The province of British Columbia is arguably Canada’s greatest
treasure trove for ghost towns. There are hundreds of vanished or
derelict pioneer communities stretching from the east near the Alberta
border and to the far west on Vancouver Island. They include the pioneer
coal mining communities of the Crowsnest Pass in the province’s
mountainous southeast, to the silver mining towns of the Valley of
the Ghosts, to the copper producing communities of the Boundary Country,
and to the gold mining towns in the Bridge River Valley, Caribou Country
and Vancouver Island. B.C.’s ghost towns also lay in the province’s
far north, the final evidence of past mining dreams of either gold,
copper and even asbestos.
Today, most of these pioneer locales, are either long gone without
a single trace of a past existence, or lie in ruins – through
abandonment, vandalism and the rigors of time and the elements. Each
can still speak of an important history, either through words or photographs.
The ghosts still speak.
Johnnie Bachusky 2005



