The Native Americans called the mountain Red Rock because of its distinctive colour above the tree line. Others called it Windermere.
Today, the 1,700 metre elevation in the Columbia Valley, to the east of Lake Windermere, is known as Mount Swansea.
Shortly after the turn of the century Baptiste Morigeau, a French Canadian who owned the first store in the valley, told his friend Sam Brewer - an American miner who owned Fairmont Hot Springs - about the copper which could be found at the upper levels of the mountain.
Morigeau, who initially called Mount Swansea Suzanne after his daughter, has a connection with another place called Swansea. He was born in the mid 1800s in the Cranbrook area, 10 miles away from Swansea Railway Point.
Morigeau, Brewer and another prospector called Brown travelled up the mountain and began removing ore and stacking it to one side on a dump.
On their return down the mountain they sold the ore to Michael Philips and began the task of bringing it down.
The ore was put into sacks made by Mrs Rufus Kimpton, the storekeeper's wife in Windermere, placed on rawhide and yanked down the mountain.
The sacks of ore were stacked at the boat landing in Windermere and taken by steamboat to Golden BC to be shipped by rail to the coastal port of Vancouver.
From there the ore was loaded on a steamer and transported to Swansea, Wales, via the Panama Canal, for refining.
Sam Brewer and his partners called their venture Swansea Mine and the mountain became known as Mount Swansea.
In 1924, with the mining long since over, the mountain was established as a British Columbia Forest Service lookout because of its panoramic views of Windermere Valley.
A metallic telephone line was strung on trees along the old pack trail for use by the lookout man.
The hut had one room with little space for domestic equipment. Except for a bunk, table, chair and stove the space was filled with an Osborne fire finder - an instrument invented by the US Forest Service for locating forest fires.
The equipment also included a set of hazard sticks, weighing exactly 100 grams when dry. They were weighed five times a day in the fire season to measure the amount of moisture they had absorbed. This gave an indication of the dryness of the forest floor.
Records were kept four times a day of sky conditions, wind direction, velocity and humidity.
Electric storms were particularly frightening for the lookout man as every lightning flash was a potential forest fire. One of them, Tex Woods, told how he had to sit on a wooden chair with its legs in glass insulators when making radio transmissions during electrical storms.
A viewing platform was built in 1952 and then removed in 1992. It has been replaced by a Forest Service recreation site, which caters for sight-seers and those enjoying a picnic. The mountain is also a mecca for hang-glider fans and paragliding enthusiasts.
This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
Today, the 1,700 metre elevation in the Columbia Valley, to the east of Lake Windermere, is known as Mount Swansea.
Shortly after the turn of the century Baptiste Morigeau, a French Canadian who owned the first store in the valley, told his friend Sam Brewer - an American miner who owned Fairmont Hot Springs - about the copper which could be found at the upper levels of the mountain.
Morigeau, who initially called Mount Swansea Suzanne after his daughter, has a connection with another place called Swansea. He was born in the mid 1800s in the Cranbrook area, 10 miles away from Swansea Railway Point.
Morigeau, Brewer and another prospector called Brown travelled up the mountain and began removing ore and stacking it to one side on a dump.
On their return down the mountain they sold the ore to Michael Philips and began the task of bringing it down.
The ore was put into sacks made by Mrs Rufus Kimpton, the storekeeper's wife in Windermere, placed on rawhide and yanked down the mountain.
The sacks of ore were stacked at the boat landing in Windermere and taken by steamboat to Golden BC to be shipped by rail to the coastal port of Vancouver.
From there the ore was loaded on a steamer and transported to Swansea, Wales, via the Panama Canal, for refining.
Sam Brewer and his partners called their venture Swansea Mine and the mountain became known as Mount Swansea.
In 1924, with the mining long since over, the mountain was established as a British Columbia Forest Service lookout because of its panoramic views of Windermere Valley.
A metallic telephone line was strung on trees along the old pack trail for use by the lookout man.
The hut had one room with little space for domestic equipment. Except for a bunk, table, chair and stove the space was filled with an Osborne fire finder - an instrument invented by the US Forest Service for locating forest fires.
The equipment also included a set of hazard sticks, weighing exactly 100 grams when dry. They were weighed five times a day in the fire season to measure the amount of moisture they had absorbed. This gave an indication of the dryness of the forest floor.
