This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Shalalth" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Shalalth
Shalalth Location of Shalalth inBritish Columbia
Coordinates:50°43′37″N122°13′01″W / 50.72694°N 122.21694°W /50.72694; -122.21694
Country	Canada
Province	British Columbia
Region	Lillooet-Fraser Canyon
Regional District	Squamish-Lillooet
Area codes	250,778, 236, & 672

Shalalth andSouth Shalalth are unincorporated communities on the northern shore near the western end ofSeton Lake in theSquamish-Lillooet region of southwesternBritish Columbia.^[1][2] The localities are by road about 63 kilometres (39 mi) northwest ofLillooet, but only 24 kilometres (15 mi) by rail.^[3]

The word Shalalth (pronounced Sha-LATH and spelledTsal’álh in St'at'imcets, theLillooet language) means simply "lake" or, particularly,the lake, meaning Seton Lake. Indigenous peoples form the majority of the population in the valley and in the Shalalth environs, which is one of the main communities of theSeton Lake First Nation Band of theSt'at'imc (Lillooet) Nation. AFirst Nations school, small timber mill, and various small businesses operate.^{[citation needed]}

In 1990s, the Seton Lake First Nation built a new residential subdivision named Ohin, further east than the traditional Shalalth rancherie area (beginning at the base of the Mission Mountain Road to a few coves east). The name Ohin, pronouncedOO(kh)win meaning "frostbite", is a reminder of the bitter cold of the Seton valley in winter. The roads peters out east of Ohin. A private recreational property before the first point, and two isolated reserves on debris fans farther along, are only accessible by water or rail.^{[citation needed]}

During theFraser Canyon Gold Rush, the Seton lake ferries on theDouglas Road bypassed Shalalth. From the 1880s, equipment for theBridge River Country mines was barged in by lake for offloading at Shalalth.^{[citation needed]} Five decades later, Ernie Marshall ran a Lillooet–Shalalth ferry until 1934 when the rail shuttle started.^[4]

Water taxi service is available on Seton Lake, but has no formal schedule or licensed service.^{[citation needed]}

The long goneOblate mission at Shalalth, which was one of the earliest in the BC Interior, became known as "the Mission", providing the names for theMission pass, ridge, and road.^[4][5]

A trail linked toSeton Portage, which was upgraded to a wagon road in the early 1910s.^[6]

By the late 1890s, miners were demanding that the 23-kilometre (14 mi) packtrain route northward over the pass be widened to a wagon road. On reaching theBridge River, equipment and heavy supplies bound for the mines were rafted upstream in summer or hauled over the ice in winter.^[7] An example at this time was astamp mill, which was sledded up from the Mission once snow fell.^[8]

Around 1912, this trail evolved into the rudimentary Mission Mountain Road.^[5] Eight-horse teams hauled freight up the steep, switchback route. It could take seven days to reach the Bridge River. The first scheduled passenger transportation was a packtrain in 1925, which also carried the mail. A 16-passenger bus was introduced in 1934.^[9]

Significant mining ended in 1971.^[10]

The northward advance of thePacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) rail head reached the head ofAnderson Lake in December 1914^[11] and the head of Seton Lake the following month.^[12] The Bridge River (South Shalalth) train station on the west side of the bay became the new access point to the Bridge River Country goldfields.^{[citation needed]}

In 1912, Geoffrey Downton, a land surveyor, stood on the 1,500-metre (5,000 ft) crest of Mission Mountain. He recognized thehydropower potential of the significant difference in elevation between theBridge River andSeton Lake, which are only narrowly separated by Mission Ridge.^[13]

A "model village" was erected at Bridge River (South Shalalth) and work began on the 4.0-kilometre (2.5 mi) tunnel in 1927, with an expected completion date of 1930.^[14] Construction halted in 1929 with the onset of theGreat Depression and the collapse of financial backing for the project. The townsite remained largely empty during the 1930s, although steady traffic to the mines kept the hotels busy.^{[citation needed]}

