Cassiar, British Columbia
Encyclopedia
Cassiar is a ghost town
in British Columbia
, Canada
. It was a small company-owned asbestos mining town located in the Cassiar Mountains
of Northern British Columbia north of Dease Lake. After forty years of operation, starting in 1952, the mine was unexpectedly forced to close in 1992. The closure was driven by a combination of factors including diminished demand for asbestos
and expensive complications faced after converting from an open-pit mine to an underground mine. Most of the contents of the town, including a few houses, were sold off and trucked away. Most of the houses were bull-dozed and burned to the ground. The mill was briefly reactivated in 1999 by Cassiar Chrysotile Inc which had a reclamation permit to clean up the site. 11,000 tons of asbestos were exported before the mill burned down on Christmas Day of 2000, effectively halting all production. Today the streets are bare and flowers bloom where the houses once stood. Residents living between the townsite and the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, and on the highway itself, who originally obtained phone service from the Cassiar exchange, were moved to the nearby Good Hope Lake exchange in fall 2006 and the Cassiar exchange shut down.
The town, which had a population of 1,500 in its heyday had two schools, two churches, a small hospital, theatre, swimming pool, recreation centre and hockey rink. Though neglected, and now in disrepair, the Catholic Church and hockey arena were still standing in 2005. The tramline which transported ore from the mine down the mountainside to the mill was purchased in the auction but the buyer left it and it still stands.
The four old apartment blocks at the east end of town are operational for ongoing site reclamation work. They are currently being utilized as of November 2006 by mining exploration companies conducting underground gold mining at Table Mountain (formerly Erickson Gold) and base metal exploration in the immediate area. There is also seasonal jade mining from the Cassiar waste dumps.
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...
in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It was a small company-owned asbestos mining town located in the Cassiar Mountains
Cassiar Mountains
The Cassiar Mountains are the most northerly group of the Northern Interior Mountains in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. They lie north and west of the Omineca Mountains, west of the northernmost Rockies and the Rocky Mountain Trench, north of the Hazelton...
of Northern British Columbia north of Dease Lake. After forty years of operation, starting in 1952, the mine was unexpectedly forced to close in 1992. The closure was driven by a combination of factors including diminished demand for asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
and expensive complications faced after converting from an open-pit mine to an underground mine. Most of the contents of the town, including a few houses, were sold off and trucked away. Most of the houses were bull-dozed and burned to the ground. The mill was briefly reactivated in 1999 by Cassiar Chrysotile Inc which had a reclamation permit to clean up the site. 11,000 tons of asbestos were exported before the mill burned down on Christmas Day of 2000, effectively halting all production. Today the streets are bare and flowers bloom where the houses once stood. Residents living between the townsite and the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, and on the highway itself, who originally obtained phone service from the Cassiar exchange, were moved to the nearby Good Hope Lake exchange in fall 2006 and the Cassiar exchange shut down.
The town, which had a population of 1,500 in its heyday had two schools, two churches, a small hospital, theatre, swimming pool, recreation centre and hockey rink. Though neglected, and now in disrepair, the Catholic Church and hockey arena were still standing in 2005. The tramline which transported ore from the mine down the mountainside to the mill was purchased in the auction but the buyer left it and it still stands.
The four old apartment blocks at the east end of town are operational for ongoing site reclamation work. They are currently being utilized as of November 2006 by mining exploration companies conducting underground gold mining at Table Mountain (formerly Erickson Gold) and base metal exploration in the immediate area. There is also seasonal jade mining from the Cassiar waste dumps.