Holloway Bar Placer Mine - Picture of the Week

Former Cassiar residents have had an advance preview of this photo through the www.cassiar.ca website message forum and will recognize it immediately. This is a current picture (Spring 2006) of the tailings pile behind the old Cassiar townsite. The town of Cassiar was closed permanently in 1992 when the asbestos mine and the contents of the town hauled away and sold at auction. Now the townsite is empty and silent, but there's still a church (which actually hosted a wedding in 2005). The town of Cassiar was a vibrant community nestled in the mountains and offered residents daily breathtaking views...

The Holloway Bar Dragon overlooks the pond and protects the property. You've probably noticed the abundance of dragons on hollowaybar.com - the first question most people ask is "Why the dragon? Why not something more 'gold related'?" Well, you have to go back into history to find the reason. Over 300 Chinese miners worked this property back in the 1870's seeking gold. Since the dragon is so important to Chinese culture, it seemed logical to incorporate the dragon here as well. This one is the size of a large man and was carved out of a single cedar pole. You can watch our short "Dragons of Holloway Bar" video, produced last summer, by accessing our Multimedia page.

Gold mining is a seasonal affair. After every summer of mining, there's a long wait for the ground to freeze in the winter and thaw again in the spring so that water can once again move material through the gold plant and out through the sluicebox, trapping the heavy gold in the riffles. In the North, June is the time of the year when miners dust off the equipment and bring everything to life for another season's adventure. However, the seasons are short in the Cassiar mountains, so in another couple of months, September will bring overnight frosts and even the odd early snow storm. But there's a lot of mining to do until then...

Scott and I spent the weekend making a few final changes to our webcam system and were just on the way to reinstall the camera overlooking the bridge when Christina snapped this picture of us. Each of our three cameras is now active and uploading images every couple of minutes to our Webcam page to give you a window into our world. Camera 1 - the "WildlifeCam" - is pointed towards a clearing by McDame Creek where occasionally you can see animals, particularly in the early morning. Camera 2 - the "BridgeCam" - oversees the bridge across McDame Creek, the only full-time access to the mining property. The "MineCam" - Camera 3 - looks at the gold plant with our favourite mountain in the background. You can read more about our network in our Wired story.