Panning for Gold

Faces of the Gold Rush

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Thompson River First Nations

BRITISH COLUMBIA,
April 5th, 1859.

I have the honor to inform you that very rich and extensive diggings have been discovered in the Canoe Country,(50) and that a party of four men have taken out as high as eight hundred dollars a day, and others are averaging three hundred dollars daily. I have this from the most reliable source and can be relied upon.

I take leave also to acquaint Your Excellency that several hundred men and a large amount of freight are on the overland route from California and Oregon, headed by General Palmer,(5l) bound for the headwaters of Fraser, Thompson's, and Bridge rivers, the duty on which will be considerable if properly collected.

I am proceeding up Fraser River to Fort Yale and will forward Your Excellency all the information I can procure from the different miners as to the amount they are making on their different claims, which I trust will be most acceptable.

RICHARD HICKS.

Footnotes:
(50) Canoe Country was the name given to the mining region about fifty or sixty miles above Lillooet, on the Fraser.
(51) Joel Palmer, who in 1858 and 1859 was prominent in his advocacy of a route to the upper Fraser by way of the Columbia and Okanagan rivers. He used wagons to transport freight to the mines in those years.

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