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Photo: E. "Andy" Cleven, 1950s Rexmount area before flooding, c. 1955

British Columbia's Bridge River Valley

The Bridge River is - or was - one of the Fraser's largest and most historic tributaries, although it is largely obscure to most British Columbians today. This page is devoted to the grand scenery of the valley and the ranges which surround it and run through it, and includes rare pictures from before the flooding of its upper basin, and of the time of the flooding itself. Other pages on this site deal with the river's famous goldfields and goldfield towns, and with the epic Bridge River Hydroelectric Development, both of which were major contributions to the province's history and economy but which, like the whole area today, are largely forgotten. Some of the pages linked in the index below are just pictures for now; others have write-ups. If you are from the area and have anything to contribute about anything here, please contact me (replace "_at_" in address with @ symbol).

Xwisten	Moha-Yalakom	Gold Bridge	Seton Lake, Shalalth & The Portage	Terzaghi Dam
Tyaughton-Eldorado	Bridge River Canyon	Bralorne-Pioneer	Mission Mountain Road	Minto City
Mountains of the Bridge River Country		Brexton	Rexmount	Lajoie
Southern Chilcotin Mountains Prov. Park		Hunting Guides	Dunlop's Store	Gun Lakes
Bridge River Hydroelectric Development		Chief Hunter Jack
Bridge River Fishing Grounds			Resorts & Recreation Information	Links
Main Bridge River-Lillooet Index		Canyonlands Index	Roads of the Golden Cayoosh	Maps

The name Bridge River has in its day been applied to three other communities in the days since. One was the hydroelectric townsite at Shalalth, which was founded in the 1920s and until the early 1960s was one of the principal population centres of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. The name is also used by the farming community at Moha, which surrounds the confluence of the Bridge River with the Yalakom River, the Bridge's last main tributary before its confluence with the Fraser. Lillooeters refer to this area as Yalakom. The third usage isn't to any specific community, but refers collectively to the goldfields towns and lake resorts of the Upper Bridge River basin.

BC Archives # F-07583

In the old days, the upper Bridge River was largely unknown to non-natives except by hunters and prospectors guided into the area by legendary big-game guide Chief Hunter Jack of the Lakes Lillooet (today's Seton and Nequatqua/D'arcy Bands), whose personal fiefdom and tribal territory this was. He had a fabulously rich placer deposit, believed to be somewhere in the Marshall or Tyaughton Lake areas, and drove out more miners than he allowed in (more about him on the Chief Hunter Jack and Big-Game Guides pages). In his later years he began to help certain prospectors explore in the region, leading to the discovery of the Pioneer Mine and the collection of claims that were to become Bralorne Mines. As travel the mines and the communities that began to grow around them, Hunter Jack operated a ferry across the Bridge River in the vicinity of the area in the pictures just below, connecting the trail which led over Mission Mountain in the days before the road was built (pre-1920s) to the main trail to the upper Bridge River Goldfields on the north bank of the Bridge River.
BC Archives # I-52525


BC Archives # NA-03796	I've puzzled over the location of the photo at left, which is from the BC Archives collection. I'm taking a guess by saying this, but I think it's the old pack trail through the Bridge River Canyon near its outlet at Moha; the mountain in the background partly obscured by cloud is the hillside above Moha. The old Canyon pack trail was a torturous affair, and took a whole day or more to traverse the 10 miles from Moha to where the valley opens up above where is now Terzaghi Dam. The BC Achives caption says "trail up the N. Fork of the Bridge River" but I'm not certain what that means. The North Fork of the Bridge River would be from where the South Fork - the Hurley River - branches off near Gold Bridge, but this doesn't look like that area, either in vegetation or terrain; it looks much more like the Moha area; but around there the "north fork" of the Bridge River would be the Yalakom River, and easier trails could be found on that stream's north bank and wouldn't look like this. Any locals who might recognize this location are welcome to contact me (replace "_at_" in address with @ symbol) to correct this guesswork.

Dunlop's Store

BC Archives # A-03499

These two views of John Dunlop's store - evidently taken on the same day by their numbering and by the vehicle depicted - bely the unique location of this enterprising establishment, which lay miles upon miles from the nearest other settler - other than Durban's Ferry, a few miles downstream (behind the viewer). Today's Road 40 along Carpenter Lake is a couple of hundred feet up the mountainside at right; the old road and what's left of this house deep beneath the chilly waters of the reservoir. The store, which also carried gas (of course), was ideally located for business at something of a midway point between the goldfield towns and the railway basetown at Shalalth. Travellers from the outside world would have just come in via the torturous steeps and switchbacks of Mission Mountain, necessarily needing a break from the road as well as food and drink and gas - and quite likely some repairs, major or minor; conversely people coming down from the goldfield towns would need a stop just before making the crossing of the river and the ascent and descent of Mission Mountain. I seem to recall being parked outside it for a nap while Dad went in for a while - on more than one occasion - but I was pretty young then, as I was born in '55 and the lakewaters rose in '58. I suspect there were legendary cardgames played and mountainman's tales told in this place, as in other cabins along the goldfield roads. The Dunlop family remained a pioneer founding family of the non-native community in Lillooet, and the proprietors of the store were well-known to all who lived in the district in the old days.

BC Archives # NA-04644

Rexmount

This stormy-looking crag was actually a dramatic golden pink when I took this shot, although the dark and looming cloud was just as it appears. The cliffs are the front face of a half-dome formation hanging over the site of the old Rexmount Ranch, which was the farthest downstream of the upper Bridge River valley's community of ranches and the first to be inundated by the rising waters of today's Carpenter Lake after Terzaghi Dam was built to divert the Bridge into Seton Lake through Mission Mountain. By no means the largest escarpment in the region and actually a mere foothill by local standards, this often-unnoticed bluff is at least 1000 ft of sheer rock and towers twice that above the lakeside road.