British Columbia Ghost Town Atlas

Sue Giles was a librarian at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto.

British Columbia Ghost Town Atlas contains 41 maps, most at the scale of 1” to 4 miles, and “locates and identifies nearly 500 Ghost Towns, Forts, Historic Trails and Indian Villages” in British Columbia. While it can stand alone, it can also be considered as a companion volume to T. W. Paterson’s Encyclopedia of Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of British Columbia (Langley, B.C.: Stagecoach Publishing, 1979).

Each map shows the location of the ghost town in relation to transportation routes such as roads and railways and in relation to rivers and streams. The local topography is not indicated. Three types of roads are distinguished: paved highways; loose-surface, all-weather roads; and loose-surface dry-weather or dirt roads. This should be helpful to those searching out the locations. Mine sites (usually abandoned) are indicated, as well as Fraser River Bars.

The author found the Canada Gazetteer Atlas (Canada. Department of Energy Mines and Resources. Toronto: MacMillan, 1980) invaluable in identifying new sites as it gave the name and location of sites that did not respond to the 1976 Census of Canada. “Approximately 40% of the sites depicted in this book are new, having never been written about in any ghost town book” (Introduction).

This book should be invaluable to anyone interested in the ghost towns of British Columbia.