According to UBC Press, Thomas McMicking was the elected leader of the largest single group of people ever to cross what is now the Canadian prairie and travel through the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia before the building of the railway. This group, together with three smaller parties of men who completed the same journey later in 1862, became known as the Overlanders. They were on their way to the Cariboo district where gold had been discovered in large quantities the preceding summer. McMicking wrote an account of the trek, and his narrative was carried in the New Westminster British Columbian in fourteen installments between November 1862 and January 1863. It was published as Overland from Canada to British Columbia (UBC Press, 1981), edited by Joanne Leduc.

[BCBW 2005] "1850-1900" "Early B.C."