1862
The camels arrived in Victoria on April 15 on the steamship Hermann. They remained in the city until May 4 and were the subject of much local interest, as well as more headlines and editorials. One baby camel was born during their stay, and another escaped with its mother into the wilds of Vancouver Island and wouldn’t be seen until that fall near Cadboro Bay.
The others were loaded onto a barge and towed by William Moore's Flying Dutchman to New Westminster and on to Port Douglas. By the middle of May they were working on the Pemberton Portage on the Douglas Road. BY May 24 they were on their way to Lillooet to work closer to the gold fields.
At first, the camels seemed to be performing well. They carried twice the loads that mules did: usually 500-600 pounds, and they were good foragers. However, their soft feet were easily torn up by the harsh terrain of the Cariboo Road and boots of canvas had to be made for them.
By the end of June, the first camel train had left Lillooet for Alexandria and the papers reported the one camel was killed when it slid off a cliff into the Pavilion Creek. Soon more reports came in from the Cariboo, mostly complaints from the stagecoach drivers and the miners. Stage horses were terrified at the very sight of camels and even the best trained of them would bolt upon encountering the camels on the road. Furthermore the camels didn’t hesitate to eat anything, pants, shirts, hats and even bars of soap. One report mentioned Matthew Baillie Begbie's experience with the camel train and how his mount dashed off into the wilderness with the helpless judge clinging to the saddle. He would despise camels for the rest of his life.
By October, the Colonist reported that a dozen camels had survived their first season and were wintering at Quesnel Forks.
Read more about this topic: Cariboo Camels