Oct 22nd, 2018
“Into That Country to Work” by Mica Jorgenson and “British Columbia’s Gold Rushes” by Thomas Thorner and Thor Frohn-Nielsen dive into the troubling ,yet crucial to the formation of British Columbia, history of the gold rush in British Columbia. Jorgenson’s work stresses the true entanglement of Aboriginals in the system of the gold rush. While Thorner and Nielsen’s paper displays the true and dismayed perspectives of the gold rush through primary source accounts. “Into That Country to Work” furthers the notion of bringing forth all personages behind historical events not just the accounts of white european settlers. The primary documents used in “British Columbia’s Gold Rushes” paint the gold rush as a rich man’s triumph and a poor man’s end.
Throughout most of the readings this semester two recurring themes have popped out to me. The main theme is that we need to dive far deeper into the literature of history to bring to light the plight of non-white non-european peoples in pre-confederation Canada. To show how their contributions have helped shaped the Canada of today.  “Barkerville has long been subject to the myth that no First Nations lived or worked there… evidence considered here suggest that Dakelh lived and worked in and around Barkerville both before and after the rush,” (Jorgensen, P.109) shows that hidden somewhere there within the literature is proof that Aboriginals contributed to this part of Canada. Even the Chinese were integral part of the gold rush, “an unemployed Chinaman is seldom to be met with,” (Thorner and Frohn-Nielsen, P.247).
A question that comes with Thorner and Frohn-Nielsen’s work is why is there such a disregard for Aboriginal duties. Did most of these settlers really see the Aboriginals do absolutely nothing. Or did they just truly believe that the Aboriginal peoples were far beneath them. Furthering that idea comes my second theme from all of the readings so far. Is all of the social plight that the Aboriginals went through due to the nature of the European’s religions teachings. Thorner and Frohn-Nielsen’s work doesn’t show this out right but without talking about is that also proof of how the Europeans thought of the Aboriginals.