Place in British Columbia, Canada
The
Cassiar Country
, also referred to simply as the Cassiar, is a historical geographic region of the
Canadian province
of
British Columbia
. The Cassiar is located in the northwest portion of British Columbia, just to the northeast of the
Stikine Country
, while to the south is the
Omineca Country
. The area is noted for the Cassiar gold rush of the 1870s, when
Laketon
became its unofficial capital. The ghost town of
Cassiar
is also located in the Cassiar region.
Collins Telegraph Line
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In the early 1860s,
Perry Collins
obtained financing from
Western Union
Telegraph to build a
telegraph line
from
San Francisco
through British Columbia and
Alaska
and across the
Bering Strait
to Russia and ultimately
Europe
.
The line was begun in 1865 at
New Westminster
, and continued as far as the
Skeena River
in 1866, but then the project was abandoned as the
transatlantic line
was built first, making the Collins line redundant. Despite the fact that the Collins line would not be completed, surveyors had created a primitive route from
Quesnel
to the newly established settlement of
Telegraph Creek
, thus opening up the northern districts of British Columbia for determined and hardy travelers.
Cassiar Gold Rush
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Porter Landing, Cassiar (1926)
In the 1870s a gold rush occurred in the region, based at
McDame Creek
and at
Thibert Creek
, a tributary of
Dease Creek
. In 1874, more than a million dollars' worth of gold was taken from the region and in 1877, one prospector found the largest
gold nugget
ever recorded in British Columbia: a 72-ounce gold nugget, mined from McDame Creek.
Much as the Stikine Country had been affected by the rush on the
Stikine River
, the Cassiar Gold Rush caused the government to show an interest in the area and
John R Adams
was appointed as government agent for the Cassiar region in 1873, and was followed by Judge
J.H. Sullivan
who became the region's
gold commissioner
.
Laketon
, also known as
Dease Town
became the unofficial capital of the Cassiar and at the height of the rush it had five stores, four hotels, two cafes and its own newspaper. Other gold rush towns were
Porter Landing
and
Defot
. However, by the 1880s most of the gold had been recovered and nearly all of the miners left the area, while only few merchants and
Chinese
miners remained behind. The region was also affected by the
Klondike Gold Rush
when in 1897?1898, 5000 miners went to the Yukon via the all Canadian route, up the Stikine River to Telegraph Creek and overland to the
Teslin River
.
Later years
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After the excitement of the gold rushes, the Cassiar was nearly forgotten until the early 1940s when the American
military
built the
Alaska Highway
from
Dawson Creek
,
British Columbia
to
Fairbanks, Alaska
, thus further opening up the area and providing ease of transportation. Small companies began gold mining with heavy equipment. Then, most notably, the early 1950s brought the
Cassiar Asbestos Mine
, which operated from 1953 until 1992 and produced the company town of
Cassiar
.
See also
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References
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External links
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