"The Last of the Camels of the Cariboo Gold Rush."

[Shotgun Steve]

Cariboo camels of the British Columbia gold rush were later set loose and temporarily created a wild camel population, 1862. "The Last of the Camels of the Cariboo Gold Rush."

[kflach]

This definitely falls under the "Truth is stranger than fiction" category.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

There is a WAS club in Quesnel BC.  About 8 years ago I attended a match which featured this camel in one of the stages.  Also had a wheel barrow loaded with "ore" that had to be moved from one place to another.  It was heavy too, and badly wanted to tip the whole load out! On the clock!

[Stillwater]

Canadian camels, this is a new one on me...

There used to be a Camel Corps that packed freight from San Antonio, TX to Fort Tejon, on the California Ridge route between Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

Some of these animals were turned loose in California and Arizona. There were stories for years afterward of people supposedly sighting Camels in the southwest deserts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Camel_Corps

http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/US-Armys-Camel-Corps.htm

http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/camels.html

There was a movie made about it, called "Hawmps," starring Slim Pickins.

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=6811263&style=movie

ETA: I read two reviews that said the video transfer was blurry in some places...!

Bill

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

This one is true!  The trouble wasn`t with the camels, it was that other pack animals couldn`t stand them and stampeded

[St. George]

The 'Mythical' Camel Corps...
« on: July 12, 2006, 10:45:36 am »     

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Given the fact that the Army never had a 'Camel Corps' - the history of the affair is still interesting.

It was a short-lived, pre-Civil War experiment - and was carried out on contract.

For your reference:

There are good and bad descriptions of the Camel story.

The 'Good':

'A Bibliography of the Camel', California Historical Society Quarterly, December 1930. '

'Camels in California' - Gray - California Historical Society Quarterly, March 1930.

' Uncle Sam's Camels', the Journal of May H. Stacey, 1929 - Lewis B. Lesley (ed.),

'The Story of El Teion, 1942.' - Woodard - A very incomplete and undocumented work.

'The U.S. Camel Corps, an Army Experiment' - Faulk - Oxford University Press, 1976. A readable but sloppy work. The section an the far west is filled with errors.

'The Camel: its Evolution, Ecology, Behavior, and Relationship to Man' - Gauthiers-Pilters and Dagg - University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1981

'Uncle Sam's Camels: the Journal of May Humphreys Stacey - supplemented by the Report of Edward Fitzgerald Beale' - Lesley - (ed.) - Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1929

'Camels for Uncle Sam' - Yancey - Hendrick-Long Publishing Co., Dallas, TX, 1995

The 'Bad':

'Unique History of Fort Tejon' - Howard - Journal of the West. A mythical account; almost nothing is factual.

'Camels To California' - Fowler - 1950.  A cut and paste rip-off of history published by Stanford University.

'Camels in the West' -  Robertson - 1979. Riddled with errors.
'Drum Barracks and the Camel Corps' - booklet -California History Commission -  hilarious collection of errors, mistakes, and folklore.

The 'Official':

Camel File, Quartermaster Dept., R.G. 92, U.S. National Archives (USNA), Washington, D.C.
Letters Sent and Received, Quartermaster Dept., Dept. of the Pacific
Letters Sent and Received, Hdqtrs., Dept. of the Pacific, in R.G. 92 and 393, USNA.
Letters Received, Sec. of War, 1856-1864, R.G. 107, USNA

And since you're already reading - an interesting tale to go along with the above.

'The Red Ghost'  - Froman - American Heritage, XII (April 1961), pp. 35-37 and 94-98

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Google "Camels in British Columbia"

Here's one I like;

http://www.canadianculture.com/geezer/jack50.html

Here's another, featuring Steve's photo;

http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/exhibits/timemach/galler04/frames/road.htm

[Mogorilla]

Interesting Sir Charles, one of the links indicates the camels were purchased from the US Military.   Why would the US Military have bactrian camels?   If they did want to do the Texas experiment, they would have used Dromedary camels.  Bactrian, other than the problems with the rocks as mentioned, would have been suited for British Colombia.   Interesting stuff.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

This guys says "private promoters"brought the bactrian camel to California;

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2415.htm

Wudja be-leev?  A whole forum about contemporary camels in America!

http://www.camelphotos.com/index.html

[Ol Gabe]

Probably restating something from an earlier post, but there is a pyramid-style monument in the Southwest on the old Camel Trail to one of the Middle Eastern Camel-handlers that came over with them whose name was so hard to pronounce in the King's English that it derivated to 'Hi Jolly' or somesuch. I'm sure some of our S.W. Pards may know of the monument and the story thereof if it is not embedded in an earlier posting.
Best regards and never say "No!" to a Camel ride if it is all you have left available!
'Ol Gabe
P.S. How many know the difference between a Dromedary and Bactrian Camel and where they perform the best in the world? As a modern aside, what do the Princes & $-driven Tribes in Arabia use as 'Riders' on Camels in the annual races and how do they control 'them'?