McGillivray, formerly McGillivray Falls, is an unincorporated recreational community on the west shore of Anderson Lake, just east of midway between the towns of Pemberton and

Lillooet, British Columbia Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...

, Canada, in that province's southwest Interior.

History

McGillivray's name is derived from the names of Mount McGillivray and McGillivray Creek and its falls, which were said to be named by a miner, according to a 1911 note by

Caspar Phair Caspar Phair (died 1933) was one of the early settlers of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada, arriving about 1877 to take up the role of the village's school teacher. He emigrated from Ireland. Caspar Phair became Lillooet's Government Agent, a ...

, Gold Commissioner for the Lillooet Mining District. A parallel account, possibly the same, says the name derives one of two placer-mining partners, McGillivray and McDonald, though the name Jack McGillivray, an early miner, also appears in records and mirrors the local pronunciation of the name (McGILL-var-ee). According to Obituaries and Canadian Biography Volume XII are that the 2 brothers Don "Dan" McGillivray and Jack McGillivray (as above) set up company called McGillivray Bros. which participated in the building of the PGE railway between Squamish and Lillooet BC. Their sister Lady McBride was married to Sir Richard McBride, the premier of BC. In the 1880s Don McGillivray moved to British Columbia and worked for a principal contractor, Andrew Onderonk, on the construction of the main line of the CPR between Port Moody and Eagle Pass. It was said Dan showed imagination and ability in the difficult construction work in Fraser Canyon.Biography of Dan McGillivray at biographi.ca website
/ref> In the wake of the

Cayoosh Gold Rush The Cayoosh Gold Rush was one of several in the history of the region surrounding Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. If estimates of its yield are true, it would be one of the richest single finds in the gold mining history of that province. Ca ...

of the 1870s, prospectors fanned out over the Lillooet and Bridge River Countries, which had been largely bypassed during the

Fraser Canyon Gold Rush The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's ...

of 1858-60 which first brought large numbers of non-indigenous people to the area. Among the successful mines which were started in the region during that period was the

Brett Group Mine Brett derives from a Middle English surname meaning "Briton" or "Breton", referring to the Celtic people of Britain and Brittany, France. Brette can be a feminine name. People with the surname * Adrian Brett (born 1945) English flutist and write ...

, which was located on a gold-bearing ledge higher on the mountainside. Some houses today are remnants of a one-time railway-based resort and cabins which sprang up after the opening of the rail line in the early 1910s, which took the name of the waterfall a few hundred yards up McGillivray Creek from its mouth on the lake. McGillivray Falls Post Office opened 1 June 1929, closed 3 May 1961. During World War II, McGillivray Falls, as the community was then known, was one of four "self-supporting centres" in the Lillooet Country for the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians outside a 100-mile "quarantine zone" from the

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

. McGillivray Falls was just outside the 100-mile limit, but due to the area's isolation (there was no road to the Coast before the 1960s) internees at McGillivray were hired by Andy Devine to work at his sawmill 2 miles downline from D'Arcy, at the head of Anderson Lake and itself within the 100-mile limit; the location of that mill is today the unincorporated rural settlement of Devine.

Electoral representation

McGillivray is in Electoral Area C of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, which handles matters such as zoning and septic and construction permits. Provincially McGillivray is in

West Vancouver-Howe Sound West Vancouver-Howe Sound was a provincial electoral district in the Canadian province of British Columbia from 1966 to 1986. The riding's predecessor was North Vancouver, which first appeared on the hustings from 1903. For other historical and ...

with Pemberton and Whistler though federally it is in Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon.

References

*''Short Portage to Lillooet'', Irene Edwards, self-publ. 1976, Lillooet *''My Sixty Years in Canada'',

Masajiro Miyazaki Masajiro Miyazaki, CM (November 24, 1899 – July 23, 1984) was a Canadian osteopathic physician who practised in Vancouver prior to World War II. During World War II, he was appointed as a coroner by the British Columbia Provincial Police in th ...

MINFILE Record Summary, Brett Mine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcgillivray, British Columbia Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Lillooet Country Mining communities in British Columbia Populated places in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Internment of Japanese Canadians World War II internment camps in Canada