Panning for Gold

Faces of the Gold Rush

What's the meaning?

You be the Judge...

Thompson River First Nations

You may need a friend to do this activity or you can try it on you own. Take some time to look at the YalePeople section in this website or the People section in the Cariboo Wagon Road Website. Become familiar with the people and the role each played in the Gold Rush era. If you know of other primary or secondary sources of information look at those as well.

• Printer to make paper copies of the photo images from the web-site
• stiff paper (card, construction, Bristol) for backing printed photos, use the same colour for all photos
• glue, or tape of any type
• note-paper or word processor to collect notes

1. Decide who you will research. Aim to come up with ten to twenty facts about this person. (i.e. birth and death date, occupation in BC, occupation before and after the gold rush, hair colour, height, sex, place of business in BC, how they were involved in BC history, personal details (did they sketch? type of handwriting style)...
2. Makes notes on information you find in point form.
3. Mount a photo of the person on a stiff piece of paper such as construction paper, Bristol board or thick card. The image should no greater size than a large recipe card (~ 12 cm by 15 cm in size)
4. On the front of the mounted photo print the name of the person in the photo. Use large size letters so people can read the name up to 50 cm away.
5. With a friend (parent, sibling, or whoever you can find) share the information you have found.
6. Ask them if they know about this person. If they have get them to tell you five important things they did in BC History. If they did not know about this person; give them your list of facts and see if you can remember all the facts you found out.

• Create a book of all these characters (photo and facts) to share with others.

• Make a bunch of cards (same as above) about several gold rush people and use the cards in a guessing game as follows:
  
  1. Place all photo cards in a pile and mix them up thoroughly, being careful not to show the photo of each.
  2. Each person should have their own head band. If head bands are not available, simply make a triangle stand out of paper and tape (make the stand tall enough so it will hide the back of the card completely), and paper clip the card to the stand.
  3. Each person chooses a card, not looking at the picture mounted on the front of the cards, and places it on their head band (or on the stand in front of them) facing the other players.
  4. Each person takes a turns asking a question about their gold rush person with the intention of figuring out their person. The other players respond to the question. The group can converse and discuss the most appropriate answer to the question.
  5. Questions are asked until all players have guessed their gold rush person. Players can take notes to help remember the facts they find out. All types of questions (who, what, where, when, how, why) are permitted.