Jean Jacques Caux, known as Cataline, was born in rural southern France around 1830, most likely in a town called Oloron in the Bearn region.
It is not hard to determine where these words originated when one remembers that these men grew up at the base of the Pyrenees Mountains, which is the border of Spain & France.
Although the exact date of his arrival in British Columbia is unknown, it is recorded that he was packing at the beginning of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858 and continued until 1912, a span of 54 years.
Cataline was known to wear the same type of clothing year round: a boiled white shirt, heavy woolen pants, riding boots and no socks.
And although he ran mule trains for over half a century it was said he never lost a pound of cargo, except in one instance when his secundo, upon smelling a two-pound package of Limburger cheese, decided it was rotten and threw it away.
The bank manager questioned Cataline's collateral, wondering how many mules and horses he owned before consenting to lend him the money.
When Cataline returned to the bank in the fall to repay the debt, he counted out the exact amount owing and paid it in full.
During this period, he was friends with Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie, who once held an impromptu court to provide Cataline with Canadian citizenship when his squatting rights were questioned.
[2] When the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was announced, Cataline moved his operations to Quesnel to better serve the booming Central Interior.