Did you know that during the gold rush a dude who struck it rich buried his wife three times? The same wife. Buried three different times.
It’s true.
John A. “Cariboo” Cameron was his name, and he made a fortune mining gold in the 1800s in B.C.
He and his wife Margaret moved here from Ontario. She hated living in the seclusion of the Cariboo, and sadly she died of typhoid not long after they arrived here.
He promised her that he would bury her at home in Ontario, but she died in the winter, making it difficult to transport her body. So he put her into a coffin in a cabin for a few months until the snow had melted.
Her coffin was not only freezing but it was also lined with tin and filled with grain alcohol so they could preserve her remains.
Cameron hired 22 men to bring her body to Victoria, and it took 39 days.
He stayed up north to make more money, and a while later came through on his promise. He exhumed her body in Victoria, took it to Ontario and reburied her there.
A whole nine years later a newspaper in New York published a story that said that she wasn’t in her coffin, that it was actually full of gold and that he had sold her into some sort of slavery.
So they exhumed her once again, then drained the alcohol out of the coffin.
She looked the same as she did the day she died, so they buried her. Again.
Cariboo Cameron moved back to B.C., lost all of his money and soon died of a stroke.
They only buried him once. His grave is near Barkerville.
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