The Boom Town That was Bypassed, Then Forgotten

Posted On 9 September 2022

Last updated on April 6th, 2024

Quesnel Forks is a ghost town on the original Cariboo Gold Rush Trail. Actually, it was the destination area for prospectors and miners in 1859. As with a lot of gold rush towns, it was a town that fell victim to the boom-bust cycle by being bypassed.

My wife and I visited the ghost town last month. There is a free campground right next to the town site. The campground gets a “2-Thumbs Up” from us. (and it’s free!) We checked out the abandoned town that has had quite a bit of restoration done to preserve the old buildings.

I even did a little bit of gold panning while we were there. The pieces of gold I got were smaller than a grains of sand! Back to the town. You can read a more in-depth history of Quesnel Forks in this article.

A Brief History

Gold was found in the Fraser River. Miners followed the river north and they discovered that there was a good amount of gold coming down the Quesnel River. Being men on the hunt for great wealth, some continued north while others followed the Quesnel River to the east.

The town site of Quesnel Forks is at the fork (hence the name) of the Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers. As reports out about the gold in the area, miners flocked to the area. In the early days of the town, miners were finding at least $30 dollars worth of gold per day and as much as $300 per day. That was when gold was $16 per ounce! (The price of gold at the time of this post is over $2,200 CAD per ounce.) Holy shit! That’s between 2 and 20 ounces per day!!

The town grew to over 2,000 people. There was a bridge built over the Quesnel River in 1861, providing both an overland and a river route to the town. At the time it was the largest town in British Columbia that was not on the Fraser River.

As the miners pressed on in their search for gold, camps (some could be called towns) were set up all over the area. Then, gold was discovered in 1861 on Williams Creek by Billy Barker. The following year the town of Barkerville was established.

A New Road

By the mid 1860’s Barkerville had grown to a population of over 5,000. The Cariboo Wagon Road was built along the Fraser River due to better terrain. At the mouth of the Quesnel River the town of Quesnel was established and the wagon road ran from there to Barkerville – completely bypassing The Forks!

When the wagon road was completed in 1875, the town of Quesnel Forks started its decline. By 1885 the population had dwindled to about 200 people. The town continued to decline to about 30 people in the 1930’s.

The spring freshet of 1948 the bridge was washed out by floodwaters. Instead of rebuilding the bridge, a new bridge was built in Likely, about 12 km away.

Boom-Bust Cycle

Every industry has its economic cycles. There are the boom years when things are great. Growth and prosperity are the talk of the town.

Then, either through over production, a decline in demand, a depletion of that particular resource, or a better way (or highway) is developed. Whatever the cause, there is a slowdown (or sudden stop!) in that industry or town.

People love the boom part of the cycle! The bust is when the shit hits the fan and people start to question their life choices. For those who are not ready for a bust, they can lose everything.

The boom-bust cycle is not going to go away – it will always be with us. We tend to do better when we realize that this is a natural cycle, and like the changing seasons, we need to learn to work with the cycle.

Bigger And Better

As with Radiator Springs in the movie Cars, a new road that bypasses a town spells disaster for a town. The same thing happened to Quesnel Forks.

Mining was the main industry in The Forks. The other businesses in the town supported the miners and mining. Once there was a bigger gold field discovered, the miners started to move on.

The Cariboo Wagon Road that was built bypassed The Forks as a better and faster way to travel to the booming gold rush town of Barkerville. We can see the boom-bust cycle on the Internet as well as in real life.

MySpace was launched in 2003. It was the largest social media platform from 2005-2009! Facebook was launched in 2004. Just because something is booming does not mean that it will always boom. Sometimes the next best things is not better, just promoted better. By the way, according to EarthWeb Myspace still has 6.9 million uses as of June 2022!

Change Is A Constant

Like it or not, change is something we can count on. Just as we have summers with long, hot days and winters with long, cold nights, we have seasons (or cycles) in the economy.

When things are going well is the time to prepare for lean times that will come along. As Og Mandino wrote in his book, The Greatest Salesman In The World, “This, too, shall pass.” That applies to both the good times and the bad times.

Financial Durability

Yes, we are blessed to live in countries that offer Employment Insurance. The social program allows us to have money coming in while we are finding another source of income.

The first challenge is that there is a waiting period between work (and income) ending, and the benefits starting. Secondly, EI only pays a portion of your previous income.

Overcoming these obstacles is not difficult when we have a full pantry, cash at home, and an emergency fund. During the boom times is when we should prepare for making it through the bust part of the cycle.

Learn From the Past

Ecclesiastes 1:9 states that, “there is nothing new under the Sun.” That was written about 2,500 years ago and it is still true today.

We can study the past and see what happened. Next, we can try to figure out how and why it happened. Then, we can take steps to make sure that same thing does not happen again.

I majored in History because I enjoy history. The true value in history is learning from what happened so we can make our future better.

My hope is that I am able to help others build a strong financial foundation. After that foundation is built, a humble house or a massive mansion can be built. Without a proper foundation the building will be in jeopardy of having a short life.