Seymour Arm, known historically also as Ogdensville or Ogden City and Seymour, is an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and former town located at the head of the inlet of the same name on

Shuswap Lake Shuswap Lake (pronounced /ˈʃuːʃwɑːp/) is a lake located in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada that drains via the Little Shuswap River into Little Shuswap Lake. Little Shuswap Lake is the source of the South Thompson River, ...

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 ...

. Located at the mouth of the Seymour River, adjacent to Silver Beach Provincial Park, and functioning as the disembarkation point for trails over passes across the

Monashee Mountains The Monashee Mountains are a mountain range lying mostly in British Columbia, Canada, extending into the U.S. state of Washington. They stretch from north to south and from east to west. They are a sub-range of the Columbia Mountains. The highes ...

connecting that river's valley to that of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

, and navigable by water from

Savona Savona (; lij, Sann-a ) is a seaport and ''comune'' in the west part of the northern Italy, Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea. Savona used to be one of the chie ...

at the farther end of

Kamloops Lake Kamloops Lake in British Columbia, Canada is situated on the Thompson River just west of Kamloops. The lake is 1.6 km wide, 29 km long, and up to 152 m deep. In prehistoric time, the lake was much longer, perhaps 20x, with adjacent silt ...

History

Seymour Arm became the location of a bustling

boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...

serving travellers to the

Big Bend Gold Rush The Big Bend Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Big Bend Country of the Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866), Colony of British Columbia (now a Canadian province) in the mid-1860s. History Discovery & early miners In 1861, the gold commissioner a ...

on the Columbia which grew up around a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

post founded at the start of the rush in 1865. With a peak population of 5000, Seymour Arm had 13 stores, 11 shoemakers, 8 wash houses, 6 barber shops, 6 physicians, 6 saloons, 5 bakeries, 3 restaurants, 2 blacksmiths, 1 bath-house, 1 drug store, 1 stationery shop, a coffee and doughnut stand, and a livery stable. The town was destroyed by fire in the late 1860s but was revived again by English developers promoting the Seymour Arm Fruits Land Company, and a post office, hotel, school and hotel were established in 1910. The hotel closed in 1925 and by 1940 the town was largely abandoned, save for a few remaining settlers. During and following the Vietnam and Korean Wars circa 1960-70, Seymour Arm drew significant numbers of "draft dodgers" from the United States, known to produce large clandestine outdoor Cannabis plantations in the area and with active smuggling routes to California. Cannabis cultivation continued into modern times with large indoor off-grid diesel-electric "grow-ops" culminating in a famous "bust" in 2004, the largest single Cannabis law enforcement action in Canadian history, involving hundreds of law enforcement officers. Today the hotel, since reopened with a restaurant and pub, and one of the orchard-era mansions remain, and the locality is a farming and summer-recreational community.

Climate

Seymour Arm 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 ...

(

Dfb DFB may refer to: * Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city * Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas * Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia * Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate * Distributed-feedback ...

) with warm, sometimes hot summers coupled with cool nights, and cold, rainy winters, though mild by Canadian standards.

References

CBC NewsSeattle Times

External links

{{authority control Populated places in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District Ghost towns in British Columbia Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Canadian gold rushes British Columbia gold rushes Shuswap Country 1865 establishments in Canada Designated places in British Columbia

History

Climate

See also

References

External links