Lillooet, British Columbia in the context of Seton River

The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton. The rush overtook the region around the discovery and was centred on the Fraser Canyon from around Hope and Yale to Pavilion and Fountain, just north of Lillooet.

Though the rush was largely over by 1927, miners from the rush spread out and found a sequence of other gold fields throughout the British Columbia Interior and North, most famously that in the Cariboo. The rush is credited with instigating European-Canadian settlement on the mainland of British Columbia. It was the catalyst for the founding of the Colony of British Columbia, the building of early road infrastructure, and the founding of many towns.

The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) is a local government federation, consisting of four municipalities in British Columbia, Canada: Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish. It stretches from Britannia Beach in the south to Pavilion in the north. Its administrative offices are in the Village of Pemberton, although the district municipalities of Squamish and Whistler are larger population centres. The district covers 16,353.68 km (6,314.19 sq mi) of land area.

The southern end of the regional district comprises the northern part of the traditional territory of the Squamish people, and the northern half constitutes the traditional homeland of the St'at'imc people.

The Chilcotin Ranges are a subdivision of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains (in some classifications they are a separate subdivision). They lie on the inland lea of the Pacific Ranges, abutting the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. Their northwestern end is near the head of the Klinaklini River and their southeast end is the Fraser River just north of Lillooet; their northern flank is the edge of the Plateau while their southern is the north bank of the Bridge River. In some reckonings they do not go all the way to the Fraser but end at the Yalakom River, which is the North Fork of the Bridge.

They are not one range but a collection of ranges, often very distinct from each other. There are three major named subranges:

Fountain is an unincorporated rural area and Indian reserve community in the Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, Canada, located at the ten-mile (16 km) mark from the town of Lillooet on BC Highway 99, which in that area is also on the route of the Old Cariboo Road and is located at the junction of that route with the old gold rush-era trail via Fountain Valley and the Fountain Lakes.