150th Anniversary of Leech River Gold Rush

In July 2014, the Sooke Region Museum marked this epic anniversary of the discovery of gold in Vancouver Island’s Leech River. As did, the previous weekend, the Vancouver Island Placer Mining Association.

It wasn’t a great gold rush so far as gold rushes go, certainly not on the scale of those of Australia, California or the Klondike. Not even, for that matter, others, before and after, here in British Columbia: the Fraser River and Cariboo, the Kootenays, the Big Bend or Atlin areas.

But it was exciting enough to, for a time, all but depopulate Victoria, then capital of the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island.

Amazingly, the search for placer gold in the Leech River and immediate area goes on a full century and a-half later. Probably no one’s getting rich but there’s still enough fine dust and nuggets to be had (with considerable effort) to keep ‘em coming.

Having grown up, as I’ve told elsewhere, on American TV, books and movies, I’d become entranced by tales of lost Spanish mines and ghost towns that (in photos, anyway) appeared to be intact. Oh, how I ached to visit (read ‘ransack’) them!

So it was a momentous day that–while watching an American TV program, of course–I learned, to my amazement, that we had a ghost town right here on Vancouver Island: Leechtown!

Better yet, it was only 20 miles or so (as the crow flies) from my home in Victoria!

So, after school, I beat it to the B.C. Provincial Archives on my bike where some very considerate ladies turned me loose (literally) in their newspaper files; particularly the one that contained clippings about Leechtown. I was in my glory!

But the real Leechtown, or whatever was left of it, was out there, in the Sooke hills, and this was long before I had my own vehicle so it was several years before I was able to get there with friends. By then I was writing feature articles for The Islander, the magazine section of the Victoria Daily Colonist (today’s Times-Colonist). That was in 1964 which, coincidentally, was the centennial of Lieut. Peter Leech’s discovery of gold in the creek which today bears his name.

My two-page saga appeared under the intriguing headline, LITTLE LEECHTOWN: Even a ghost town not immune from vandals’ senseless raids.

Almost before the ink was dry, the phone began to ring from callers eager to point out several mistakes. They make me wince today; then I remind myself that, hey, I was very young…

Whatever, to mark Leechtown’s 150th anniversary, here’s that Islander article. Warts and all, it’s still mostly relevant. To set the record straight, however, I’ll add corrections in italics.

I’ve also had to make slight editing changes so as not to be in conflict my book, Ghost Town Trails of Vancouver Island. Published in 1975, it’s still in print, revised, as Ghost Towns & Mining Camps of Vancouver Island.

Here goes…

Little more than a scenic hour’s drive from Victoria, lie the decaying ruins of Leechtown. Here, 100 years ago, thousands of miners invaded this beautiful country during Vancouver Island’s greatest gold rush; today only their ghosts flit through the shadows…

Although heavily logged–timber firms are still active in the region–the area retains its natural majesty. (If you closed your eyes to the scars from several decades of logging.) For six months of the year, this rain forest abounds in hunters. But even to the visitor who does his shooting with a camera, the trip is filled with adventure and is well worth the making.

Although closed to the public during weekdays, the roads leading into Leechtown are open on weekends for hunters and today’s prospectors who still scour the rugged terrain.

The best route is to drive 18 miles up the Island Highway and turn left onto the Shawnigan Lake cutoff, just beyond the Malahat Chalet. Proceed about three miles along good, paved road and turn left again where a small sign says, ‘Leechtown nine miles.’ Also here are signs for Council and Wolf Lakes. At this point the road deteriorates, but is passable and not too hard on your car–although at times you’ll wonder! Some grading is in progress beyond Leechtown.

(None of this applies today as the Greater Victoria Watershed is now off-limits to the public.)

By following the telephone wires (there’s a sign of the times for you), you should keep on the right road. At this time of year most of the side lanes are barred off, so you can hardly go wrong. For six and a-third miles you are passing through virgin forest–the Sooke Lake Watershed. And for five of these beautiful miles the road follows the lakeshore. Just remember that here you are forbidden to leave the road. This is to protect Greater Victoria’s water supply.

Farther on, past a boarded up cabin (long gone), a log bridge straddles Sooke River. To your right is a massive–and sturdy still–remnant of a fairly recently abandoned mining project. Built of thick logs, heavy timbers and railway track, it is a huge loading chute. The series of parallel rails acted as a riffle, separating the larger stones from the gold-bearing gravels. Many of these boulders have rolled to the river’s edge.

(This is the error that drew the most calls. An accompanying photo showed this structure, to those in the know, to be a “grizzly.” Yes, it screens rocks from gravel–for roadbuilding.)

