HEDLEY

HEDLEY

Is a community nestled at the base of Nickel Plate Mountain in the Similkameen Valley, 37 kilometers east of Princeton on the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).

Once inhabited by the Similkameen First Nations people, who called this community,” Sna-za-ist” meaning Striped Rock Place so named because of its location near colored and striped cliffs on both sides of the Similkameen Canyon. In 1897, gold was discovered and about a year later led to the community’s beginnings. Throughout the early 1900s, it boomed as a huge mining camp where about 50,000 ounces of gold were produced at Nickel Plate Mountain. The mines also produced the first extraction of Arsenic of its kind in British Columbia, twelve thousand nine hundred and forty-one tonnes of it were extracted from the Nickle Plate Mine.

By 1906, the community had 5 banks, its own newspaper (the Hedley Gazette), and several hotels and even was big enough to have its own 9-hole golf course. Named after a former manager of the Hall smelter in Nelson by the name of Robert Hedley, the town possessed a population of nearly 1,000 citizens. In 1909, the Great Northern Railroad, was built in order to tow gold out of the mountain. By the late-1930s the Mascot Mine was opened and produced about 4,000,000 pounds of copper and the gold production increased to about 2.5 million ounces (nowadays worth about $50,000,000 annually). In addition the mines also produced 590,000 ounces of silver during their lifespan.

Mining continued in Hedley until the 1950s, when the metal extraction was petered out and exhausted due to decreasing ore production and to add insult to injury between 1956 and 1957, there were several fires that destroyed many of Hedley’s buildings and the town’s population began a steady decline towards the 1960s. The community however, has survived and is now a retirement community and local service center for the Similkameen Valley region.

During the 1990s, the British Columbia Government surveyed the mine site and developed them into a historic site which is one of several sites of historical value in the community, among them are a historical cemetery, a miner’s cottage that dates back to 1904, and a log barn that also houses a blacksmith shop.

Hedley’s population: 402