In 1862, a party of five hopeful prospectors set out from London, Ontario, on a difficult land route that would take them to Barkerville, BC, the epicenter of the Cariboo Gold Rush. But near the end of their journey, as they canoed west on the Fraser River, tragedy struck the group. Their boat was destroyed just downstream of where the Huble Homestead would later be built, and two of them left the others in an unsuccessful attempt to get help from Fort George. The three remaining travelers suffered a gruesome death in the harsh winter, the full details of which were only discovered several months later.
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The first story, “A Melancholy Diary,” by Gilbert Rennie, appeared in the July 11th, 1863 edition of The British Colonist. According to the article, Gilbert and his brothers, William and Thomas, along with Englishmen John Helstone and John R. Wright, left London on May 15th, 1862. This was an unusually late departure date; most other overlanders had left a month earlier.
They travelled west to Saint Cloud and through the Dakotas, arriving at Fort Garry in Manitoba on July 7th. The group then passed through Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt in Saskatchewan before reaching Fort Edmonton on August 27th. They made good time in their trek across Alberta, going by St. Albert and then St. Anne, crossing the Pembina River in mid September.
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The weather there was quite fine, as it had been for most of their journey. Indeed, Gilbert said it was so mild that some of the meat they were drying spoiled, and blood-sucking black flies caused great annoyance. They spent 11 days there drying meat and building two canoes, which guides recommended they lash together to avoid upsetting. The river, which would later be dynamited by the Grand Trunk Pacific railway to clear some of the rapids, was at the time quite dangerous. On the 15th, they set out on the Fraser River in their canoes, continually running rapids for two weeks. At the Fraser’s Grand Canyon, a treacherous gorge some 140 km upstream of Prince George, they spent three days making a portage (meaning they carried their canoes over land to a calmer point in the river). But the worst was yet to come. Their delayed departure on their journey would prove to be a source of great suffering for them when, on October 29th, the weather caught up to the season and their misfortune began.
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It was now October 31st, and their situation was dire. Having spent two nights in a canoe with only dried meat to eat, the rest of the party was now just as wet and cold as Wright. None of them were able to light a fire that day. In addition, when the small canoe sank, they lost nearly all their money, much of their clothing and bedding, and most of their food. They spent the night huddled together in a nook in the rocks, covered in their blankets and buffalo skins. John Helstone and Thomas Rennie both had their feet badly frozen.
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On November 5th, the Rennie brothers set out with one meal, a rifle, and some ammunition, leaving the others with 10 days worth of food. They made a long and arduous journey south through deep snow, spending three days making a bridge to cross the Salmon River, shooting birds and squirrels to eat. Waist-deep snow hindered their progress, and by the time they arrived at Fort George, William’s feet were so frozen that he had to be lifted into a canoe by a native man to cross the Nechako River.
And they [native guides]found them — or at least two of them. Helstone and Wright were still alive, but in order to remain so, they had murdered Thomas Rennie and eaten most of his upper body. They were tearing raw flesh from his legs when the natives came upon them, and the natives fled when the two desperate men drew their pistols.
<snip> Thomas Rennie’s skull was found in a corner of the camp in a neat pile of bloody, half-chewed bones. Another man’s skull was found that had been chopped open with an axe. Outside the camp, they found some of Rennie’s hair, still attached to a hunk of skin.