Records were kept four times a day of sky conditions, wind direction, velocity and humidity.
Electric storms were particularly frightening for the lookout man as every lightning flash was a potential forest fire. One of them, Tex Woods, told how he had to sit on a wooden chair with its legs in glass insulators when making radio transmissions during electrical storms.
A viewing platform was built in 1952 and then removed in 1992. It has been replaced by a Forest Service recreation site, which caters for sight-seers and those enjoying a picnic. The mountain is also a mecca for hang-glider fans and paragliding enthusiasts.
This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
Mount Swansea.
Mount Swansea
Swansea Point
Swansea Point, on the edge of Mara Lake, lies about 300 miles north east of Vancouver.
It comprises 30 or 40 acres of land peppered with summer cabins and second homes for holidaymakers.
Perched at the top of Okanagan Valley, the area boasts around 300 residents, half of whom live there on a permanent basis.
In the regional district of Shuswap, it is an unofficial unincorporated area with its own volunteer fire department and a community association. Swansea Point was originally known as Six Mile, because of its location six miles south of Sicamous.
During the First World War a company of Rocky Mountain Rangers were put in charge of a prisoner of war camp there.
Mr and Mrs Swanson, of Kimberley, British Columbia, boughy what was then know as Black Point Resort and reopened it in 1937, with the new name Swansea Resort. Mrs Swanson was British, and one source claims she was Welsh.
The resort changed hands in 1947 and in the late 1950s was divided into Hummingbird Creek and Alpine Resort, which are still there today.
The Province of British Columbia officially adopted the name Swansea Point around 1957, as for almost 35 years the entrance to the point had said Swansea Resort. It changed the word resort to point to mark its geographical feature - a protrusion of land which extends into Mara Lake.
The lake is freshwater and caters for many recreational activities such as boating and water skiing.
This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
It comprises 30 or 40 acres of land peppered with summer cabins and second homes for holidaymakers.
Perched at the top of Okanagan Valley, the area boasts around 300 residents, half of whom live there on a permanent basis.
In the regional district of Shuswap, it is an unofficial unincorporated area with its own volunteer fire department and a community association. Swansea Point was originally known as Six Mile, because of its location six miles south of Sicamous.
During the First World War a company of Rocky Mountain Rangers were put in charge of a prisoner of war camp there.
Mr and Mrs Swanson, of Kimberley, British Columbia, boughy what was then know as Black Point Resort and reopened it in 1937, with the new name Swansea Resort. Mrs Swanson was British, and one source claims she was Welsh.
The resort changed hands in 1947 and in the late 1950s was divided into Hummingbird Creek and Alpine Resort, which are still there today.
The Province of British Columbia officially adopted the name Swansea Point around 1957, as for almost 35 years the entrance to the point had said Swansea Resort. It changed the word resort to point to mark its geographical feature - a protrusion of land which extends into Mara Lake.
The lake is freshwater and caters for many recreational activities such as boating and water skiing.
This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
Swansea Railway Point
Swansea Railway Point is located about 10 miles south west of Cranbrook, a town of 20,000 inhabitants.
The siding, which is capable of handling 61 carriages, is situated on the Crowsnest Pass route of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) through southern British Columbia. It connects to points further west and south into the United States.
The railway was built through the region in 1898 by the CPR and was heavily financed by British backers. Hence many of the names used along the route were from Britain or related in some way to the British Empire.
Swansea was named after Swansea, Wales, in 1898 when the railway was built. According to Garry Anderson, executive director of Cranbrook's Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, there was originally plans to build a smelter there. The expansive lead-zinc mines at Kimberley, 20 miles north of Cranbrook, and large silver mines at Moyie, 15 miles south of Swansea, may have played a role in the original plan.
A notorious gold miner from Swansea, Wales, famed for his longevity and free spending, found his fortune only 30 miles away from Swansea Railway Point.
David Griffith, the son of a farmer, was born in Rhossili in June 1830. When gold was discovered in California in 1849 he arrived in America with a cargo of Welsh coal.
From 1851 to 1863 Griffith mined at nearly all the diggings on the American west coast.
Griffith told the Cranbrook Herald: "The gold was in long strips, in shape somewhat like the solder used by tinners.
