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40-454: The Bridge River hydroelectric complex , operated by BC Hydro , consists of three successive dams, providing water for four hydro power plants with the total rated power of total 492 megawatts. Its name in the Lillooet language is Xwisten (pronounced Hwist'n), sometimes spelled Nxwisten or Nxo-isten). Dubbed Riviere du Font by Simon Fraser's exploring party in 1808, it was for

80-543: A cofferdam, which had been built across the Bridge River to force its flow into the Powerhouse No. 1 diversion tunnel, which was open and operating in 1948. The rising lake waters flooded out several large ranches and homesteads in the valley, some of which dated back to the 1890s, and also the short-lived company town of Minto City , which lay at the confluence of Gun Creek with the former Bridge River, despite

120-442: A combined rink and tennis court, lavish guest houses for visiting executives, parks, a school, a private beach and a full-service hotel which served the busy travel trade over the mountain to the goldfields towns of Bralorne, Pioneer and Minto. Mostly abandoned during the 1930s, the townsite - known as "Bridge River" (although not actually on that river) - was used during the war as a relocation centre for Japanese-Canadians exiled from

160-635: A fountain (in another version of the name, the surname of one of Fraser's men was supposedly du Font , giving the location its name of the Lower Fountains (the Upper Fountains being another few miles upstream on the Fraser, today's community of Fountain The river came to be called the Bridge River due to the location of a bridge across the Fraser at this point, originally a pole-structure built by

200-541: A local famine among the area's populous fishery-dependent native bands. It was hoped that the returning Bridge River salmon would follow the smell of Bridge River water up the Seton-Cayoosh system, where a fish ladder and also a set of hatchery channels were constructed, but the fish attempted to swim directly into the tailrace of the Lillooet Powerhouse. To ameliorate this, a tunnel was bored through

240-471: A long holdout by Wally O'Keeffe; owner of the Rexmount Ranch and his attempts to rally the people of Minto against the project. Seton Lake existed before the project, but a small diversion dam at its outlet raised the level of the lake by about 10 feet (3.0 m). From the lake's outlet, a specially built canal carries the diverted flow of the Bridge River to the last possible bit of "head" before

280-437: A serpentine flat-bottomed valley framed by its tributary canyons and ranges, the valley had been home to a number of prospectors, settlers, lodges and others who were forced from their homes by the rising waters of Carpenter Lake, which also drowned what was left of Minto City (there were no residents in the area of what is now Downton Lake). Acrimony over the evictions continued for many years, and feelings from old-timers about

320-589: A while known by the English version of that name, Fountain River , and some old maps show it as Shaw's River, after the name of one of Fraser's men. The Bridge River Ocean , an ancient ocean, takes its name from the Bridge River. Upstream from Moha the now-dry riverbed runs through the immense gorge of the Bridge River Canyon, which lies immediately downstream from Terzaghi Dam , the principal dam of

360-539: Is a historic Canadian gold mining community in the Bridge River District of British Columbia , some 130 km on dirt roads west of the town of Lillooet . Gold has been the central element in the area's history going back to the 1858-1860 Fraser River Gold Rush . Miners rushed to the Cayoosh and Bridge River areas looking for placer deposits, One named Cadwallader looked for the outcroppings on

400-639: Is a hydroelectric power development in the Canadian province of British Columbia , located in the Lillooet Country between Whistler and Lillooet . It harnesses the power of the Bridge River , a tributary of the Fraser , by diverting it through a mountainside to the separate drainage basin of Seton Lake , utilizing a system of three dams, four powerhouses and a canal. The potential for

440-678: Is found throughout the river's basin. During the 19th Century, large hydraulic mining operations lined the banks of the river for the thirty kilometres between the community of Moha, at the confluence of the Yalakom and the Bridge. Gun Creek and Tyaughton Creek jointly drain the south flank of the protected wilderness area known as the Spruce Lake Protected Area , popularly known as the South Chilcotin although

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480-517: The Bridge River Power Project . Terzaghi Dam forms Carpenter Lake , the longest and largest of the power project's reservoirs at about 40 kilometres. Just upstream from Gold Bridge , which is at the upper end of Carpenter Lake, is Lajoie Dam , which forms Downton Lake . Its confluence with the Fraser occurs at a double gorge formed by the two rivers, which are forced through narrow banks at this point and so reminiscent of

520-612: The mountain sheep ' in the Chilcotin language , was in old times known as the North Fork of the Bridge. The South Fork of the Bridge River is many miles upstream, at the community of Gold Bridge , and is today known as the Hurley River (originally Hamilton's River). Several other large feeder streams contribute to the diverted flow of the Bridge, including Gun Creek , Tyaughton Creek , Marshall Creek, and Cadwallader Creek;

560-495: The 1870s Hunter Jack began to invite chosen prospectors into the valley, and ran a ferry across the Bridge River that virtually all entering the region had to cross. Among these were those who would eventually discover the hard rock lodes on Cadwallader Creek. Though styled the Bridge River Gold Rush, in this early period there were so few who had made it into the district that there were only forty residents during

