Cassiar Country
Laketon
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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
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
Cassiar Gold Rush
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
Later years
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
- Cassiar Mountains
- Stewart-Cassiar Highway
- Cassiar (electoral district)
- Nellie Cashman "Angel of the Cassiar"
References
- Cassiar A Jewel in the Wilderness Suzanne Leblanc ISBN 0-920576-99-0