Cassiar is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It was a small company-owned

asbestos Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...

mining town located in the Cassiar Mountains of Northern British Columbia north of Dease Lake.

History

The discovery of

in the area in 1950 led to the founding of the Cassiar Asbestos Company in the following year. The town was established in 1952, the same year the mining operation began. By the 1970s, Cassiar had a population of 1,500 and had two schools, two churches, a small hospital, theatre, swimming pool, recreation centre and a hockey rink. By the early 1990s, diminished demand for asbestos and expensive complications faced after converting from an open-pit mine to an underground mine made the continued operation of the mine unprofitable. In 1992, Cassiar Asbestos decided to close the mine and

liquidate Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as wound-up or dissolved, although di ...

its assets, including the town of Cassiar itself. Most of the contents of the town, including a few houses, were auctioned off and trucked away. Most of the remaining dwellings were bulldozed and burned to the ground. The mill was briefly reactivated in 1999 by Cassiar Chrysotile Inc which had a reclamation permit to clean up the site. 11,000 tons of asbestos were exported before the mill burned down on Christmas Day of 2000, effectively halting all production. Today the streets are bare and flowers bloom where the houses once stood. Residents living between the townsite and the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, and on the highway itself, who originally obtained phone service from the Cassiar exchange, were moved to the nearby Good Hope Lake exchange in the fall of 2006 and the Cassiar exchange shut down. Neglected and in disrepair, the hockey arena collapsed in 2008, with the church following in 2015. The tramline which transported ore from the mine down the mountainside to the mill was purchased in the auction; however, the buyer left it, and it still stands. The four old apartment blocks at the east end of town are operational for ongoing site reclamation work. As of November 2006, they were being used by mining exploration companies conducting underground gold mining at Table Mountain (formerly Erickson Gold) and base metal exploration in the immediate area. There was also seasonal jade mining from the Cassiar waste dumps.

Climate

Cassiar has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Dfc'') with long, cold, and snowy winters and short, cool summers.

Notable residents

* Rob Niedermayer, ice hockey player * Scott Niedermayer, ice hockey player

References

{{reflist

External links

Cassiar... do you remember?Cassiar Asbestos Corporation Ltd. fonds (2000.1) at Northern BC Archives
Cassiar Country Company towns in Canada Ghost towns in British Columbia Mining communities in British Columbia