Laketon Cassiar Country | |
|---|---|
  Laketon Location of Laketon in the Cassiar Country inBritish Columbia | |
| Coordinates:58°42′00″N130°06′00″W / 58.70000°N 130.10000°W /58.70000; -130.10000 | |
| Country |  Canada |
| Province |  British Columbia |
| Area codes | 250,778 |
TheCassiar Country, also referred to simply as the Cassiar, is a historical geographic region of theCanadian province ofBritish Columbia. The Cassiar is located in the northwest portion of British Columbia, just to the northeast of theStikine Country, while to the south is theOmineca Country. The area is noted for the Cassiar gold rush of the 1870s, whenLaketon became its unofficial capital. The ghost town ofCassiar is also located in the Cassiar region.
In the early 1860s,Perry Collins obtained financing fromWestern Union Telegraph to build atelegraph line fromSan Francisco through British Columbia andAlaska and across theBering Strait to Russia and ultimatelyEurope.
The line was begun in 1865 atNew Westminster, and continued as far as theSkeena River in 1866, but then the project was abandoned as thetransatlantic line was built first, making the Collins line redundant. Despite the fact that the Collins line would not be completed, surveyors had created a primitive route fromQuesnel to the newly established settlement ofTelegraph Creek, thus opening up the northern districts of British Columbia for determined and hardy travelers.
In the 1870s a gold rush occurred in the region, based atMcDame Creek and atThibert Creek, a tributary ofDease Creek. In 1874, more than a million dollars' worth of gold was taken from the region and in 1877, one prospector found the largestgold 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 theStikine River, the Cassiar Gold Rush caused the government to show an interest in the area andJohn R Adams was appointed as government agent for the Cassiar region in 1873, and was followed by JudgeJ.H. Sullivan who became the region'sgold commissioner.Laketon, also known asDease Town became the unofficial capital of the Cassiar and at the height of the rush it had five stores, four hotels, two cafes and its own newspaper. Other gold rush towns werePorter Landing andDefot. However, by the 1880s most of the gold had been recovered and nearly all of the miners left the area, while only few merchants andChinese miners remained behind. The region was also affected by theKlondike Gold Rush when in 1897–1898, 5000 miners went to the Yukon via the all Canadian route, up the Stikine River to Telegraph Creek and overland to theTeslin River.
After the excitement of the gold rushes, the Cassiar was nearly forgotten until the early 1940s when the Americanmilitary built theAlaska Highway fromDawson Creek,British Columbia toFairbanks, 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 theCassiar Asbestos Mine, which operated from 1953 until 1992 and produced the company town ofCassiar.
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