Western Canada's colourful history manifests itself in many places, but few are more intriguing than the Cariboo-Chilcotin region of the British Columbia "Interior". Archaeological digs indicate that the First Nations People have lived here for as much as 9,000 years. For the next half-century the Cariboo remained the domain of the Natives and the fur traders. Then, with the discovery of gold and the subsequent 1858 Fraser River and 1860s Cariboo gold rushes, the lure of gold attracted tens of thousands of miners-and "service-providers" determined to part the miners from their millions in gold. In preparing Cariboo Trips & Trails, Murphy Shewchuk has revisited numerous highways, backroads and trails in the Cariboo and Chilcotin and assembled a broad-base of up-to-date information.