The Bluebell

Even though it was a fairly large scale and long lasting operation, surprisingly very little is left from the Bluebell Mine located in Riondel BC. In production, sometimes intermittently, from the mid-1890s all the way to 1972 it was for that time the very cornerstone of the local economy. Now tourism pays the town’s bills.

We visited the Bluebell Mine site a couple years back and in spite of traipsing around the site for close to an hour (we were admittedly short on time), we found very little in the way of remains. There was a capped shaft, a few rock walls, bits of cement here and there and little else. It’s almost like the mine never existed.

The Bluebell was rather unique in much of the actual work took place under nearby Kootenay Lake.

Even though we found very little this trip we’d like to return to spend more time exploring the area. Perhaps if we looked a bit closer and spent more time we’d uncover more remains and that possibility intrigues me.

If you liked this post, you’ll want to read this one…
Moyie BC and the St Eugene Mine.

Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found.

If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!

Date of adventure: August, 2012.
Location: Riondel, BC.

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Bluebell Mine Riondel

A capped shaft.

Riondel BC Bluebell Mine

A rock wall found in the woods.

2 responses

  1. RyanE says:

    Hi Chris,

    I spent a bit of time exploring this area in the summer of 2014. I grew up in the Kootenays and old mine ruins/history intrigues me (among many things). If I understand correctly, there are several iterations of mining in this area. I saw the same ruins that you did, as well as a substantial concrete loading jetty and wharf located in a small bay to the south of the BC Ambulance facility. Based on some old photographs, I think the structures that I saw were part of the more recent operations in the 50’s to early 70’s when Cominco was operating the mine.

    I enjoy your website and am looking forward to learning more about this site via your future exploration.

    Cheers,

    Ryan

    • Ryan, From what I understand most all the remains, what little there is, date from the last decades of the mine’s operation. Stay tuned for more adventures!

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