Likely is a unincorporated community in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is located in the

Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the caribou that were once abundant in the region. The Cariboo was the ...

region of the province, and is situated where the west arm of

Quesnel Lake Quesnel Lake is a glacial lake or fjord in British Columbia, Canada, and is the major tributary of the Fraser River. With a maximum depth of , it is claimed to be the deepest fjord lake in the world, the deepest lake in BC, and the third-deepest ...

empties into the

Quesnel River The Quesnel River is a major tributary of the Fraser River in the Cariboo District of central British Columbia. It begins at the outflow of Quesnel Lake, at the town of Likely and flows for about northwest to its confluence with the Fraser at ...

. Roads from Likely lead southwest to Williams Lake, northwest to

Quesnel Quesnel or Quesnell means "little oak" in the Picard dialect of French. It is used as a proper name and may refer to: Places * Le Quesnel, a commune the Somme department in France * Quesnel, British Columbia, a city in British Columbia, Canada ...

, south to Horsefly, and north to

Barkerville Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada, and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel. BC Highway 26, which ...

. Likely is in the

Quesnel Highland The Quesnel Highland is a geographic area in the Central Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia. As defined by BC government geographer in ''Landforms of British Columbia'', an account and analysis of British Columbia geography tha ...

, a transition zone between the

Cariboo Plateau The Cariboo Plateau is a volcanic plateau in south-central British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Fraser Plateau that itself is a northward extension of the North American Plateau. The southern limit of the plateau is the Bonaparte River alth ...

and the

Cariboo Mountains The Cariboo Mountains are the northernmost subrange of the Columbia Mountains, which run down into the Spokane area of the United States and include the Selkirks, Monashees and Purcells. The Cariboo Mountains are entirely within the province of ...

History

Likely is one of the few remaining

Cariboo Gold Rush The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later joined the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly River, ...

settlements. Likely was originally called Quesnel Dam. The name was changed to honour prospector John A. Likely (1842-1929) of the Bullion Pit Mine, who was affectionately called "

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

" for his tendency to philosophize. He lies in an unmarked grave in Kamloops Cemetery. The Quesnel River was

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

med to near Likely in 1898 to enable downriver areas to be explored for gold. One such site became the Bullion Pit mine, which operated from 1892 to 1942. In 1935, this mine became the site of the largest hydraulic monitors ever installed in North America. (Hydraulic monitors are high-pressure and high-volume water

nozzles A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow (specially to increase velocity) as it exits (or enters) an enclosed chamber or pipe. A nozzle is often a pipe or tube of varying cross sectional area, ...

used to wash down large volumes of gold bearing gravel in

placer mining Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed (Alluvium, alluvial) deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining, open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment. Placer minin ...

. Over 64 kilometres of

canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

drew water from nearby creeks and lakes to feed the hydraulic nozzles, which used more water each day than the entire city of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

did at the time. Today, the Bullion Pit stands as an astonishing man-made canyon measuring 3 kilometres long by deep. It displaced of gravel.

Bactrian camels The Bactrian camel (''Camelus bactrianus''), also known as the Mongolian camel or domestic Bactrian camel, is a large even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. It has two humps on its back, in contrast to the single-humped drome ...

were used as pack animals during the Cariboo Gold Rush. One was shot at Beaver Valley, near Likely, by a prospector named Morris, when he mistook it for a giant

grizzly bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...

Environmental issues

On 4 August 2014, the tailings pond of the

Mount Polley mine The Mount Polley mine is a Canadian List of gold mines in Canada, gold and List of copper mines in Canada, copper mine located in British Columbia near the towns of Williams Lake, British Columbia, Williams Lake, and Likely, British Columbia, Like ...

was breached, spilling water and tailing sediment and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

into Polley Lake and Quesnel Lake. Subsequent water quality analysis showed no changes to water quality. A drinking water ban was lifted for all areas except a small area adjacent to the tailing pond at Polley Lake.

Recreation

Quesnel Lake is the largest lake in the Cariboo, with the North Arm extending 77 kilometres and the East Arm reaching out 100 kilometres. Ten to 16 pound

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

up to 30 or 40 pounds, as well as kokanee can all be caught by fishermen and fisherwomen. Tree species in the area include

black cottonwood ''Populus trichocarpa'', the black cottonwood, western balsam-poplar or California poplar, is a deciduous broadleaf tree species native to western North America. It is used for timber, and is notable as a model organism in plant biology. ...

western hemlock ''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern Sonoma ...

western red cedar ''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae ...

Engelmann spruce ''Picea engelmannii'', with the common names Engelmann spruce, white spruce, mountain spruce, and silver spruce, is a species of spruce native to western North America. It is mostly a high-altitude mountain tree but also appears in watered canyon ...

, and

subalpine fir ''Abies lasiocarpa'', the subalpine fir or Rocky Mountain fir, is a western North American fir tree. Description ''Abies lasiocarpa'' is a medium-sized evergreen conifer with a very narrow conic crown, growing to tall, exceptionally , with a ...

. A highlight of a visit to Likely in late summer includes watching thousands of

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

migrate up the Quesnel River to their

spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquat ...

grounds in the Horsefly and Mitchell Rivers. Visitors can also explore the historic

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

of Quesnel Forks, only 11 km to the northwest. Cedar Point Park, an impressive stand of western red cedar on the shores of Quesnel Lake, is a nice spot to visit, now a park and campground. One of the Twin Giants (huge Vulcan

steam shovel A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and e ...

s purchased in 1906 to dig a canal from Spanish Lake to the Bullion Mines) lies there. The shovels weighed approximately 22,000 pounds each, and were shipped in pieces from

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

. Transported first by rail then by wagon to a site below the dam on Spanish Lake, they were assembled and placed on railway tracks to begin digging the ditch. It was reported that $20,000 were spent before the operations were suspended, leaving the shovels where they stopped work in the year 1907. (The other Twin Giant is now in Quesnel).

Climate

Likely has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Dfb'') with mild summers with quite high

diurnal temperature variation In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day. Temperature lag Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak d ...

s along with cold winters with high snowfall.

References

External links