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Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Skirt Mountain Copper Mine 1950 Explorers
Good morning, Tom,
Thanks for your interest in my reference to hiking Skirt Mountain in search of old copper mines. The segue was supposed to be from aerial tramlines but I left that part out. Skirt Mountain copper mines were serviced by aerial tramlines according to Ross Crockford's historical finding.
I wrote Ross to get permission to quote his reports and have yest to hear back. When I do, I'll contact you.
My PDF missal is ATTached
Bill
Some write the last chapter of their report first. This gives the writer a goal to which all preceding paragraphs will lead. To this end, permit me to present the last chapter of this report regarding the history of the Skirt Mountain copper mines.
Ross Crockford writes in his Unknown Victoria blog:
“As I stepped into the darkness, I could feel space opening up around me. I switched on my flashlight, and saw that I’d entered a chapel of geology. An arched ceiling of igneous rock. Vaulting tapestry walls, streaked with green oxidized copper. And water dripping down, down . . . into nothing.”
Crockford writes after nearly falling to his death, he went home and did some research. It turned out the cavern he and his companion were exploring was a failed copper mine. According to Maureen Duffus’s excellent book, Old Langford: An Illustrated History, the Ralph Mining Company dug some 600 metres of shafts on Skirt Mountain’s western slope between 1897 and 1903, removing hundreds of tonnes of ore and transporting it downhill by aerial tramway. Ralph only gave up after repeated tests showed that the copper was contaminated by magnetic iron oxide.
Until recently, few Victorians had any idea that the Western Communities are studded with mysterious caverns. That changed in 2006 with the fight over the SPAET cave, which the Songhees claimed was a sacred site used by their ancestors, and which the Bear Mountain golf resort subsequently bulldozed for a road down to the Trans-Canada Highway. But one of the little-known consequences of the standoff was that it spurred local adventurers to do an inventory of all the caves in greater Victoria – and as it turns out, some of the most thrilling places to explore around here are steadily disappearing. — Ross Crockford.
So with the last chapter and references cited, let's start at the beginning of my experience exploring one of these shafts in 1950 with my friend, Ray. Having learned some mining vernacular over the intervening seven decades, Ray and I did indeed enter a mining 'shaft' as it was a vertical entrance into the underground. A horizontal entrance of a mine is a called an 'adit'.
In 1950, I was only 13 years-of-age and Ray 14. We had no television nor cellphones so the outdoors was our playground and hitchhiking was our preferred mode of transport for longer excursions. For local adventures we simply jumped on our bikes.
After getting dropped off near what then was the Goldstream gas station, we hiked up the western slope of Skirt Mountain.
How we ever found the mine shaft is a wonder but we did. The opening was approximately 6ft. (2m) in diameter and went straight down for about 8ft.. Ready access to descend was available in the form of a small fir tree with its branches cut to short lengths forming a ladder-of-sorts.
Ray as the 'big guy', carrying all the ropes, flashlight (1) and any other sundry items for such an undertaking in his backpack. I went down first, and once down thought I'd hide in the dark of the cave tunnel and scare Ray upon his unsuspecting arrival. After moving a few yards along the section illuminated by daylight coming through the shaft opening, the tunnel made a 90° turn into total darkness.
A perfect spot to scare the you know what out of you know who! So, after walking about 6ft. into the darkness, I stopped, turned and waited for Ray.
When Ray arrived with flashlight in hand, the scaring him part went out-the-window as the tunnel was no longer dark and visibility was perfect. We laughed at my failed attempt, then turning to continue into the cave, we saw had I taken two more step I would most likely had fallen to my death.
The chasm before us was of such dimension its hard to believe. Firstly, and most critical dimension at that moment was its depth below us. The chasm went down from the tunnel we were in approximately 60ft. (4 stories) and the ceiling was the same height above us. The chasm was almost perfectly round and had several other tunnels feeding into it. The chasm was at least 60ft.. in diameter.
We concluded the chasm's purpose was a staging area to which all the various tunnels converged to an elevator system to move the product to the bottom. The bottom of the chasm was filled with water but no light was visible from a tunnel (adit) to the outside.
Without a doubt there was an adit connecting the outside but we did not go looking for it after leaving the monolith.
Our thanks to Ross Crockford, et al, for researching and publishing their findings regarding copper mining on Skirt Mountain. For all my life, I've thought this experience by two young boys was unique but the aforementioned publications prove otherwise.
Reference cited:
Skirt Mountain Copper Mines Aerial Tramway
Geological History of Goldstream