"My partner and I engaged a Chilean to pack the dirt from the shaft to the place where one of us washed it. There is no knowing what that coffee-coloured greaser stole from us; he could fill his pockets or hide a peck of dust and we could never tell. Still he was honest enough to leave us sufficient to enable us to clear $1,600 a day.
"To give you an idea of the richness of those diggings, I saw the Jersey company of Danaville take out with old fashioned rockers 49 pounds of gold in one day.
"That gold was worth $18 an ounce at least. That kind of luck led to all kinds of extravagence and foolishness.
"Men went fairly mad with the lust of gold-getting and gold-lavishing. Men lived a lifetime of blazing, burning excitement in a year or two, and died, many a one of them looking down the barrel of a six-shooter, held maybe in the drunken hand of their own partners."
Griffith headed for Canada on hearing of rumours of gold in the Kootenay district, and was one of the first Europeans to arrive at the hugely successful Wild Horse Creek in 1864.
The Welshman, who was earning $1,000 to $1,500 a week, would go down to town every Saturday night and spend the lot. When the diggings started to be worked out most of the miners moved out but Griffith remained at Wild Horse Creek for the rest of his days.
He acquired more and more claims as the original owners left for better diggings, until he owned half the workable gravel of the creek.
The Welshman also became the sole owner of the Victoria ditch which carried the most valuable water rights of the camp.
The Cranbrook Herald carried numerous stories of the "Wild Horse Creek pioneer" coming to town in the early 1900s with consignments of gold dust and nuggets.
Source: Fort Steele Heritage Town archives. This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
The siding, which is capable of handling 61 carriages, is situated on the Crowsnest Pass route of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) through southern British Columbia. It connects to points further west and south into the United States.
The railway was built through the region in 1898 by the CPR and was heavily financed by British backers. Hence many of the names used along the route were from Britain or related in some way to the British Empire.
Swansea was named after Swansea, Wales, in 1898 when the railway was built. According to Garry Anderson, executive director of Cranbrook's Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, there was originally plans to build a smelter there. The expansive lead-zinc mines at Kimberley, 20 miles north of Cranbrook, and large silver mines at Moyie, 15 miles south of Swansea, may have played a role in the original plan.
A notorious gold miner from Swansea, Wales, famed for his longevity and free spending, found his fortune only 30 miles away from Swansea Railway Point.
David Griffith, the son of a farmer, was born in Rhossili in June 1830. When gold was discovered in California in 1849 he arrived in America with a cargo of Welsh coal.
From 1851 to 1863 Griffith mined at nearly all the diggings on the American west coast.
Griffith told the Cranbrook Herald: "The gold was in long strips, in shape somewhat like the solder used by tinners.
"My partner and I engaged a Chilean to pack the dirt from the shaft to the place where one of us washed it. There is no knowing what that coffee-coloured greaser stole from us; he could fill his pockets or hide a peck of dust and we could never tell. Still he was honest enough to leave us sufficient to enable us to clear $1,600 a day.
"To give you an idea of the richness of those diggings, I saw the Jersey company of Danaville take out with old fashioned rockers 49 pounds of gold in one day.
"That gold was worth $18 an ounce at least. That kind of luck led to all kinds of extravagence and foolishness.
"Men went fairly mad with the lust of gold-getting and gold-lavishing. Men lived a lifetime of blazing, burning excitement in a year or two, and died, many a one of them looking down the barrel of a six-shooter, held maybe in the drunken hand of their own partners."
Griffith headed for Canada on hearing of rumours of gold in the Kootenay district, and was one of the first Europeans to arrive at the hugely successful Wild Horse Creek in 1864.
The Welshman, who was earning $1,000 to $1,500 a week, would go down to town every Saturday night and spend the lot. When the diggings started to be worked out most of the miners moved out but Griffith remained at Wild Horse Creek for the rest of his days.
He acquired more and more claims as the original owners left for better diggings, until he owned half the workable gravel of the creek.
The Welshman also became the sole owner of the Victoria ditch which carried the most valuable water rights of the camp.
The Cranbrook Herald carried numerous stories of the "Wild Horse Creek pioneer" coming to town in the early 1900s with consignments of gold dust and nuggets.
Source: Fort Steele Heritage Town archives. This article originally appeared in Planet Swansea which was published by the South Wales Evening Post.
