Around 1900 an outcropping of gold ore was discovered on Princess Royal Island. It was initially not of a high enough concentration to warrant full scale development, but in 1915 it was optioned by the Tonapah-Belmont Mining Company of Tonahpah, Nevada. Their mines in Nevada were not longer profitable so operations were moved to British Columbia. By 1920 this mine was the largest gold producer in Canada.
Surf Inlet and the modern abandoned settlement of Port Belmont are located on Princess Royal Island, a large island on the North West Coast of British Columbia. Access during the mining years was via the coastal steamship companies. The mine was located on a mountainside several miles from the coast, following a chain of small lakes to the mine site.
In 1905 the first major development of the mines was proposed with the formation of the Surf Inlet Power Company, Ltd. The lowest of the chain of lakes, Cougar Lake, entered tidewater via a waterfall; the intention was to harness the power of these falls to generate electricity for the mine. This plan was not to come to fruition under the first series of owners. By 1914 the mining claims consisted of several exploratory tunnels with a few shipments of ore to the Tyee Smelter for preliminary processing.
The investment of the Tonapah-Belmont Development Corporation brought about the formation of the Belmont-Canadian Company or Belmont-Canadian Mines Ltd. They purchased not only the mines but also the Surf Inlet Power Company. In 1915 they started developing the property; by 1917 the majority of the improvements were in place.
The first priority was to install a large dam near the site of the waterfall at the tide end of Cougar Lake. This dam was of the modern Ambursen-type, 490 feet long and 75 feet high. The construction of the dam was supervised by A.E. Cleveland, a director of the company who would later become the head of the Vancouver Water Department and would have the Cleveland Dam named after him. Behind this dam Cougar Lake rose to the level of Bear Lake (and Deer Lake, further up the valley), flooding the adjacent shoreline and joining the two lakes into one navigable stretch of water. Below the dam on the shore of the inlet a powerhouse was built containing turbines for generating 1500HP of electricity which transmitted the power to the mine via a powerline at 22,000 VAC 3-Phase.
As the inlet was very remote, the company acquired a gasoline launch, the MV Full Moon to transport personnel to Prince Rupert. Adjacent to the powerhouse was a 130-foot long dock for this vessel with an ore bunker where refined ore could be stored for pickup by the coastal steamers. The bunkers were connected to the top of the dam by a 500-foot long 36″ gauge incline railway operating at a gradient of 18% and powered by a winch concealed within the structure of the dam. On the lake side of the dam the incline railway track split into three at a barge slip.
The barge used to transport the ore cars between the dam and the mine railway was built on site with three tracks capable of holding 100 tons in 35 five or ten ton ore cars. It ass hauled by a 40-foot gasoline launch named the Belmont. The barge route stretched up the conjoined Cougar and Bear Lakes until it reached a barge slip at the mouth of Paradise Creek; the one-way trip took about 80 minutes on average. By 1919 the company had built an ice-breaking vessel to facilitate winter operations.
At Paradise Creek the railway ran up the creek until it reached the main camp adjacent to Paradise Lake. This railway was 5100 feet long, the last 500 feet being a trestle crossing Paradise Creek to reach the mill yards. Another 8500 feet of track were found within the mill yards. All of the track was outfitted for operation by overhead electric power and was built to 36″ gauge on 12″ x 12″ ties and laid with 40-lb rail. The total elevation change between the lakeshore and the yard is 180 feet, presenting an average gradient of 3.5%.
The railway was operated by an unusual locomotive: an electric locomotive built in San Francisco by Moore & Scott Iron Works in 1915. This 14-ton locomotive was unique, being the only one built by this company, which became Moore Shipbuilding only two years later. The proponents of the company, however were both veterans of the Risdon Iron Works and Union Iron Works, both companies which had a long history of San Francisco locomotive building. The cars used on this railway were a combination of five and ten ton models; there are indications that Moore & Scott may have built these cars as well as part of the initial order.
At the mine, all of the equipment was operated by 440 VDC. Inside the main tunnel the cars were moved using storage battery locomotives provided by the Baldwin Westinghouse Corporation. The cars were 40-cubic-foot (2-ton) gable bottom models manufactured by the Vulcan Iron Works of Vancouver. The mines operated on a gauge of 30″.
Between the mine and the yard was the concentrator mill. Capable of handling 300 tons per day and operated entirely by electricity, the mill was second only to the mill at Rossland when it was built. An 1100-foot cable-operated tramway ran adjacent to the mill allowing access to every level of the mill. Water for the mill and the company town at the mine site came from a small dam at the outlet of Paradise Lake.
The details of the locomotive built by Moore & Scott are limited to it being 14-tons in weight and overhead-electric. The only other confirmed locomotive is:
Baldwin CN 45471, 0-4-0 B/E, 10 HP, 30″ Gauge, 4/1917
It is possible that an earlier locomotive may have been transferred from the Tonapah-Belmont Mine in Nevada, but this is not confirmed.
In 1926 the official record is that it became uneconomic to continue operations. An article in the Portland Canal News suggests that this may have been stock manipulation by the directors to inflate their returns prior to shutting down the mine. The mine was reopened for limited operations from 1933-1942 and with intermittent operations from 1947 to now. The railways (underground and aboveground) were apparently reused only for the first few years of reopening before being abandoned or scrapped, possibly for the war effort in 1942.
More detailed descriptions can be found here:
The Mining & Engineering Record (1918)
Surf Inlet Mines Prospectus
The Mining & Engineering Record (1920)
The Portland Canal News (1926)
The Mining & Engineering Record (1919)
The Mining & Engineering Record (1917)
Technical Review – Surf Inlet Gold Project (2004)
Geotechnical Review – Surf Inlet (2014)
Department of Mines Annual Report (1916)
Department of Mines Annual Report (1917)
Department of Mines Annual Report (1918)
Department of Mines Annual Report (1920)
Department of Mines Annual Report (1921)
Photographs of the Surf Inlet tidewater site.
Photographs of the Surf Inlet tidewater site.
Photographs of the Surf Inlet tidewater site.
Surf Inlet Cookhouse
Keen Eye Models Blog 
