Anyox was a small company-owned mining town in British Columbia, Canada. [1] Today it is a ghost town, abandoned and largely destroyed. It is located on the shores of Granby Bay in coastal Observatory Inlet, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) southeast of (but without a land link to) Stewart, British Columbia, and about 20 kilometres (12 miles), across wilderness east of the tip of the Alaska Panhandle.
The remote valley was long a hunting and trapping area for the Nisga'a, and the name Anyox means “hidden waters” in the Nisga'a language. [2] The first Europeans in the area were the members of the Vancouver Expedition, who surveyed the inlet in 1793.
Nisga'a legends told of a mountain of gold, attracting speculators for years. In 1910, the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company (Granby Consolidated) started buying land in the area. They soon found gold. [2]
Granby Consolidated started construction of the town in 1912. By 1914, Anyox had grown to a population of almost 3,000 residents, as the mine and smelter were put into full operation; rich lodes of copper and other precious metals were mined from the nearby mountains. Granby Consolidated moved its copper mining interests here from Phoenix, British Columbia. Copper was mined from the Hidden Creek and Bonanza deposits and smelted on site. Coal to fuel the smelter was shipped from the company built and owned town of Granby on Vancouver Island and Fernie in southeastern British Columbia.
Anyox had no rail or road links to the rest of British Columbia, and all connections were served by ocean steamers, which traveled to Prince Rupert (145 km (90 mi) southwest) [3] and Vancouver.
The company town was a very large operation, with onsite railways, machine shops, curling rink, golf course and a hospital. In the spring of 1918, Granby Consolidated built the first wooden tennis court in Canada for additional recreation. The same year, incoming ships brought the Spanish flu epidemic to Anyox. Charles Clarkson Rhodes, the Chief Accountant for the Granby Consolidated operations in Anyox, died on October 29, 1918, while he was helping to treat patients in the Anyox Hospital. Dozens of workers and residents of Anyox died from the flu epidemic.
In the early 1920s, the concrete pioneer and dam engineer John S. Eastwood designed a hydroelectric dam, which, at 156 feet (48 m) high, was the tallest dam in Canada for many years. [4] Anyox was almost wiped out by forest fires in 1923, but the townsite was rebuilt, and mining operations continued. Acid rain from the smelter denuded the trees from the hillsides, which soon became bare.
The Great Depression drove down the demand for copper, which was effectively the beginning of the end for Anyox. Operations continued but were steadily scaled down while the company stockpiled 100,000,000 pounds (45,000 tonnes) of copper, three years of production, which it was unable to sell. [2] The mine shut down in 1935, and the town was abandoned. Salvage operations in the 1940s removed most machinery and steel from the town, and two forest fires, in 1942 and 1943, burned all of the remaining wood structures. [2] [5]
During its 25 year existence, Anyox's mines and smelters produced 140,000 ounces (4 tonnes) of gold, 8,000,000 ounces (230 tonnes) of silver and 760,000,000 pounds (340,000 tonnes) of copper. [2]
Active mineral exploration continues in the area. In the 1980s, local entrepreneurs teamed with Vancouver investors to purchase the long dormant operations from the owner of record. [5] Whenever there is a rise in the price of copper, there is speculation about the possibility of re-development, but none has ever occurred.
Since 2000, the current owners have been trying to attract interest in rehabilitating the hydroelectric dam to supply the British Columbia grid or to attract and serve an on-site natural gas liquefaction facility. [5]
The town was the subject of the 2022 documentary film Anyox . [6]
Former Vancouver Mayor Jack Volrich was one of the 351 people born in Anyox, as was Thomas Waterland, MLA for Yale-Lillooet from 1975 to 1986.
Reid Mitchell, who represented Canada in basketball at the 1948 Olympics, was also born in Anyox.
