In this sequel to the best-selling novel When Eagles Call,
two Hawaiian labourers – Kimo Kanui and his friend Moku –
end their contract with the Hudson's Bay Company in Fort Langley and
trek north to join the great Cariboo gold rush of the early 1860s.
Along with a black man from the Carolinas and a native Sto:lo woman
won and freed in a card game, they face dangers and challenges along
the trail as winter sets in. Gun-toting Californians, drunken miners,
hostile natives as well as characters from British Columbia's history –
James Douglas, Judge Begbie, Ovid Allard and Cataline – stride
through the novel. River of Gold takes the reader on a journey through
B.C.'s tumultuous history as the Hudson's Bay rule over New Caledonia
ends and the Province of British Columbia begins. It's a story of
war and peace, of greed, of friendship and hatred, and of a man and
woman of different cultures finding themselves and each other.
It is the story of the Cariboo, that great leveller, where a person's
mettle counted more than purse or pedigree, where strong men and women
from all corners of the globe came together to forge a new and different
society for British Columbians.
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