Poor Man's Ditch was an area owned by Mr. Melodey and three other men native to Ireland who came to British Columbia in 1858. The name “Poor Man's Ditch” referenced the state in which these men came to the
colony -- with no capital and as simple miners.1 According to this despatch from 1861, Poor Man's Ditch was presumably somewhere along the Fraser River between Yale and Lytton. In the same despatch, Douglas mentions that the ditch is is seven miles long.2