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February 1, 2010
This page was last updated February 22, 2010
The Piper Super Cub has been a favourite of bush pilots looking to operate into unprepared areas. Outfitted with a set of large, low-pressure tundra tires, the cub can land on almost any reasonably flat surface. This cub landed on a high mountaintop meadow at Howard's Pass in the early 1970's to scout out possible locations for a more permanent airstrip, and its tundra tires (containing only a couple of pounds of air pressure) "sucked up" the marmot holes and bumps like they weren't even there. Some pilots have even been known to land a cub outfitted with tundra tires on water - just keeping the speed up enough with the throttle to "water-ski" along the surface to the shore. Howard's Pass, located north of the Cantung mine near the Yukon-NWT border, is the site of one of the world's largest still-undeveloped lead-zinc-silver deposits with estimated reserves of some 115-million-plus tonnes of resource available.
February 8, 2010
Modern-day explorers hiking in the backwoods north of Terrace often come across abandoned mine shafts like this one at the old Maroon Mountain mine near Kalum Lake. A network of trails were pounded out by the old timers back in the 1920's and 1930's during the early days of mineral exploration in the area and served as the "roads of the day" for both walkers and pack horses. This present day trail starts near the Nisga'a highway and winds its way up ancient creeks and through thick forests before bringing hikers to large open alpine areas high near the mountain tops. Mining shafts were bored into mostly solid rock by hand or with whatever tools and equipment could be dragged up the trails. Much of the material extracted from the shafts was processed nearby to minimize the amount of material that had to be packed out, and remnants of the old mills are often found nearby. Photo courtesy of Bob Wall.
February 15, 2010
On this week 45 years ago, 26 miners working to open up the Granduc Copper Mine lost their lives in a huge avalanche. Granduc is located near Stewart at the head of the Portland Canal, beside the BC-Alaska border. Although the area normally receives heavy snows, the winter of 1964-65 saw mainly cold temperatures and only a thin, sugary layer of snow in the glacier-carved mountains. But in early February, 4 meters of snow fell on this unstable snow layer over an 8 day period. The Granduc camp, where 154 men worked to dig an 18 kilometer tunnel through the mountain, was located at the junction of two arms of the Leduc Glacier at the base of a gentle mountain slope that had no history of avalanches. But at just after 10 am on February 18, 1965, some 50,000 tonnes of snow roared down the mountain and wiped out the camp and any men unlucky enough to be in its path. A later inquest into the event made some safety recommendations that formed the basis for the avalanche control work presently done each year. This plaque near the site of the disaster helps us remember those lost that day. Photo courtesy of Bob Wall.
February 22, 2010
The Granduc mine created a lot of economic activity in Northwest BC while it was being built and operated. In the late 1960's, bush planes like the deHavilland Otter were used to ferry fuel and supplies from Stewart to a makeshift airstrip near the mine site. However, a tragedy struck on one of these flights when an Otter flown by old-time bush pilot Pat Carey struck the vertical cliff face of the mountain. The Otter miraculously came to rest on a small ledge. The pilot, although badly injured, was able to extract himself from the wreck and work his way to a spot that would shield him from the ensuing fire. Brave miners from Granduc were quickly near the scene and attempted to lower themselves down the cliff with ropes but quickly realized that this would be impossible, so a backup plan was hatched and a rescuer was lowered down a line from a helicopter hovering just above the wreck. This time, the rescue attempt was successful and Pat was lifted to safety, and although he never again flew commercially due to injuries suffered in the crash, he recovered to become a Magistrate on the sunshine coast in his final years.
