Port Douglas
Map
Port Douglas, originally called Douglas, is located at the north end of Harrison Lake, where it intersects Lillooet River. It draws its name from James Douglas who, in answer to the Fraser River gold rush, set to build an overland route to the Cariboo gold fields,1 a route referred to in several despatches as the Harrison-Lillooet route.
Douglas writes on the subject in this despatch, in which he argues that the construction of good roads to access gold farther up the Fraser would be of prodigious advantage to the country.
Port Douglas reported its population of miners at 600 in 1858.2 Following the gold rush, Port Douglas's population declined steadily; the British Columbia Forest Service noted that only a couple of families remained at the site as of 1997.3
  • 1. Port Douglas, BC Geographical Names Information System.
  • 2. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 600.
  • 3. Port Douglas, BC Geographical Names Information System.
Mentions of this place in the documents