Lillooet became the largest city north of San Francisco and west of Chicago in 1859 with more than 30,000 people. Most came from San Francisco in search of gold in the newly discovered bars along the Fraser river.

When the Second World War extended to the Asia-Pacific regions the Canadian government culminated decades of prejudice against Japanese Canadians by declaring them "enemy aliens" and immediately confiscating their radios, cameras, vehicles and fishing boats. Under the War Measures Act, residents of coastal communities were to be forcibly removed. Men were sent to road construction camps while women, children and elderly were sent to malodorous and unsanitary livestock barns... before being incarcerated in hastily constructed internment camps and abandoned resource towns beyond an imposed 100-mile coastal restricted zone.

Vernon Pick was one of Lillooet's most fascinating residents. Afraid of a possible nuclear war, he build Walden North near Lillooet. He selected the location as it would likely have the least amount of fall-out in case of a nuclear war.