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In the Bridge River Valley, carved into the Cariboo Mountains just five hours northeast of Vancouver, memories of booming gold mining towns still echo.
Once the richest gold mine in Canada, the Bralorne mine closed 30 years ago, but the town survives and with it a portal to the past, when gold fortunes and mining communities flourished in the Bridge River Valley.
Just up the mountain ridge from Bralorne, the Pioneer mine is closed, the town deserted, but telltale signs in foundations overgrown with brush are still visible to hikers through the thousand acres of this mining territory.
From the turn of the century, the Bridge River Valley drew men and women from all over the world to mine for gold. Those adventurous folk remaining are only too glad to tell of 70 years in thriving communities built around the most productive gold mines in B.C. history.
