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Bridge River Power Project
The Bridge River Power Project is a hydroelectric power development in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the Lillooet Country between Whistler and Lillooet. It harnesses the power of the Bridge River, a tributary of the Fraser, by diverting it through a mountainside to the separate drainage basin of Seton Lake, utilizing a system of three dams, four powerhouses and a canal. Discovery and original development The potential for the project was first observed in 1912 by Geoffrey Downton, a land surveyor, visiting the goldfield towns in the area who noticed the short horizontal distance between the flow of the Bridge River, just above its impressive canyon, and the much-lower Seton Lake. It was fifteen years before this observation was put to task, and not until 1927 that a private company first bored a tunnel through Mission Ridge (also known as Mission Mountain), which separates the basins of the Bridge and Seton systems. This tunnel was completed in 193 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Terzaghi Dam
Terzaghi Dam is the key diversion dam in BC Hydro's Bridge River Power Project. It forms the project's largest reservoir, Carpenter Lake west of Lillooet. Originally known as the Mission Dam, it was renamed Terzaghi Dam in 1965 to honor Karl von Terzaghi, the civil engineer who founded the science of soil mechanics. It is located about 30 km up the Bridge River from its confluence with the Fraser. It stands at the head of the Big Canyon of the Bridge River, completely blocking the river, which is diverted through two tunnels through Mission Mountain to a pair of powerhouses on Seton Lake. The difference in elevation between Carpenter Lake, the reservoir formed by Terzaghi Dam, and the two powerhouses on Seton Lake is c. 410 m, which in combination with the flow of the entire Bridge River generates 480 megawatts in electrical power. Completed in the 1950s, it was the expansion of a concept first launched in the 1920s by the Bridge River Power Development Co. but abandoned due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Crown Corporation
Crown corporation () is the term used in Canada for organizations that are structured like private companies, but are directly and wholly owned by the government. Crown corporations have a long-standing presence in the country, and have a significant economic impact, with commercial operations equivalent to 7% of Canadian GDP. Crown corporations are created to advance government policy objectives. Often they provide services to the public that are not economically viable for a private enterprise, or that do not fit exactly within the scope of any ministry. They represent a form of state-owned enterprise. Crown corporations are established by an Act of Parliament, act of parliament or an act of a provincial legislature. Federal government Crowns report to the relevant Minister of the Crown, minister in Cabinet of Canada, Cabinet, though they are "shielded from constant government intervention and legislative oversight" and thus "generally enjoy greater freedom from direct pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
BC Hydro
The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, trade name, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, with the exception of the City of New Westminster, where the city runs its own electrical department and portions of the Kootenays, West Kootenay, Okanagan, the Boundary Country and Similkameen Country, Similkameen regions, where FortisBC, a subsidiary of Fortis Inc. directly provides electric service to 213,000 customers and supplies municipally owned utilities in the same area. As a provincial Crown corporation, BC Hydro reports to the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, and is regulated by the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC). Its mandate is to generate, purchase, distribute and sell electricity. BC Hydro operates 32 hydroelectric facilities and two natural gas-fueled thermal power plants. As of 2014, 95 pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
British Columbia Electric Railway
The British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) was an historic railway which operated in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Originally the parent company for, and later a division of, BC Electric Company (now BC Hydro), the BCER assumed control of existing streetcar and interurban lines in southwestern British Columbia in 1897, and operated the electric railway systems in the region until the last interurban service was discontinued in 1958. During and after the streetcar era, BC Electric also ran bus and trolleybus systems in Greater Vancouver and bus service in Greater Victoria; these systems subsequently became part of BC Transit, and the routes in Greater Vancouver eventually came under the control of TransLink. Trolley buses still run in the City of Vancouver with one line extending into Burnaby. History Streetcar and interurban services were inaugurated in southwestern British Columbia between 1890 and 1891, operated by the following companies: * National Electric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Seton Powerhouse
The Seton Powerhouse is a hydroelectric generating station on the Fraser River just below the confluence of the Seton River at the town of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. The powerhouse is fed by the Seton Canal, a 5 km diversion of the flow of the Seton River which begins at Seton Dam, just below the foot of Seton Lake to the west. The powerhouse is the last in sequence, and smallest, of the generating stations of BC Hydro's Bridge River Power Project, which diverts the flow of the Bridge River into Seton Lake Seton Lake is a lake in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. On the northeast side is Mission Ridge. On the southwest is the Cayoosh Range. By road, the eastern end is about southwest of Lillooet. Name origin In 1827, .... The powerhouse uses only 50 feet of head between Seton Lake and the Fraser to produce a maximum generating capacity of 42 MW and an average capacity of 330 GWh per year. ReferencesBC Hydro information page H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Seton Canal
