Australian is an unincorporated community on the east side of the Fraser River in the North Cariboo region of central British Columbia.

Olesen, Olsen), William and Stephen Downes, and George Cook, who met in Victoria (Australia), were drawn to the Colony of British Columbia by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.

They built a log cabin on the higher slopes, called the Palace Hotel, which served as a roadhouse, but business was not brisk because most travelled on the Soda Creek–Quesnel steamboat.

Becoming known as "Australian House", the stop served meals to stage passengers while BC Express (BX) changed the horses.

[6] The grain, hay, and vegetable crops grown during the 1870s and 1880s ranch development supplied miners, as did the slaughterhouse, which processed the large herd of cattle and dairy cows.

When a road culvert failed in 1955, a torrent of water reached 3.7 metres (12 ft) up the ranch buildings,[16] causing damage estimated at more than $50,000.

[19] The ranch is a 300 grass fed beef cow operation, which has expanded into dog food production and selling perennial flowers locally.

[23] In June 1921, when a handcar collided with a freight train near the rail bridge after dark, the employee on board was not discovered until the next morning.

Despite a triple fracture of the skull and a piece of the frontal bone penetrating the brain, an operation at Quesnel hospital was successful.