Chantel Mei (Grade 9, Webber Academy, Calgary, Alberta), Diaspora, mixed media on paper, 45.5 x 60.1 cm.
Kazuo Nakamura, Suspended Landscape, 1967, oil on canvas, 127.3 x 107.1 cm, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.
The history of Quesnel is shaped by the gold rushes that followed the 1857 Fraser River excitements up and into the Cariboo region. The confluence of the Fraser and Quesnel rivers, the place where the town was ultimately established, saw mining activity as early as 1859. Most people passed through on their hopeful way towards the richer diggings that were found in and around the creeks upon which towns like Barkerville were built. Quesnel quieted into a provisioning town supported by farmers, ranchers, freighters, and merchants. The population at this time was approximately six hundred people, with the majority being Caucasian settlers from places in Eastern Canada, the United States, and Europe. The town also had a sizeable Chinese population drawn into the area by opportunities related to gold mining.
The original inhabitants of this area are the Lhtako people of the Dene-speaking Dakelh Nation. The Lhtako moved through this expansive territory by water and land on their seasonal rounds―hunting, fishing, gathering berries and medicine, and visiting and trading with other Indigenous groups and Nations in the broader region. With the incursion of the settler population in the 1860s, this local Indigenous population was decimated by smallpox. The same was true elsewhere in the region.
