker and sluice.

Efforts have continued over the years to wrest from the Fraser the wealth of gold the river is believed to possess. The B.C. Minister of Mines reported in 1903 that in nine days $1,500 in gold was taken from an area of 50 feet square on Saw Mill Bar opposite Yale.

From a point on the river a few miles below Boston Bar (about 16 miles above Yale ) to Sisco Flat, a short way below Lytton, a distance in all of about 25 miles, rich deposits of “heavy” gold were worked. Farther up the river is a second run of “heavy” gold, which appears to have extended from about halfway between Lytton and Foster’s Bar to some little distance above Fountain. Here, nuggets of some size were occasionally unearthed, and there were some exceptionally rich diggings. Nuggets up to six ounces in size were reported to have been recovered near Lillooet.

Chartres Brew, Chief Inspector of Police and Assistant Chief Gold Commissioner, wrote as follows to WA.G . Young, Colonial Secretary, on April 23, 1858: “Out of one claim on Hill’s Bar they took in one day 39 ounces of gold and I saw 16 ounces taken out of another claim after a day’s work. “ A great portion of all this gold from whatever source derived has been gradually concentrated in the river bottom by the action of the stream, while in many places, paying deposits have been left upon the surface of ‘benches’ at various levels, or buried beneath their material, each such ‘pay streak’ representing some portion of a former bed of the river which has been left behind as erosion progressed.

The mode of working these gold deposits was a comparatively simple one. The so called ‘bars’ were no more than portions of the river bed which, being left bare at low water, could be reached by the miner. They were worked generally to but a very limited depth, often being merely skimmed over in consequence of the trouble from water and the cost of removing any considerable thickness of non-remunerative material to reach the deeper underlying pay streaks.