 When the rush was discovered, the upper Columbia was extremely remote from any form of non-First Nations civilization in that period, although some who reached the Big Bend rush came overland up the Rocky Mountain Trench from what is now Montana, or via Washington Territory up the Columbia River itself.Impossibly far from the Fraser, which was itself very remote and difficult to get to from Victoria, or from the rest of the world.There were various routes into this area, as men had fanned out over the whole of British Columbia and adjoining US territories in the wake of the Fraser Gold Rush and had heard news of the rush from all directions.