Fun at the BC Mine Museum

Trusty The Phamlee readers welcome to post three of three on the day!

This was my favorite stop of the day and one I have been waiting for since my birthday! Ever since they upgraded the BC Mine Museum I have been dying to go there and it was well worth the wait. There are a bunch of different exhibits that give you a good history on the mine and the two town sites that supported it. You get to go on a guided tour underground through some of the tunnels where they show you some of the old drilling equipment and how it worked, they even turn it on so you can hear how loud it was. The tour continues to one of the old core sample tents  that still contains a bunch of the old samples in there original trays with the original numbers on it - super cool. You also get to see inside one of the mills and it is crazy to think this was built with the technology they had back in the day.

As per usual the kids had their cranky moments but for the most part they had a great time. Lots of the exhibits were interactive so it kept them entertained pretty well. Some of the neat facts I learnt include:

• At its peak the mine produced 17% of the worlds copper and was the largest copper mine in the British Empire.
• There are 210 km of tunnels throughout the mine
• The sea to sky was not built until the mid 50's and before that everything was shipped in via boat.
• The town site in the mountain was 4km away and was once destroyed by an avalanche which killed dozens; after that they moved the town site further down the mountain
• The other town site was built on the coast, what we now know as Britannia Beach, this town site was also destroyed once by a massive flood.
• Based on the pictures the bulk of the time the families that lived and worked at the mine had a great time

Below are some of the pictures I took but I recommend anyone who has the chance, regardless of age, to check out this great attraction and piece of BC history.

The kids with mill #3 in the background

A view from the mine site

Waiting for the train

Looking for a hardhat for the train ride in the mine

Choo Choo in we go

One of the older drills, that could only drill vertically, with our guide in the background

Our guide with a muck remover in the background

The honey-wagon aka the portable toilet. The new mine workers job was to push this around the mine to all the miners.

Core samples

Inside mill three

Panning for gold which was a by-product of the copper in this mine