In 1862 Frank Laumeister, a prominent merchant and packer of the Cariboo district, conceived the idea of using camels as pack animals. He formed a syndicate and for $6,000 bought 23 camels from Otto Esche of San Francisco, who had originally brought them from Mongolia. The camels were shipped to Victoria on the ship ‘‘Hermann.’’

One camel died at sea and a female with calf was left to wander at will around Victoria, startling unwary residents. The rest were loaded on a barge and towed into the harbour of New Westminster by the ‘Flying Dutchman’. By the time they reached Lillooet, via the Harrison-Lillooet trail, their owners valued them at $450 each.

However, the syndicate encountered opposition. Apprehensive settlers appealed to Premier Douglas to quash the ‘Dromedary Express’ but nothing came of it.

Mr. Laumeister and his friends believed that these Mongolian camels could make 35 miles a day carrying 800 pounds, but as the animals were not yet in good condition, the first loads would carry 350 pounds.

Trouble soon came. The camels, unused to rough, rocky trails, developed foot ailments, including falling arches. Boots of thick canvas or rawhide were tried, but didn’t work. The sight of the ungainly, two-humped creatures caused the horses to bolt, and owners of conventional pack-trains sued the camel-owners for damages regularly and often. Wrecked buggies and wagons, the result of runaways, were a common sight on the Lillooet Trail.

At the end of the year everyone wished the camels back in Mongolia, so most of the surviving Bactrians were returned to the United States. Some must have been overlooked, for a hunter shot one in Grande Prairie, between Kamloops and Vernon, in 1894.

The camel experiment was costly, and old pioneers referred to it as ‘Laumeister’s Folly’. But it taught everyone a lesson — nobody ever imported pack elephants.