This morning at 7:00 AM we lock up the house, hooked up the trailer (Edna) to the new red Chevy Colorado ( Tex) and boarded the ferry for the mainland. Thus begins our six week adventure travelling the highways and byways of this great country as far east as Kingston and Ottawa. Along the way we plan to visit cousins we haven’t seen in almost 70 years; friends we have known for 50 years in such places as Saint Albert, AB; Victoria Beach, MB; Thessalon, ON and of course my birthplace Kingston.

After lunching with Chelsea and family we spent the afternoon visiting the Britannia Mine Museum at Britannia Beach on highway 99 north of Horseshoe Bay. Having driven past this site many, many times over the years its history has intrigued me every time we passed.
In 1888, a local doctor, Dr. A Forbes, chanced meeting a Mr Granger, a local fisherman. Forbes was an amateur prospector, who like every other prospector, was looking for gold. Granger showed him a bucket of rocks containing traces of copper and for $400, would show Dr. Forbes the source of the ore. Up Mt Shear they trudged to the site. Unimpressed with what he found, and due to the lateness of the day they spent the night bivouaced on the mountain top. The next morning, while working his way down, he took to examining various samples of rock. At one point a large buck appeared. Forbes shouldered his rifle and downed the buck with a shot to the neck. While thrashing around, the buck scraped and kicked the moss off of some rocks. Upon closer examination the good doctor found some promising showing. He then set off a charge of dynamite which revealed a considerable trove of good copper ore This was the beginning of what was to become the largest copper mine in the British Empire.

The resulting find opened as Britannia Mine in 1904 and operated for 70 years. At one point it was the largest copper mine in the British Empire and accounted for 17% of the world’s copper output. A truly fascinating exhibit and one I would highly recommend to young and old.
After bidding farewell to the “fam” we hopped in “Tex” and headed up 99 , through Whistler and on to Nairn Falls Provincial Park, near Pemberton. We set up the trailer and settled in for a well deserved snooze, letting the sounds of the Green River lull us to sleep.