What happens
In 1858, a crowd of gold seekers rushes to Victoria on Vancouver Island, eager to reach the Fraser River after gold is reported there. Among them is a sailor who cannot get passage to the mainland, and a trapper who has worked for the Hudson's Bay Company without reward. The episode of The Pacific Story, first aired on April 30, 1944, follows their desperate journey up the Fraser River, where men abandon their animals and canoes and push through the wilderness in search of gold. It then traces how the gold rush led to the founding of British Columbia, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Vancouver, and the wartime development of northwest air routes and the Alaska Highway.
Victoria, Vancouver Island and the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, 1858, with later scenes in Vancouver and the Canadian northwest in the 1940s
Characters: Mr. Finlinson, Montez, Morky
Listen for: The gold seekers' struggle up the Fraser River and the moment they find gold in the gravel of the valley
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.