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Hail Britannia

Former mining community crawls toward new era

 

As a new year approaches, a new dawn could rise over Britannia Beach.

Flanked by the Britannia range of mountains that tower over Howe Sound, it is a modest, unincorporated town of about 300 people in Area D of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. Formerly a hub of mining activity for the British Commonwealth, this year could see the town get final approval for a commercial development that may pull people off the highway and enhance its appeal as a tourist attraction.

Anyone new to the region could be forgiven for seeing Britannia Beach as a simple stopover on the way to Squamish or Whistler.

Despite a soaring museum that looks to be embedded in a mountain, as well as charming little stores and restaurants like a fish and chips shop in a blue bus, it stands largely without the notice it deserves. Greyhound buses don't stop here often enough and eager skiers and boarders usually stop for their wares in Squamish.

But Macdonald Development Corporation, a Vancouver-based real estate developer, is seeking a rezoning for land at the old townsite at Britannia Beach where it hopes to build a pedestrian-oriented village with shops, restaurants and promenades. Buildings would be designed according to Victorian and Arts and Crafts styles.

The closest approximation would be Vancouver's Granville Island, a former industrial site that has since been turned into a commercial and residential area with a market, restaurants and artisan shops.

"The dream for that is to get as many people there and out of their cars as possible," Bill Baker, project coordinator for the townsite, said in an interview.

For people interested in history, Britannia Beach is, literally, a copper mine.

In 1859 Captain George Henry Richards, a hydrographer for the British Admiralty, arrived in Howe Sound on a survey mission. He named the mountains aligning the waters for the HMS Britannia, a gun ship that fought for the Royal Navy in the War of Independence and the Battle of Trafalgar. The ship itself never sailed to Howe Sound.

In 1888 Dr. A.A. Forbes, a physician working at the time with First Nation peoples living along the sound, discovered copper in the ground that would eventually lead to the development of the Britannia Mine. With his dog Granger at his side, the doctor shot a buck deer as the sun was setting. The deer fell and its hooves, thrashing at the ground, exposed a brightly-coloured rock in the soil. Tests revealed the rock contained a high concentration of copper.

Eleven years later George Robinson, a mining engineer, convinced financiers that the Britannia property had potential. Various companies tried in vain to put financing together to extract the mineral until the Britannia Mining and Smelting Company began its work in the early 1900s.

The company shipped its first ore to a smelter on Vancouver Island in 1904 and put a mill, tram and its own smelter into full operation at Britannia a year later.

The Britannia Mining and Smelting Company thereafter owned the mine for 60 years, watching as workers arrived to help extract the rock and set up a town that got its first post office in 1907. A second mill was constructed in 1916, during World War I and at a time when demand for copper was skyrocketing. By 1929 Britannia had become the largest producer of copper in the commonwealth.

A town thrived around the mine, with hundreds of residents enjoying community amenities such as libraries, billiard rooms, a roller-skating rink, movie theatre and bowling alley. The community was a hub of activity at the time, accessible only by steamship.

That all began to change in 1956, when a rail line from Vancouver to Squamish was completed. The first version of the Sea to Sky Highway was constructed two years later. The town could no longer compete with outside attractions and a townsite at Mount Sheer was emptied.

In 1959 the Britannia Mining Company went into liquidation. The Anaconda Mining Company took over its assets, launching a fevered search for new minerals at Britannia Beach.

By 1974 the minerals were running out. The mine's 300 employees worked their last shift on Nov. 1 of that year. The mine was turned into a museum that has since been designated a national historic site, serving as a tourist attraction that has also been a filming location for numerous television series and movies.

Macdonald purchased the town and the mine in 2003, in a deal with the province that would see 400 acres go to the company and 9,600 acres remain with the government. Macdonald subdivided property in the community so that local residents, many of whom had moved there since the 1980s, could own their own homes for the first time. All homes in the community previously belonged to the mining companies and residents simply rented them.

Macdonald's project rezoning needs to pass muster with the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. It has just passed third reading but before getting there it hit a snag. To attract tenants, the developer requires approval of a restaurant with a drive-thru window, as well as a gas bar, in the model of a White Spot Triple O's. Getting there requires turning right off the highway if you're heading north, then past several homes to get to the restaurant.

The drive-thru, however, isn't the only issue. The townsite rests in the shadow of mountains and, like many urban areas in Sea to Sky, it is vulnerable to landslides. In order for the development to be built, Baker said there has to be a berm that can catch debris from the hills above.

"That area is technically not safe in the eyes of the government," he said. "You could never have a place where you could live or sleep."

Macdonald is working with the province to turn a dam up the valley into a catchment area. It needs to do this before the development can get fourth reading, according to Baker.

"The SLRD, rightly so, they've said, if you have all the contracts in place, and you're going to start work up there, you can start work down below," he said. "There's a covenant there that says, all of this will be looked after before the commercial area moves forward. So we have to do that, and rightly so."

But what's really been controversial at the board table is the drive-thru, mainly because it's a tall order for a government that only recently approved the Regional Growth Strategy to encourage walkable communities and is thus reticent about planning that accommodates automobiles.

In April 2010 the board voted down the subdivision. In the following months there were numerous letters from the public, essentially pleading with the board to approve the development. Some letters carried a tone of desperation, with one Britannia resident remarking that, "We need development in this community or this community will die."

Ralph Fulber, a Britannia resident since 1984, proved one of the few dissenting voices among Britannia residents. When the project first came to the SLRD in 2008, it was for a pedestrian-oriented heritage village that didn't require a drive-thru, and Fulber thought that was a "wonderful consensus."

When the drive-thru came forward he resisted. He felt that such a facility would turn Britannia from an oceanfront community into a commercial facility that looked like a strip mall.

Today, however, his feelings have changed. He is conditionally supportive of the development in its current form and feels it "demonstrates a respect for each other and a trust that we share a vested interest here in Britannia."

"I am hopeful and anticipate that it will provide opportunities to generate revenue and income in a sustainable manner that provides a platform upon which we build with the anticipated demographic growth," he said.

"Part of our concern is that we did not want to facilitate development that only creates part-time, low-income jobs that are not sustainable and are already provided along the corridor. We do not want to compete but want to provide something unique to our history that reflects a vision we all hold in common, sustainable prosperity with minimal footprint but high profile."

The decision ultimately rests with a SLRD board of representatives from various regions north of Britannia Beach, as well as one director who represents Britannia.

Britannia Beach's identity as a mining town forms a part of its past - and its past, essentially, defines its present. The pedestrian village may give it a new identity, but doing that requires the SLRD to make a pretty serious compromise with its own values.