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On the dry side of the mountains

Will the Bridge River Valley be B.C.'s next tourism hot spot? The early morning sky above Tyaughton Lake is crystal clear as I climb inside the 1961 DeHaviland Beaver float plane and into the co-pilot's seat.
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Will the Bridge River Valley be B.C.'s next tourism hot spot?

The early morning sky above Tyaughton Lake is crystal clear as I climb inside the 1961 DeHaviland Beaver float plane and into the co-pilot's seat.

Pilot Dale Douglas climbs into the seat beside me, flips a couple of switches and fires up the plane's single-prop engine.

We taxi down the lake, picking up speed and lift off. It is then that I realize the plane is almost a decade older than I am. I cinch the seatbelt a bit tighter as we fly west up the Bridge River Valley.

From our bird's-eye view, the landscape is a drastic contrast ? the heavily glaciated Coast Mountains spread out on my left, while the dry, bare South Chilcotin Mountains fade away into the horizon on my right.

Douglas, owner of Tyax Air, is a Whistler resident who lives here most of the year operating his business. He still spends the winters in Whistler.

He says the area's burgeoning tourist industry is getting so busy that he actually needs the winters off for a little rest and relaxation.

Douglas has come here in search of opportunity and wide-open spaces and in the Bridge River Valley, where wilderness and adventure meet, he has found both.

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After driving over the Hurley River forest service road from Pemberton, I meet up with long-time resident Norm Gronskei for a tour of the Bridge River Valley.

Gronskei, who grew up here, tells me about how the valley has changed since two B.C. Hydro dams were built in the 1940s and ?50s. Two massive reservoirs ? stretching for more than 100 kilometres into the heart of the Coast Mountains ? now fill the valley bottom where the river used to flow.

There's a twinge of regret in his voice as we drive along the reservoirs and into Gold Bridge. A sign on the side of the road indicates the population of the town is 43.

In Gold Bridge, we hook up with Squamish-Lillooet Regional District director Russ Oakley and Bridge River Valley Economic Development Society officer Vivienne Ross and continue the tour.

Oakley and Ross are trying to kick-start the local economy through a number of initiatives, one of which is to attract more tourists to the area.

The SRLD and BRVEDS are currently working together to turn an abandoned property and its buildings into a new tourist centre. The Haylmore property, on the banks on Cadwallader Creek, was once home to the area's gold commissioner but has sat empty since his death in 1964.

We take a quick look around Gold Bridge ? the tourist info centre, the economic development offices, the one-room school, the library ? and despite the lack of a large population, there is a true sense of community spirit here.

Then we hop into the community school bus and drive up into the mountains towards Bralorne.

According to Gronskei, the two gold mines near Bralorne produced $100 million during their operation.

The mines are now closed but not for lack of gold ? the owners are waiting for the commodity price to rise enough to make it feasible to start mining again.

At the Bralorne Museum, mining equipment hangs from the walls. Yellow newspaper stories tracing the mines' history flutter in the breeze. There are black-and-white pictures of Gronskei, as a teenager, in his Gold-diggers hockey uniform. He smiles.

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After the tour, we end up at the Claim Jumper Bar and Grill for dinner. Locals still searching for the motherlode sit around a table, drinking beer after a hard day.

A conglomerate of Whistler and Pemberton residents, headed by Jacques Beaudoin, has just bought the bar and a nearby motel.

Beaudoin says he came to Bralorne on a snowmobile trip last winter and bought the bar and a local motel that were up for sale.

Rundown miner's shacks are also being snapped up and renovated by Whistlerites looking for cheap recreational property.

Beaudoin leans on the bar and tells me about his plans to bring snowmobile tours up over Hurley Pass to Bralorne. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres of snowmobile trails to ride in the area. Photos on the wall show endless snow-covered mountain summits.

The area is quickly becoming known as one of B.C.'s premier snowmobiling areas and it looks like Beaudoin might have struck gold.

The Bridge River Valley and the surrounding area ? which includes the popular Spruce Lake and the newly created Southern Chilcotin Mountains provincial park ? is quickly becoming B.C.'s next outdoor adventure mecca.

There are unlimited opportunities in both summer and winter. The list includes hiking, mountain biking, fly-fishing, mountaineering, kayaking, canoeing, horseback riding, ski touring, heli-skiing, snowmobiling, ice climbing, ice fishing and whatever else a person could want.

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But the area ? like other rural regions in B.C. ? is still struggling with a stagnant economy. Forestry is slowing down here and mining, although it has a long history, is virtually non-existent.

Local residents are trying to lobby B.C. Hydro to re-invest some of its earnings back to the area where they were generated.

Sitting in the lounge at Tyax Mountain Lake Resort, Oakley tells me about the uphill struggle.

He says the Bridge River Trust would be similar to programs in the Kootenays and Peace River regions, which use money from hydro dams to stimulate the local economy.

According to Oakley, the local Liberal MLA supports the plan but the provincial government has not given any sort of indication that it has even looked at the proposal. Hydro has not given any type of answer either.

Oakley says he's not sure if the trust will ever get off the ground.

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As we fly over the headwaters of the Bridge River, Douglas points out the pancake-flat glaciers that spread out from 3,194-metre Mount Monmouth.

At the toe of the Bridge Glacier, icebergs float in a silt-laden lake.

Douglas then banks the plane, makes a wide, sweeping right hand turn and heads back down the river valley towards Tyaughton Lake.

And as the white world of snow and ice recede into the background, I stare off into the sunlight trying to make sense of the gold mines, hydro dams and tourism opportunities here on the dry side of the mountains.