The Cariboo Trek of Callum McBay
by Colin Campbell
Tradewind Books, 2025
ISBN 9781990598333 (sc)
$14.95, 120 pp, intermediate/high school readers
tradewindbooks.com
Former high school teacher-librarian Colin Campbell has drawn on his Scottish roots and knowledge of the BC interior to craft this informative and entertaining young adult novel. The adventure begins in the spring of 1862 when seventeen-year-old Callum is forced to leave the family’s Glasgow-area farm—which has been struck by an outbreak of sheep scrapie—for the Cariboo gold fields. With the support of family members, he has enough resources for a dangerous sail around Cape Horn and on to Victoria. From there, he treks (via ferries, barges, canoes, mules, and camels), meeting villains and friends among the 30,000 or so prospectors who also flooded the BC interior seeking riches from placer gold deposits. Eventually, that autumn, Callum teams up with a trio of more experienced prospectors on a claim at Williams Creek and, within two weeks, paydirt is hit. That modest fortune is enough to save the McBay family farm back in Scotland.
Classroom Connections: The introduction to this brief novel includes a comprehensive map by Jeffrey Ward, an author’s note serving as a preface, a closing historical note, and a separate acknowledgement section by Campbell, which better explains the region’s historical geography and the book’s source material. Throughout the novel, there is consideration given to local First Nations people at this time, through contributions like transporting newcomers and suffering from mass outbreaks of disease imported by prospectors. The concise nature of the work means it has potential for a cross-curricular class novel study, especially since it is based on critical events in mid-nineteenth-century British North American history. One of the two topics in Ontario’s 2023 grade eight History curriculum, for example, is “Creating Canada, 1850–1890,” where students are encouraged to “learn about the experiences of and challenges facing different groups, including First Nations … during this period. They also learn about the legacy of colonialism.”
Review by George Sheppard.
This review is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Winter 2026 issue.
