Many myths surround Cataline, some are true and much is fiction.
He was neither Spanish, Basque, Mexican, nor Catalonian. He was a Frenchman born in
Oloron-Ste.Marie, in the province of Bearn, France.
His real name was Jean Jacques Caux, and no one knows for sure whether he arrived in BC straight from France,
or if he spent some time in Mexico and California. He arrived in Yale just in time for the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858. He is especially famous for massaging whiskey into his long curly black locks.
Word has it that he was naturalized as a Canadian citizen by Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie on the Cariboo Trail. Cataline was known to be a staunch supporter of the "Hanging Judge", sometimes at the point of his large Mexican knife.
© Irene Bjerky
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