The Seton Canal is a diversion of the flow of the Seton River from Seton Dam, just below the flow of Seton Lake, to the Seton Powerhouse on the Fraser River at the town of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. The canal bridges Cayoosh Creek 300m below its commencement and is about 3.5 km in length, ending just below a bridge used by the Texas Creek Road (aka the West Side Road), where the canal's waterflow is fed into tunnels which feed the Seton Powerhouse on the farther side of a small rocky hill. Most of the water carried by the canal is the volume of the diverted Bridge River, which is fed into Seton Lake via BC Hydro The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, trade name, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, wi ...'s Bridge River generating stations at Shalalth, 16 km to the west, which are supplied by divers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Seton Dam
Seton Dam is a dam on the Seton River, 350m below the outlet of Seton Lake 5 km west of the town of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada, and with the related Seton Canal is part of the lowest and last stage of BC Hydro's Bridge River Power Project. The concrete dam, completed in 1956, raised the height of Seton Lake only 10 feet in order to maximize the elevation differential between that lake and the Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ... in order to extract the maximal potential output of power generation at the Seton Powerhouse, which is located on the Fraser just south of the confluence of the Seton River proper. References External links BC Hydro information page Dams in British Columbia Lillooet Country Dams completed in 1956 BC Hydro 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Minto City
Minto City, often called just Minto, sometimes Minto Mines, Minto Mine, Skumakum, or "land of plenty", was a gold mining town in the Bridge River Valley of British Columbia from 1930 to 1936, located at the confluence of that river with Gun Creek, one of its larger tributaries. The mine prospect was never much successful although a model townsite was built by promoter "Big Bill" Davidson, who imported soil to build a specially-built rodeo ground and baseball diamond on the rocky site. The larger mine of Bralorne was nearby. The mine shut down in 1936 due to productivity issues, but restarted in 1940. The valley has since been significantly altered when most of the vestiges of the town were inundated by the waters of the Carpenter Lake reservoir following completion of the Bridge River Power Project. In 1941, around two dozens of Japanese Canadian families were relocated to Minto Mine, and ordered to live in the empty miners' houses due to the impacts of the war. The community was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Company Town
A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets, and recreation facilities. Some company towns were established to improve living conditions for workers, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative. Others were not planned, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mining camp and mine site from the nearest outside road. Overview Traditional settings for company towns were where extractive industries – coal, metal mines, lumber – had established a monopoly franchise. Dam sites and war-industry camps founded other company towns. Since company stores often had a monopoly in company towns, it was frequently possible to pay in scrip through a truck system. However, not all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Carpenter Lake
Carpenter Lake, officially Carpenter Lake Reservoir, is the largest of the three reservoirs of the Bridge River Power Project, which is located in the mountains west of Lillooet, British Columbia. The lake is about 185 kilometres north of the province's major city of Vancouver and is formed by the 1951 diversion of the Bridge River by Terzaghi Dam into Seton Lake via a tunnel through Mission Mountain, which separates the Seton and Bridge drainages. Several ranches and homesteads in the broad serpentine of the upper Bridge River basin were flooded out by the hydro project, which changed the character of the upper valley forever. Carpenter Lake is about 50 kilometres in length, although its upper reaches beyond the flooded gold mining town of Minto City are usually mudflat due to fluctuations in the level of the reservoir. Its total area approaches 50 square kilometres. Name The lake is named after a Mr. Carpenter, an engineer who first moved to Canada in 1909 and performed mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gold Bridge, British Columbia
Gold Bridge is an unincorporated community in the Bridge River Country of British Columbia, Canada. Although numbering only around 40 inhabitants, Gold Bridge is the service and supply centre for the upper basin of the Bridge River Valley, which includes recreation-residential areas at the Gun Lakes (British Columbia), Gun Lakes, Tyaughton Creek, Tyaughton Lake, Marshall Creek, and Bralorne; and the nearby ghost towns of Brexton and Pioneer Mine. Located at the confluence of the Bridge River with its south fork, the Hurley River, Gold Bridge began as a freewheeling merchandising and services center supplementary to the company-run gold mining towns, and in its heyday had a large commercial roster ranging from insurance through to rum-running, bootleggers and "sporting houses". Gold Bridge can be accessed via Highway 40 from Lillooet, British Columbia, Lillooet, or via an upgraded backroad from Pemberton, British Columbia, Pemberton and Whistler, British Columbia, Whistler known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