600-573: The 1890 Census, prompting the naming of one of the claims "Forty Thieves". Since 2002, rising gold prices have led to new exploration in the area and plans for re-opening the Bralorne Mine, and nearby Pioneer Mine. In 2014, a realtor put the Bralorne's "third townsite", Bradian , on sale for $ 1 million. Around 2016, the entire town was sold for just over one million dollars. It is a ghost town consisting of some 20 dwellings last occupied in

640-644: The Bridge River goldfields were Minto City , Wayside, Congress, Lajoie, Haylmore and Brexton (aka Fish Lake). Around Bralorne other localities such as Ogden grew up along road right-of-ways and slips of land between the mineral claims which dominate the northwestern flank of the Bendor Range in this area, providing services not approved of by company towns, including "sporting houses" , some of which were also in Gold Bridge until forced to move to Minto as Gold Bridge became larger. Other gold-mining activity

680-509: The Coast in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . Its most notable resident during that period was Masajiro Miyazaki , an osteopath who was engaged by the provincial police in Lillooet to serve as coroner despite wartime restrictions, and stayed on as the town doctor for years after. Miyazaki was conferred an Order of Canada award for his service to that community. Following

720-652: The Fraser River, a differential of only 140' but enough to generate 42,000 kilowatts. The canal, known as Seton Canal , is highly unusual in that it bridges both Seton and Cayoosh Creeks before being briefly tunneled through a low rock bluff to the Seton Powerhouse , which is right on the Fraser River just below the town of Lillooet. The British Columbia Electric Company , successor to the Bridge River Power Company on this project and

760-595: The Fraser. The flow of the Bridge River, however, was near-completely diverted into Seton Lake with the completion of the Bridge River Power Project in 1961, with the water now entering the Fraser River just south of Lillooet as a result. The salmon fishery of the Bridge River was near-entirely destroyed by this diversion. It is along Cadwallader Creek that the major mines of the Bridge River goldfields are located at Bralorne and Pioneer Mine . Other mining towns and camps built around mines in

800-975: The area have included the Charlie Cunningham Wilderness, the Spruce Lake-Eldorado Study Area , the Spruce Lake-Eldorado Management Planning Unit (SLRMP), Southern Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, and South Chilcotin Provincial Park. In 2007 the name was changed again to the Spruce Lake Protected Area, reflective of the government's downgrading of the area from park to mixed-use in certain areas. Bridge River Power Project The Bridge River Power Project

840-529: The area is not actually in the Chilcotin, which lies north of it, but in the Chilcotin Ranges . The official designation for the area has changed since it was first proposed for a park in the 1930s, due to the efforts of the prospecting and mining community in the goldfield towns. The protectionist vs. resource extraction battle over that area has raged since that time, and names used in debates for

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880-543: The basins of the Bridge and Seton systems. This tunnel was completed in 1931, but work on the project was suspended due to the Great Depression and the Second World War . Construction of a powerhouse to utilize the diversion did not begin until 1946. A townsite, or employees village, was built in the 1920s adjacent to the construction site. It was developed as a model community, with a community hall,

920-404: The creek that is now named for him and turned out later to be the site of the richest hard-rock veins in the region. Early exploratory parties of Chinese and Italians in the upper Bridge River basin were driven out by Chief Hunter Jack , who himself had a secret placer mine somewhere in the region, believed to be in upper Tyaughton Creek . and whose big-game hunting territory this also was. During

960-408: The fate of their valley remain strong among their offspring. Much of Carpenter Lake today is mudflat when reservoir levels are low, and for many years it was a stark reminder of older environmental standards, with vast forests of dead trees sticking out of the frigid, milky-blue glacial waters. Some feel that the shift in temperature regimes in the two river basins affected local climate patterns, with

1000-438: The foot of Seton Lake colder than it already was. Unscheduled releases of water from Terzaghi Dam during spawning seasons in the 1990s caused a furor amongst local residents and First Nations, with a major investigation launched and Hydro now operating under strict rules for releasing water. The most immediate and visible environmental impact of the project, however, was the inundation of the upper Bridge River Valley. Formerly

1040-424: The gold-mining district's supply town of Gold Bridge , was built at Lajoie , 60 kilometres above the diversion dam . Construction of Lajoie Dam began in 1949 as a simple storage dam to regulate reservoir levels for the Bridge River plants, but in 1955 it was raised to its full height of 287 feet (87 m), creating Downton Lake, 534,300 acree-feet of water, elev. 2,460 feet (750 m). A one-generator powerhouse

1080-518: The last-named is a tributary of the Hurley, about 15 kilometres upstream from its confluence with the Bridge. Bridge River Power Project harnesses the power of the Bridge River, by diverting it through a mountainside to the separate drainage basin of Seton Lake , utilizing a system of three dams, four powerhouses and a canal. The powerhouses have a maximum generating capacity of 480 MW and an average annual production of 2670 GWh. Development of

