The Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia, which later became part of Canada, in 1858. It occurred during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which brought a large number of white settlers to the Fraser Canyon area. Largely ignored by Canadian historians, it was one of the seminal events of the founding of the colony. Although it ended relatively peaceably, it was a major test of the new administration's control over the goldfields, which were distant and difficult to access from the centre of colonial authority at Victoria in the Colony of Vancouver Island (New Westminster had recently been surveyed as the de jure capital, but the de facto capital wa