Digital Bob Archive

JANUARY 9, 1881-This winter-bound mining camp is turning into a veritable logging camp. The hillside immediately behind the camp has a stand of mixed spruce and hemlock which is being cut to provide firewood, for logs to build cabins, and for logs to be whipsawed into lumber for the sluice boxes which will be required once mining gets started in the spring. The logging has the beneficial effect of clearing the town lots so they can be built upon more easily.

A dozen or fifteen cabins are already up or well along in construction. One of the first to be put up was built by John Olds and Pat McGlinchy, on Second Street behind Dick Willoughby?s lot. It is 12 by 14 feet and has become sort of clubhouse and lodging place for the camp. The men gather there to play cards and spin yarns and none is ever turned away. A number of miners whose tents blew down in the Taku winds or got set afire by sparks have moved into this cabin. One night McGlinchy observed seven men sleeping about the central fire, each a different nationality. ?Be Gorry,? he said, ?this place has become a flag of all nations!? And it has been known as the Flag of All Nations ever since.

William Hosford has a large cabin under construction on the waterfront below the Flag of All Nations and says he may turn it into a hotel or into a saloon if he can get some of the necessary. Hosford is an old timer in the mining camps of the west and is much respected. Another large cabin and one of the finest in the camp is being put up by William Bennett who is a carpenter by trade and did a lot of building in the Cassiar.

On the point of land just down the channel from the camp, Mike Powers has staked a wharf site, a lot 50 feet wide running out to deep water. With the mail steamer California due here in March it would be nice to have a wharf for her to tie to, but it is doubtful that Powers can get one built that early.

Hunting continues to be a daily occupation for many, who keep the camp supplied. The deep snows have driven the ptarmigan down from the hills and a favorite place to hunt them is on the ridge just west of camp, which is becoming known as Chicken Ridge.