Denny Boyd, a Vancouver Sun reporter and Order of British Columbia recipient. [7]
Britannia Beach is a small unincorporated community in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District located approximately 55 kilometres north of Vancouver, British Columbia on the Sea-to-Sky Highway on Howe Sound. It has a population of about 300. It includes the nearby Britannia Creek, a small to mid-sized stream that flows into Howe Sound that was historically one of North America's most polluted waterways.
Stewart is a district municipality at the head of the Portland Canal in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, near the Alaskan panhandle. In 2021, it had a population of 517.
Kennecott Utah Copper LLC (KUC), a division of Rio Tinto Group, is a mining, smelting, and refining company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan, Utah. Kennecott operates the Bingham Canyon Mine, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world in Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. The company was first formed in 1898 as the Boston Consolidated Mining Company. The current corporation was formed in 1989. The mine and associated smelter produce 1% of the world's copper.
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Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking industry, copper, zinc, and energy. Secondary products include lead, silver, gold, molybdenum, germanium, indium and cadmium. Teck Resources was formed from the amalgamation of Teck and Cominco in 2001.
Mount Sicker is in southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The twin summits of Big Sicker Mountain, at 716 metres (2,349 ft), and Little Sicker Mountain, at 660 metres (2,170 ft), are near Crofton, Chemainus and Duncan.
Heath Steele Mines, situated 60 km (37 mi) northwest of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada, at the headwaters of the Tomogonops and Little Rivers, was a large and productive copper, lead, and zinc mine which operated from 1956 to 1999. The mine was an economic cornerstone of Miramichi communities throughout this period.
In the United States, copper mining has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017, the US produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
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Lundin Mining Corporation is a Canadian company that owns and operates mines in Sweden, United States, Chile, Portugal and Brazil that produce base metals such as copper, zinc, and nickel. Headquartered in Toronto, the company was founded by Adolf Lundin and operated by Lukas Lundin. While it was incorporated to pursue an interest in a diamond mine in Brazil, the company re-structured and raised funds to develop the Storliden mine in Sweden. It purchased the Swedish Zinkgruvan Mine from Rio Tinto and then merged with Arcon International Resources for its Galmoy Mine in Ireland and with Eurozinc for its Neves-Corvo mine in Portugal. The company subsequently purchased and operated the Eagle mine, Candelaria mine, and Chapada mine.
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Observatory Inlet is an inlet on the North Coast of British Columbia. It is a northward extension of Portland Inlet, other branches of which include the Portland Canal. The entrance of Observatory Inlet, from Portland Inlet, lies between Ramsden Point and Nass Point. Ramsden Point also marks, to the west, the entrance of Portland Canal. Observatory Inlet was named by George Vancouver in 1793, because he set up his observatory on the shore of the inlet, at Salmon Cove, in order to calibrate his chronometers. His two vessels, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham, stayed in Salmon Cove from July 23 to August 17, 1793. During this time a boat surveying expedition under Vancouver himself explored Behm Canal. Vancouver also named three headlands at the entrance of Observatory Inlet: Maskelyne Point, for Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, Wales Point, for William Wales, the mathematical master who sailed with James Cook, and Ramsden Point, after the famed mathematical instrument-maker Jesse Ramsden.
Phoenix Mine was an open pit and underground mining operation in city of Phoenix in the Boundary Country region of British Columbia, Canada that operated in the early and mid 20th century, run by the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company. It was discovered in 1891, but was a lower grade copper deposit than the Rossland and Slocan deposits. The low grade and the nearest railroad being 75 miles (121 km) resulted in the Phoenix receiving less attention.
Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Co. was established by charter to operate in the Boundary region of southern British Columbia. Primarily involved in the mining and smelting of copper, the conglomerate became a publicly traded company. The various corporate operating names within the former group mostly specified the Granby identity.
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Imperial Metals Corporation, known as IMI Imperial Metals Inc. until 2002, is a Canadian metals and mining company. Engaging in the acquisition, exploration, development, mining, and production of base and precious metals in North America, the majority of its holdings and operations are in British Columbia.
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