Colonial Despatches

This river, to the east of Prince George, in the Cariboo region, flows into the Fraser River and, on early maps, was known as Bear River.1 Bancroft notes that a number of miners prospected the head-waters of Bear River, and there developed rich ground—a bounty mentioned this 1861 report by Douglas, which recounts reports of some wonderfully rich discoveries on Bear River, a stream which discharges into the south branch of Fraser's River above Fort George.2

This river, and other features in the surrounding region, draws a name from John Bowron (1837-1906), a Quebec-born “Overlander” who trekked to the Cariboo in search of gold, but soon became Camerontown's librarian, in 1864, then a postmaster at Barkerville in 1866, a mining recorder in 1872, a government agent in 1875, and a gold commissioner in 1883, from which he retired in 1905.3

• 1. Bowron River, BC Geographical Names Information System.
• 2. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, vol. 32, History of British Columbia 1792-1887 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1887), 479.
• 3. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 26.