Spences Bridge is a community in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

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 ...

, situated north east of Lytton and south of Ashcroft. At Spences Bridge the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

crosses the

Thompson River The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The river ...

. In 1892, Spences Bridge's population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

people. There were five general stores, three hotels, one

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

and one school. The principal industries are fruit growing and farming. The population as of the

2021 Canadian census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canada, Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, whic ...

was 76, a decrease of 23.2 per cent from the 2016 count of 99.

History

The Kettle Valley Railway included a spur line stretching from Merritt to Spences Bridge. The rail bed is still intact, along with the original bridges. This settlement was originally known as Cook's Ferry because from 1862 to 1866 Mortimer Cook operated a ferry for crossing the river. The ferry was replaced by a toll bridge built by Thomas Spence under government contract. In 1905, one of the worst landslides in BC history hit a First Nations village near Spences Bridge. The village was destroyed and 18 people were killed. On 1 January 2014, the old Spences Bridge, a one-lane steel truss bridge, was decommissioned and permanently closed to all pedestrian and vehicle traffic after 82 years of service. This was deemed necessary by British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure engineers due to the poor condition of the bridge.

Location

North of Spences Bridge is Ashcroft () and Cache Creek (). Also north is 100 Mile House (), Williams Lake (), Quesnel (), and Prince George (). South of Spences Bridge is Lytton (),

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's own life, or the world at large. As a verb, Merriam-Webster defines ''hope'' as "to expect with confid ...

(), and

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 cit ...

(). East of the town is Merritt () and

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan, Okanagan Valley in the British Columbia Interior, southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna ...

(). Spences Bridge's location is mountainous, with higher elevations part of the

Interior Plateau The Interior Plateau comprises a large region of the Interior of British Columbia, and lies between the Cariboo and Monashee Mountains on the east, and the Hazelton Mountains, Coast Mountains and Cascade Range on the west.''Landforms of Bri ...

. The east side of the Fraser here is part of the Clear Range, a mountainous southwards extension of the Fraser Plateau located in the angle of the Thompson and

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 ...

s. Arthur Seat lies in that range on the west side of Spences Bridge, and was named by pioneer John Murray for

Arthur's Seat Arthur's Seat (, ) is an ancient extinct volcano that is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bol ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland.BC Names/GeoBC entry "Arthur Seat (mountain)"
/ref>

Climate

Spences Bridge has a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

(

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 ...

''BSk''). The climate is very dry and mild by Canadian standards, with an average annual

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

of just and low average snowfall of per year. Winters are short and moderately cold for usually brief periods and sunshine hours are very low for a couple of months, while summers are quite long, hot, sunny and dry – compared to the rest of Canada, albeit with comfortable nights. Like much of the lower-altitude valleys in the Thompson Nicola region, there are more days (on average approx. 40 days per year) when temperature exceeds than remain below freezing. Spences Bridge recorded Canada's second highest temperature on June 29, 2021, when it reached 48.6 °C (119.5 °F). The record is second only to Lytton, which recorded 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) on the same day. However, Lytton had 2 weather stations and one of them recorded a temperature 1 °C (1.8 °F) lower than the other at 48.6 °C (119.5 °F). The station that recorded the higher temperature was later deemed to be correct. Otherwise, Spences Bridge would have been tied with Lytton for the highest recorded temperature in Canada.

Pioneers of Spences Bridge

*John Murray *

James Teit James Alexander Teit (15 April 1864 — 30 October 1922) was an anthropologist, photographer and guide who worked with Franz Boas to study Interior Salish First Nations peoples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He led expeditions throu ...

(ethnographer) * Archibald Clemes *Pierre Morens *Francoise Rey

References

{{Commons category Designated places in British Columbia Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia British Columbia gold rushes Ghost towns in British Columbia Thompson Country Populated places in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District Natural disasters in British Columbia

History

Location

Climate

Pioneers of Spences Bridge

See also

References