Clarence Valley Council
Clarence Valley Council is a local government area in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia.
The council services an area of and draws its name from the Clarence River, which flows through most of the council area. The are ...
LGA
LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering , the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia. ...
, within the
Northern Rivers
Northern Rivers is the most north-easterly region of the Australian state of New South Wales, located between north of the state capital, Sydney, and encompasses the catchments and fertile valleys of the Clarence, Richmond, and Tweed rivers. ...
region of New South Wales, Australia. There was once a mining village of the same name, now a ghost town. Cangai lies near the
Gibraltar Range
The Gibraltar Range is a mountain range in the Northern Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. The range extends off the Great Dividing Range at Bald Nob about east northeast of and trends generally east northeast and north northea ...
, within the catchment of Mann River, which flows through the eastern part of the locality. The Gwyder Highway passes through it. It is approximately 70 km west-north-west of Grafton by road.
The area now known as Cangai lies on the traditional land of
Gumbaynggirr
The Gumbaynggirr people, also rendered Kumbainggar, Gumbangeri and other variant spellings, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. Gumbathagang was a probable clan or sub-group. The traditional lands of th ...
people. Cangai takes its name from a pastoral run of approximately 8000
acres
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ya ...
, originally known as 'Cangi', on the Mann River. It was taken from the local people, by Brisco Ray, around 1845. Two supposed explanations for the name 'Cangi' were that it is either from a local Aboriginal word 'Coong' meaning water or from 'Cangi', meaning 'men of the river branch', in
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
. The further explanation of the Celtic name is that the Mann River (then called Mitchell River) was also known unofficially as 'the South Branch' (of Clarence River, with the Clarence itself, upstream of the confluence, being 'the North Branch'). The true origin of the name is unclear.
There was gold mining in the area, followed by the operation of the
Cangai copper mine
The Cangai Copper Mine was operated by Grafton Copper Mining Company Ltd at Cangai in northern New South Wales from 1904 to 1917. In 1910, the Cangai copper mine ranked, behind the Great Cobar Mine, as the second largest copper mine in New South Wales, by production, even if at a time when many other copper producing areas had closed down.
In 1861, alluvial gold was found on Mann River at Cangai, followed by the discovery of reef gold. By 1868, other reefs had been found and reef mining came to predominate. The Cangai Goldfield was proclaimed in 1873. A settlement called Cangai was founded during the days of gold mining. The first school opened there in 1896. Gold mining was already in decline, before the chance discovery, by a man hunting
koala
The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the womb ...
for skins, of a mineralised outcrop containing copper ore in 1901.
The former village and copper smelter site were located on Yantalla Creek (a tributary of Mann River), between two of its right bank tributaries Bobward Creek and Smelter Creek. Cangai grew rapidly when copper mining commenced. By 1908, it had a population of around 800, and had one hotel, a public hall, a school, a police station, two general stores and two butcher shops. In 1910, records show that there were 37 Aboriginal people living at Cangai. In 1911, an 8 km long narrow-gauge tramway was put into service to supply the
reverberatory furnace
A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is used here in a generic sense of ''rebo ...
s with timber to be used as fuel. An inclined tramway brought the ore, to smelters from the mine that was located in the hills above the village, downhill to where it could be carried over haul roads to the smelter, which was just outside the village. The copper smelter and open-air ore 'calcination' process resulted in extensive air pollution with
sulphur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...
. A
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
provided the village's link to the outside world, a six-hour long journey to a connection with the steamer, ''Pearl'', at the river port of Copmanhurst, the
head of navigation
The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship be ...
on the Clarence River. The same road route was used to ship smelted copper.
The population declined rapidly after mining ceased. The Cangai Hotel closed at the end of June 1932. The school closed in February 1942. An eroded area alongside Smelter Creek is all that remains of the once extensive copper smelters. All that remains of the village is the former police house and the road known as Cangai Post Office Road. On the other side of Bobward Creek from the old village's site is the village's old cemetery.
In 1993, the twenty-six hour long Cangai siege took place, in what was by then a quiet rural locality.
Although there has been some mineral exploration at Cangai, mining never resumed after 1917. The area remains prospective.