Thesis
Testing Their Mettle for Metal: Masculine Adventures, Gender, and the Economic Exploitation of Miners in the Cariboo Gold Rush, 1862-1867
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
05/2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006925
Abstract
In 1861, news had spread of a potential motherlode of gold in the distant Cariboo region of the British North American Colony of British Columbia. This rush followed on the heels of the colony’s Fraser Gold Rush only a few years earlier. As the Fraser Gold Rush dwindled, some prospectors did not given up their chances and figured gold in large quantities could be found further upstream. So, they packed their things north, prospecting along the way but it was not until they reached Horsefly River in the Cariboo Region that considerable quantities of gold paid out. Eventually, news spread and men flocked to the region spreading out to the various creeks to try their chances to strike it rich. However, these gold miners not only rushed to the Cariboo region for gold, but some also sought adventure to prove a distinct martial masculinity that freed them of middle-class values. The harsh wilderness of the Cariboo provided the opportunity to engage in perceived masculine qualities of physical strength, domination, courage, and valor deemed true manliness. Partaking in the Gold Rush allowed miners to prove their manhood and escape from concepts of restrained manhood usually associated with middle-class values. However, the transformation from restrained man to marital man was usually incomplete creating a fluid gender identity in the formative years of British Columbia that desired masculine independence but valued domesticity. Within these communities dominated by men seeking a martial identity in the gold field economies grew that profited off of miners. Saloons, wayside houses, boarding houses, swindlers, and merchants could easily make a quick buck off of men seeking adventure in the Cariboo mines. The Cariboo Gold Rush eventually slowed until its accepted conclusion in 1867 with many formerly booming towns in the Cariboo left with dramatically reduced populations as many men left the Colony. It was not until the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the mid-1880s that British Columbia achieved a substantial white settler population.
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Details
- Title
- Testing Their Mettle for Metal
- Creators
- Berit Glynnis Davis
- Contributors
- Robert McCoy (Chair)Laurie Mercier (Committee Member)Jeffrey Sanders (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of History
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 148
- Identifiers
- 99901125038601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis