Port Douglas
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.