An Eldorado at Williams Creek
The Cariboo Trek of Callum McBay
by Colin Campbell
Vancouver: Tradewind Books, 2025
$14.95 / 9781990598333
Reviewed by Ron Verzuh
*
Robert Louis Stevenson provided me with plenty of young adult fiction back in my youth, so it was with some anticipation that I began reading Scottish lad Callum McBay’s story of adventure on the high seas and the wilds of the Cariboo gold fields of the early 1860s.
Callum’s quest is to strike it rich so he can help rescue the family farm, which has fallen on hard times. After a near shipwreck and a vicious attack in Victoria, Callum joins Danny and Stretch, two Chicago hopefuls, and they make their way to first Lillooet and finally to the Horsefly River and the promised Eldorado of their dreams.
A mishap with a mule leaves Danny with a broken ankle, forcing the trio to break up. Callum travels north on his own and the journey proves more harrowing than the last. “I gripped the legs of the cart bench as tightly as an eagle with a salmon in its talons,” Callum recalls.
He meets his next companion at Clinton, “a scattering of log shacks,” and this time it is a she. Her name is Nellie. “A full-grown, twin-humped camel,” Nellie soon becomes Callum’s “new-found hiking pal” and a “toad-faced abomination” to the local ranchers.
Finally at the gold fields, Callum meet with Sean and Harry, two Seattle hopefuls who offer to team up with him, splitting what gold they find three ways. It’s a short-lived arrangement. Callum is anxious to try his luck at “the mad-scrabble diggings farther north.” He would make the trek alone, as Nellie is gone. He’s fond of his “Queen of the Desert” but she has also become a burden given that she is unwelcome among mule drivers.
He hikes the rough trail to Antler, “a shambling collection of businesses and homes,” only to be lashed by a vicious storm the first night. The next day word comes that Billy Barker has “struck it lucky on Williams Creek.” Callum is on the move again.
His next companions are Sacha, a Pole, and Dimitri, a Russian. More seasoned at the trade, they teach Callum the basics of gold mining. Not long after, he is reunited with Stefan, the Pole he met on one of the boats, and his friend Marco. Then, Callum exclaims, on “the afternoon of my fifteenth day on Williams Creek, we hit pay dirt.”
No good adventure story would be without a villain. This one has a torn ear and he invades the claim with the intent of robbing Callum and his friends. The attempted robbery is foiled and the villain dies— “The thug’s body had been crushed”—in a slide of rock and mud.
Rid of the grisly thief for good, Callum and his partners work their rich claim. He eventually returns to Scotland with a sizeable fortune, allowing him to rescue the family farm and reunite with Caroline, his childhood sweetheart. It’s a sweet ending to a gentle story.
Like his main character, author Colin Campbell (Trails of the Southern Cariboo) hails from Scotland, though he’s now a Vancouver resident. He also taught school in the Cariboo region, so his personal experience informs his writing. His sensitivity to place and to the original peoples of the Fraser Canyon add to this tale of youthful adventure.
A historical note by Nicola Campbell, an Interior Salish and Métis writer from the Nicola Valley, acknowledges the “scars and stories of a mass wave of death” among First Nations as smallpox swept over British Columbia long before Callum makes his trek. As well, she remarks: “Added to the suffering was the violence that ensued against Indigenous Peoples at the hands of the gold miners.”
Before his untimely death in 1894, R.L. Stevenson lived in Samoa, where the native people called him Tusitala, the teller of tales, in recognition of his storytelling skills. While this short book doesn’t reach the heights of a Kidnapped or Treasure Island, it rekindled memories of my youth. I expect today’s young readers will enjoy joining Callum’s trek just as I did in reading this latter-day tusitala’s stories.
*
Ron Verzuh is a writer and historian. [Editor’s note: Ron has recently reviewed books by Megan McDougall, Barbara J. Messamore, ošil (Betty Wilson), Nathan Hellner-Mestelman, Dietrich Kalteis, Graeme Menzies, Ron Base and Prudence Emery, and Geoff Mynett for BCR.]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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