On the opening of theBralorne Mine in 1934, the roadway from the train station was rehabilitated. PGE introduced a gas car service that September to handle increased mining traffic to/from Lillooet. TwoHall-Scott passenger cars were alternatively used to haul two flatcars, which carried vehicles and freight. Providing four round trips daily, trains loaded and unloaded on a spur at the Bridge River station. In 1936, the service reduced to two round trips. In 1938, a superior road was built down the ridge to Shalalth station, and the western terminus was moved 1.4 kilometres (0.9 mi) eastward.^[15]

Craig Lodge, built in 1915, but destroyed by fire about 1948,^[16] was an official intermediate stop prior to the hotel's demise. However, the shuttle would also stop at any of the hamlets on request. The train always remained overnight at Lillooet. In the early 1940s, the Sunday runs were eliminated. In 1958, the western terminus moved to Seton Portage.^[15] On theBC Rail main line, Shalalth, which was a key station over the decades,^[17] had become aflag stop by the 2000s.^[18] It was 6.3 kilometres (3.9 mi) northeast of Seton and 10.3 kilometres (6.4 mi) northwest of Retaskit.^[19] In 2002, BC Rail withdrew all passenger services.^[20] The indigenous operatedTsal'alh Seton Train, formerly the Kaoham Shuttle, continues to serve Shalalth.

DuringWorld War II, the semi-abandoned village built for the hydro project at South Shalalth was one of four relocation centres in the Lillooet area forJapanese-Canadians from the coast. One of the relocatees at Shalalth was Dr.Masajiro Miyazaki, a US-trainedosteopathic physician who remained after the war and became one of Lillooet's two Companions of theOrder of Canada.^{[citation needed]}

After the war, theBridge River Power Project resumption and a new boom in mining created a surge in traffic. For the next two decades, Shalalth was the main transportation hub in the vicinity, with nearly 24-hour heavy traffic over the pass. Accommodation included Seton House and Shalalth Lodge. Adjacent to the managers' houses and the semicircle of employee barracks, a large hotel was built above the hydro townsite train station. Hotel guests comprised not only project-related visitors but also mine visitors. The hotel burned down around 1949.^{[citation needed]}

During the 1950s, the population of the townsite and theSeton Portage area mushroomed into the thousands and boosted the school enrolments into the hundreds. Other hydro townsites were located atTerzaghi Dam, Lajoie, and below the Lajoie Dam site 56 kilometres (35 mi) upriver. The activity also caused a building boom in Lillooet.^{[citation needed]}

South Shalalth is the location of the two main powerhouses.^[21]

Nearly all infrastructure costs for the development of the Mission Mountain Road and the Bridge River Road were born by local citizens, as was the "New Road" through the canyon from Terzaghi Dam toMoha.^{[citation needed]}

A medical crisis in Bralorne, the most important of theBridge River gold towns, at the far upper end of that valley, prompted community efforts to build a road via theBridge River Canyon directly toLillooet. The completion of the hydro project in 1962 reduced the importance of the Mission Mountain Road and Shalalth in turn.^{[citation needed]}

Shalalth remains without easy road access, the only two routes in and out of the valley being extremely difficult mountain roads – the Mission Mountain Road, and aBC Hydro road alongAnderson Lake known as the High-Line Road. This leads toD'Arcy (N'quatqua) at the far end of that lake, which connects by regular road toHighway 99 atMount Currie, and from there toPemberton,Whistler,Squamish andVancouver.^{[citation needed]}

The railway discourages locals from walking the track to Lillooet. Remnants of the oldLillooet Trail catwalks on the cliffs above the rail line are unsafe. Mountain goats and sheep remain common on the slopes above Shalalth, and especially along the bluffs around Retaskit and at Seton Beach, at the Lillooet end of the lake.^{[citation needed]}

• Edwards, Irene (1976).Short Portage to Lillooet. self-published.

• Indian reserves in British Columbia
• Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia
• St'at'imc
• Lillooet Country
• Populated places in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District
• Bridge River Country
• Internment of Japanese Canadians
• World War II internment camps in Canada

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Canadian English from January 2023
• All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English
• Articles needing additional references from March 2010
• All articles needing additional references
• Use dmy dates from November 2019
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022