The location above is Atlin Lake in British Columbia. To find it, we drove an hour south-east from Whitehorse, and turned south for an hour on highway 7 (Atlin Road). It was an excellent road, athough it downgraded somewhat when we crossed from the Yukon into BC. We only saw 3-4 other vehicles and we made excellent time, passing several beautiful finger lakes set between mountains. But we had no warning for the stunning scenery that was waiting for us on the other end. In all our travels on this trip, Atlin Lake, hands down takes first place for beauty and atmosphere.
Instead of including a number of photos in this first blog entry on Atlin Lake, I just want to introduce you a bit to this extraordinary community before I send you the visual confirmations.
George Miller, a German immigrant found gold in Pine Creek in the area of Atlin Lake in 1898 and told his brother Fritz who, with his friend Kenneth McLaren of Nova Scotia located the creek and quickly found the fortune in gold they were seeking. In a flash, Atlin became the centre of a huge gold rush, teeming with thousands of hopeful adventurers, and these in turn triggered the building of brothels, saloons, hotels, banks, restaurants, and stores. Sawmills ran 24 hours a day. Boats brought the new gold seekers and goods by boat across the Taglish Lake and Atlin River. It was a huge boom town. Even today, gold can still be panned in the nearby creeks.
Fast forward to today, and the year-round population has shrunk to about 400 people. The community is divided between the local Taku River Tlingit First Nation who has its own form of government, and everyone else who do not have any form of local government. Atlin Lake is "unincorporated" which means it is neither village, nor town, nor municipality. It does not have a mayor or a reeve or a chief. Atlin deals with this by doing everything itself for itself. It operates almost entirely on volunteers. Now this is particularly admirable when you consider that the residents provide fire protection, ambulance service, search and rescue, senior respite care, meals-on-wheels, Junior Canadian Rangers, a recreation centre that includes curling and bingo, a skating rink, a childrens' playground and softball field, the PIne Creek Campground, internet service, etc etc etc. There is only one elected body in Atlin, the Atlin Community Improvement District. Their mandate is to provide drainage, fire protection, sidewalks, solid waste disposal, street lighting, water works, and to represent the community to provincial agencies on land use matter. In addition to all these tasks, the "town" also has restored many of its historic buildings, written grant applications for funding, supervised projects, wielded hammer and nails, and managed the venues.
This is one mighty extraordinary little community. Photos to follow.
Barbara Rick and Flossie the gold diggin' dawg
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