Up from the Ashes

True or not, the tale Nass River Indians had to tell, half a century ago, was enough to parch the lips of any prospectors. This is what they said: not far from their hunting & fishing grounds at Observatory Inlet, 500 miles north of Vancouver, was a "mountain of gold." Two prospectors, led there by Indians, found only "fool's gold" (iron Pyrites) which gives a surface appearance of precious metal. Yet there was indeed a fortune in the district. It took some 18 years of exploration and drilling--and investment of more than $3,600,000--to find it. Subsequently it produced 25 million tons of copper, gold and silver ore.

Around the diggings grew up the bustling company town of Anyox (pronounced Annie-ox) with an annual payroll of $1,500,000, a population of 2,500. There were three churches, a two-story wooden hotel, a nine-hole golf course on a slag fill in Granby Bay. But mounting costs shut down the mine in 1935, and Anyox shut up shop, too. Only a few watchmen remained. When lightning in 1942 fired the "tinder-dry slopes behind Anyox and roared down on the deserted town, most of its weathered buildings went up in flames.

New Industry. Last week ghostly Anyox was due for new life. For $130,000 two companies had purchased the town site, the abandoned hydroelectric plant, all dockage and foreshore rights (and 25,000 tons of scrap steel tossed into the bargain). A new iron & steel industry for British Columbia would be launched.

Iron would be brought by barge from deposits on Texada Island, about 50 miles upcoast from Vancouver. The necessary fluxes--limestone and silica--were near by. Electric heat would melt the ore; fuel would be required only as a reducing and carbonizing agent. A primary advantage: power costs were estimated at less than one mill per kwh, probably the cheapest in Canada. Plans were to handle 130 tons of ore from Texada daily, to turn out 65 tons of "high quality iron cheaply and economically," with the initial output earmarked for B.C.'s burgeoning postwar industry (TIME, Jan. 28).

Men at Work. Already 50 workmen had been hired to repair outlet valves on the 684-ft.-wide dam, patch up the ancient bunkhouses, put the powerhouse in operation, recap and creosote the dock pilings. Topflight Swedish engineers had been asked for estimates on electric furnaces and other key installations. To get things ready, between $500,000 and $1,000,000 would be spent.

Anyox oldtimers were already writing in, asking for jobs. Said onetime Foreman Tony Caverzan: "I'd like to go back. It was one of the swellest towns in the North. It was lively but quiet, too. We never had any trouble."

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