“Gold is Where You Find It” and we invite you to the real Northern California to learn more about those who sought the precious metal and were preceded by the original Native Americans, trappers, explorers and drovers who lived in and traveled through this part of the West.

Before the arrival of European descendents, the lands drained by the Klamath and Pit Rivers were home to several Native American tribes, among them, the Klamath, Pit, Modoc, Shasta, and Karuk. These people traded—and fought—with each other and with tribes as far north as the Columbia River and as far south as the Sacramento Valley. Thus, trails were well established when Peter Skene Ogden and his Hudson Bay trappers arrived via the upper Klamath in 1826-27.

In the 1830s the Siskiyou Trail was established through the Sacramento River canyon, Shasta Valley and over the Siskiyou Mountains with livestock being driven from California to settlements in Oregon.

The 1840s saw military mapping expeditions, including Fremont’s march north and abrupt turnaround in 1846 to return to California and the Bear Flag revolt.

The Applegate Trail was opened in 1846, cutting through both Pit and Klamath River territory in northeast California.

News of the discovery of gold was carried by ship to Oregon in 1848 and created a rush south, primarily to the Sierras. But the similar geology of the Klamath Mountains led others to prospect north, and gold was discovered on Clear Creek (south of Redding, it is also the stream dammed to create Whiskeytown Lake) by Peirson Reading in 1848. Discoveries were made north and west in drainages of the Sacramento, Trinity and Klamath Rivers.

The Lassen Trail began in 1848, leaving the Applegate Trail at the southern end of Goose Lake and striking south and west along the Pit River.

Gold was discovered in 1851 in the area that was to become Yreka (Wy-e-kah is the Shasta Indian name for Mount Shasta.) and the Yreka Trail followed shortly after in 1852, leaving the Applegate Trail at Lower Klamath Lake.

Permanent farming communities soon built up in the Scott, Shasta and Butte Valleys, and many descendents of the original settlers still occupy the land.

Throughout this time period, the native tribes of the area experienced the same problems as did their brethren on the plains and other areas of the west. Survival required ingenuity, skill and the availability of plant and animal resources. The incursions of strangers decimated many of the natural resources and much of their lands. Tribes to the east, the Pit and Modoc, offered stiff resistance. The last Indian war occurred in the lava beds of Modoc County in 1872-73.

Wagon roads followed trails and were, in turn, succeeded by graded roads, paved highways, and today’s I-5 freeway. (How do you get to Yreka? Hop on I-5 anywhere between Canada and Mexico, and hop off at Exit 775 in California. You will be in Yreka at the Miner’s Inn Convention Center!)

This has been a very generalized and brief synopsis of the Siskiyou region. At the symposium you will learn the specifics of the history and geology of this land and its peoples. And on the tours you will see the locations talked about, many of them changed little in over 150 years.