Omineca Gold Rush

The Omineca Gold Rush was a gold rush in British Columbia, Canada in the Omineca region of the Northern Interior of the province. Gold was first discovered there in 1861, but the rush didn't begin until late in 1869 with the discovery at Vital Creek. There were several routes to the goldfields: two were from Fort St. James, one of which was a water route through the Stuart and Tachie Rivers to Trembleur Lake to Takla Lake and the other was overland, called the Baldy Mountain route. A third route came in overland from Hazelton on the Skeena River and a fourth route used the Fraser River and crossed over the Giscome Portage to Summit Lake, through McLeod Lake, and up the Finlay River to the Omineca River.

The first recorded gold discovery in the Omineca district was made by William Cust and Edward Cary in the summer of 1861. The two men had traveled up from Alexandria that spring and returned in the fall with 60 ounces of gold between them. Despite such a small return for a summer filled with labor and hardship, they returned the following year with a group of more than twenty prospectors. In later years, some of these men would make major gold discoveries in the region, notably, Ezra Evans and Peter Toy. Along the Finlay River they discovered gold at a bar four miles from Finlay's Forks and named it Toy's Bar after Peter Toy. The bar would yield four ounces a day for each man. Another group of men on the Parsnip River, discovered 60 ounces of gold. Reports of these successes spread and in 1863, 150 men were in the area, among them, James May and the famous "Twelve-foot" Davis who had once made a small fortune by staking out a twelve foot section of ground between two rich claims. However, most of these newcomers were unsuccessful and, to make matters worse, supplies were scarce. Many prospectors had to leave the diggings and return to their homes in defeat. Two that stayed on and prospected at Toy's Bar were John Giscome and Henry McDame, both of whom had worked on the Peace, Smoky and Nation Rivers. McDame had made a discovery in the Cassiar district and McDame's Creek was named in his honor.

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