Lillooet sits in the dry interior of British Columbia where the Bridge and Fraser rivers meet, surrounded by steep mountains and sagebrush-covered benchlands. The landscape is strikingly different from the wet coastal ranges to the west — hot in summer, cold in winter, and sparsely populated. The town itself has about 2,300 people.
The St'át'imc people have lived in this area for thousands of years, and the region is one of British Columbia's richest sources of nephrite jade — the mineral can still be found along the rivers and in the surrounding mountains. During the Cariboo Gold Rush of the 1860s, Lillooet briefly boomed as the starting point of the wagon road north to the goldfields. A marker on Main Street designates it as Mile 0 of the old Cariboo Road. The Lillooet Museum tells both stories well.
Today Lillooet is a quiet town, useful as a stop between Whistler and Kamloops or as a base for exploring the surrounding backcountry. The drive from Whistler along the Duffey Lake Road is one of British Columbia's most scenic routes — a climb through alpine passes before dropping into the dry canyon country around Lillooet. North of town, the Bridge River Rapids are a world-class salmon fishery and one of the most remarkable Indigenous fishing sites in North America. The officially named bridge crossing the Fraser into town commemorates one of the Gold Rush's stranger episodes: a failed experiment with camel pack animals.