The Cariboo Hudson Mine
The Cariboo Hudson Mine is located at the headwaters of Pearce Creek, a feeder of the legendary Cunningham Creek.
Gold quartz ore bodies were known on Yanks Peak and Round Top Mountain as early as the 1860s, but were not heavily exploited until the 1920s when local prospector Fred Wells explored the surface veins at Pearce Creek and began sinking shafts and adits into the newly discovered ore bodies.
A road from Keithly Creek was upgraded, and extended down into the nearby valleys to allow heavy equipment access to the site from Barkerville.
The Cariboo Hudson was built between 1929 and 1931 and mining properly began in 1936 after multiple issues plagued the project. By 1937 the underground workings of the Hudson had discovered the ore body had been cut away by faulting and after multiple attempts to retrace it, the mine and its equipment were shutdown, dismantled and moved to the newly built Cariboo Gold Quartz mine on Jack of Clubs Lake. The sites building laid dormant until 1950 when several camp buildings and a machine shop were moved down the valley to the Shaput Tungsten mine, but were only used sporadically.
Gold ore at the Hudson is composed of a fine grained, chalcopyrite and phyhorite, often associated with amorphous galena and schelite stringers. Barite argentite veins are also known to be present nearby, likely an extension of the deposits located down steam at Penny Creek.
At the entrance to the mine.
First ore chute.
Ore chute. Amazingly still intact!
Mark and Frank rethinking their life choices in going down the man way!!
Galena, sphalerite, pyhorite, pyrite and a bit of native gold in quartz from the Q2 vein.
Solid metallic veins in the walls.
Making my way through the workings.
Insane gold ore in the roof!
Looking back at the man way.
Very old version of an air tank.
Heading further into the workings.
Collapsed ore bin and the workings beyond it.
Rusty old drill bits.
A two inch Galena vein in the roof.
Ice blocks a section of this level of workings. Water possibly coming in from a surface portal.
Ice plugged the workings.
Water increased in depth. Chest deep. Didn't continue!
False floors in an ore pass. Very dangerous!
The workings continue on and on for ages.
Ore at the back of the mine.
Old winch alcove and platform.
Galena in quartz from an ore chute.
Heading back to the surface.
The collapsed bunk house. Trapper recalls sleeping here in 1971 when it still stood fully intact.
An earlier trip in 2017, exploring the outside ruins of the mine. The top of the second mill at Cariboo Hudson.
All but collapsed now, this was once the tallest log cabin style structure in BC, at 3 stories tall.
Looking up at the crushed and collapsed ore box.
Looking down the slope of the gravity feed mill, the second mill at the Hudson.
Here, next to the first addit at the Hudson is the remains of a much earlier mill, this ruin has two levels and appears to have been dismantled many years before the other mills destruction. Fire bricks and ball mill balls are scattered around here as well as a large amount of left over concentrate form milling.
