| Cache Creek | |
| Official Name: | Village of Cache Creek[1] |
| Settlement Type: | Village |
| Pushpin Map: | Canada British Columbia |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of Cache Creek, British Columbia |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Canada |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | British Columbia |
| Subdivision Type2: | Regional district |
| Subdivision Name2: | Thompson-Nicola |
| Government Footnotes: | [2] |
| Government Type: | Elected village council |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Santo Talarico |
| Leader Title1: | Governing body |
| Leader Name1: | Cache Creek Village Council |
| Established Title: | Incorporated |
| Established Date: | 1959 |
| Area Total Km2: | 10.25 |
| Area Land Km2: | 10.40 |
| Population As Of: | 2016 |
| Population Total: | 963 |
| Population Density Km2: | 92.6 |
| Timezone: | PST |
| Utc Offset: | −8 |
| Timezone Dst: | PDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | −7 |
| Coordinates: | 50.8139°N -121.3267°W |
| Elevation Footnotes: | [3] |
| Elevation M: | 396 |
| Elevation Ft: | 1300 |
| Area Code: | 250 / 778 / 236 |
| Blank Name: | Highways |
| Blank Info: | Trans-Canada Highway |
Cache Creek is a historic transportation junction and incorporated village 354km (220miles) northeast of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is on the Trans-Canada Highway in the province of British Columbia at a junction with Highway 97. The same intersection and the town that grew around it was at the point on the Cariboo Wagon Road where a branch road, and previously only a trail, led east to Savona's Ferry on Kamloops Lake. This community is also the point at which a small stream, once known as Riviere de la Cache, joins the Bonaparte River.[4]
The name is derived, apparently, from a cache or buried and hidden supply and trade goods depot used by the fur traders of either the Hudson's Bay Company or its rival the North West Company.[5] Although it was first incorporated as a Local District municipality with the name Cache Creek in 1959, the name has been associated with this community since long before incorporation. The Cache Creek post office was established in 1868.[6]
Although still very active with traffic, Cache Creek was extremely busy for a few decades before the Trans-Canada Highway was superseded by the newer and shorter Coquihalla Highway, which bypasses the Fraser and Thompson Canyons between Hope and Kamloops via Merritt, about 97km (60miles) southeast.
The nearby fossil locality, the McAbee fossil beds, is noted for the wide diversity of Eocene plants and animals preserved in the shale, including the extinct plants Dillhoffia[7] and Trochodendron drachukii.[8] The town lends its name to significant geological features, dating back to the Carboniferous, whose rocks are exposed in the area, Cache Creek Terrane and Cache Creek Ocean.
The village of Cache Creek is also served by a community television station (run by the Ash-Creek Television Society), CH4472 in the neighbouring town of Ashcroft on VHF channel 4 (with an effective radiated power of 74 watts at 15abbr=offNaNabbr=off above ground level), with a repeater (CH4473 on VHF 8, with an effective radiated power of 49 watts at 45abbr=offNaNabbr=off) in Cache Creek, British Columbia. The town is also served by CFMA-FM 105.9, a community radio station run by the Ash-Creek Television Society.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Cache Creek had a population of 969 living in 471 of its 522 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 963. With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2021.[9]