Prospector at Humbug Gold Mine

RESPONDING TO NEWS OF GOLD in the wild canyons of the remote Fraser River, thousands of Americans-from Washington and Oregon territories and especially from California-crossed the 49th parallel in the spring of 1858. For most of them, dreams of wealth in the British Pacific Northwest soon gave way to vivid expressions of disappointment microsoft exams. Returning to San Francisco, disenchanted prospectors complained of short supplies and harsh environmental conditions. Linked by the unwholesome practices of informal colonial governance, agents of the Crown and of corporate monopoly had conspired to thwart the legitimate aspirations of Yankee miners. The Fraser River was, in the favorite expression of the defeated gold hunter, a "humbug." Later historians rendered a similar negative verdict. According to Rodman Paul, the original accounts of precious metal were "10 per cent truth and 90 per cent humbug." Paula Mitchell Marks concludes, in a recent survey of mining history, that "the rush had fallen flat as a flapjack" by the fall of 1858. In reality, however 70-270 exam, the Fraser River gold rush was neither a failure nor a venture limited to a single year. The continuing, and generally successful, exploitation of the river basin was, in truth, a major event in Pacific Coast history. The first discoveries led to the creation of British Columbia and provided that colonial entity with the basis for sustained economic and political viability mcsa. American frustration with unfamiliar laws, customs, and economic practices, moreover, threatened to undermine English sovereignty north of the border.