1120-522: The main electrical utility in the province, was taken over and nationalized by the British Columbia government in 1961 and became the larger part of BC Hydro and Power Authority, a Crown Corporation . A full official assessment of this project's impact on the local and provincial environment has never been completed, and was not required at the time of its construction. Seton Lake, once pristine and renowned for its crystalline sky-blue colour,

1160-406: The moraine at the foot of Seton Lake to feed water from Cayoosh Creek into the lake near the diversion, so that the mix of waters coming out of Cayoosh Creek's confluence with the Fraser would confuse the fish and some of them would choose the creek instead, thereby finding the hatchery. This was of mixed success, and as far as many locals concerned only served to make the water at the public beach at

1200-590: The native St'at'imc people but replaced at the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858 by a white-run tollbridge. Because of the diversion of the river to Seton Lake by Terzaghi Dam and tunnels through Mission Mountain , which is in that area the south flank of the Bridge, what Bridge River water enters the Fraser now is largely the flow of one of the Bridge's tributaries, the Yalakom River . The Yalakom, whose name means 'the ewe of

1240-461: The project was first observed in 1912 by Geoffrey Downton, a land surveyor, visiting the goldfield towns in the area who noticed the short horizontal distance between the flow of the Bridge River, just above its impressive canyon, and the much-lower Seton Lake. It was fifteen years before this observation was put to task, and not until 1927 that a private company first bored a tunnel through Mission Ridge (also known as Mission Mountain), which separates

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1280-466: The system began in 1927 and was completed in 1960. The waters initially pass through the Lajoie Dam and powerhouse and are then diverted through tunnels and penstocks from Carpenter Reservoir to the two powerhouses on Seton Lake Reservoir. Due to the force of the rivers at the Bridge's original confluence into the Fraser, the area has been for millennia the most important inland salmon-fishing site on

1320-457: The tortuous Mission Mountain Road, which was also shared with industrial and passenger traffic to and from the busy mine towns. The only access to the railhead for that road, at Shalalth, was via the rail line itself from Lillooet and, to get there, via the old pre-Trans-Canada " Cariboo Highway " from Hope to Lytton that had not been upgraded much since it was built in the 1920s. The first generator

1360-415: The tunnels bored through Mission Mountain. Terzaghi Dam was immediately above the pass, just below the tunnel intakes and Mission Creek, which is the valley on the north side of the pass. It was often known as Mission Dam before being officially named Terzaghi Dam, after Karl Terzaghi , the "father of modern soil mechanics " who was the chief consultant. Another dam, Lajoie Dam , three kilometres above

1400-509: The upper valley now more moderate in climate and the Seton valley considerably cooler. Programs in the 1980s to engage prisoners and others in the removal of these trees were launched during low-water levels, and the lake today is largely safe for boating, and while stocked for fishing it is still inadvisable for swimming due to its icy-cold water. Bralorne, British Columbia Bralorne ( / ˈ b r eɪ l ɔːr n / BRAY -lorn )

1440-438: The war, growing power requirements led to a fast-tracking of the project, which was the largest at the time and one of the most staggering ever undertaken because of the terrain and spectacular setting of the project. Materials for the diversion dams in the Bridge River and all equipment for the powerhouse to be built at Lajoie, near Gold Bridge, had to be trucked over the 3,500-foot (1,100 m) climb and dozens of switchbacks of

1480-470: Was being bored, and it would have four generators, officially opening in 1960 with a generating capacity of 248,000 kilowatts. Geoffrey Downton, the "discoverer" of the project, was invited to push the "start" button to fire up the No. 2 generators. The No. 1 Powerhouse is fed by four penstocks, the No. 2 Powerhouse by two much larger ones, which supply the water from Carpenter Lake, created by Terzaghi Dam , from

1520-479: Was completed in 1957 with a capacity of 22,000 kilowatts, much of that destined to feed the power demands of the Bralorne and Pioneer Mines and their associated towns, only ten miles away, as well as other residents and towns elsewhere in the upper Bridge River valley. Terzaghi Dam, lower in crest than Lajoie Dam at 180 feet (55 m) but also the most important structure in the project, was completed in 1960, creating Carpenter Lake . It replaced an earlier structure,

1560-429: Was installed at what would become Bridge River Powerhouse No. 1 in 1948, with three more generators added by 1954, giving the plant a total output of 180,000 kilowatts - easily the largest in the province at that time. A second tunnel, with two large penstocks, was built to supply a second powerhouse on the far side of the townsite. Work on this powerhouse (called No. 2) was carried out while the tunnel that would supply it

1600-423: Was turned cold and opaque by the diverted waters of the Bridge River, which are glacial and milky-green in colour. Damage to the fishery on both river systems involved was incalculable. Although a fish ladder was built at the Seton diversion, it is generally conceded that the project virtually wiped out the entire Bridge River salmon runs, once one of the river's largest and most important and, in so doing, caused

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