Above this structure, almost overgrown with young trees, is the miners’ little bulldozer which shoved the gravel into the chute. Left when the scheme played out, the old tractor rusts in the forest…

According to a man who knew the operation (I can’t recall him at this late date but, intentionally or otherwise, he surely did lead me astray that day), the venture was defeated by lack of sufficient water power. Many long ditches in the bush, now collapsed and dry, testify to their struggle. This informant said the owners took about $10,000 from this operation–and put it all back in trying to get the water!

(This description would be more correctly applied to nearby Martin’s Gulch, the site of an ill-fated dredging operation in the 1930s.)

Directly opposite, on the left side of the road, is the site of Leechtown. Can’t see it, you say? That’s not surprising–there’s nothing there! Many of the original buildings are long rotted and fallen [and] overgrown with trees. The remainder were destroyed by fire some years ago. But if you look closely you will see a pock-marked cairn, almost hidden by undergrowth and shadows. It is tarnished and chipped, but you can still read the inscription:

“Memorial erected by B.C. Historical Association on site of gold commissioner’s house to commemorate discovery of gold on Sooke River by Lieut. P.J. Leech, July, 1864, and to mark the site of Leechtown which sprang up following discovery.”

Another, smaller plaque says, “All historic objects in this vicinity have been placed under the protection of the Historic Objects Protection Act of B.C. and any interference is subject to penalty.”

It has been almost pulled off by vandals. (That was in 1964. It later disappeared and, to mark the 150th anniversary, a new plaque has been installed. Here’s hoping it doesn’t end up on somebody’s den wall, too.)

Before going home in disgust, claiming that you’ve been cheated, please note that at this point the road forks. If you will follow the left lane about 50 feet (an understatement as I found out while revisiting Leechtown last year) you will find something like the ghost towns you’ve seen on television and in pictures. In this clearing is a number of tumble-down shacks and a large water tower. Only a cabin retains any semblance of having been living quarters.

Although not of the original town, these ruins are quite old and you probably will spend a pleasant half-hour searching them. And watch out for nails!

These shacks probably were used by the operators of the mining development you saw earlier. (One of them, I learned later, was long used by hunters from the city.) Their present dilapidated condition is not completely the result of age and weather. Souvenir hunters have dug up the surrounding ground poked through wall-board and pulled down ceilings. And those small holes you see are not the handiwork of woodpeckers, either–those are from the many hunters who have used the shacks as targets.

In fact, these curio-seeking vandals once forced the complete barring of the public from the area. In 1960 a logging official told the Colonist, “We finally closed it all. They were taking everything that would move.”

Many other collapsed cabins and abandoned mining and logging equipment dot the area. But of the town’s original stores, hotels (particularly the 12-room Mount Arrarat Hotel), saloons and gold commissioner’s office, nothing remains. (Nothing remains of the buildings described above, either.)

It is hard to believe that Leechtown boasted 1200 mines in her heyday. Most of the rusting machinery you may discover beneath the thick carpet of moss is of later vintage. During the Depression the claims were again worth working and saw considerable activity prior to the Second World War.

This region contains the Jordan and Leech Rivers, and part of the headwaters of the San Juan River. All have yielded gold but most activity has centred on the Leech. Even today some claims are being worked.

Named after the gold’s discoverer, Lieut. Peter Leech, the town sprang up overnight. Where there had been only virgin forest, a tent city appeared. In fact, at her peak, Leechtown rivalled Victoria’s rate of growth and it was actually feared that she would depopulate the city.

Miners reached the scene either by steamer from Victoria or followed narrow, slippery trails over the mountains on horseback. Within weeks, thousands, many of them veterans of the Cariboo gold rush, arrived to try their luck.

(These men, too late to stake good claims in the Cariboo, had returned to Victoria and were unemployed; to them, news of a strike on the nearby Leech River was a godsend.)

The cry “Gold!” had swept Victoria like a flash. During the first feverish days of the strike, crowds waited at the piers for news from steamers plying between the city and Sooke. When Capt. Moore’s Alexandra docked with word that a $70 nugget had been found, “loud cheers of rejoicing rent the air”.

Excited, gesticulating men met at street corners and discussed possibilities of the strike until the early hours of the morning. The precious metal exerted such tremendous drawing power on the community, that even “the inmates of the hospital have been affected by it and several have already left for the mines”.

When the first buildings appeared in Leechtown, indicating the general faith in her potential, Vancouver Island Governor Arthur Edward Kennedy visited the scene, hiking with his party from Sooke.

Perhaps as you tramp through these forests you will sense the feeling of the crowd that surrounded Kennedy’s tent and, in the flickering light of torches, sang, “For he’s a jolly good fellow.”

Their spirit may have been somewhat dampened later when the governor felt impelled to deliver a lecture on temperance, having noted that most of the men passed their free time tilting glasses!

Kennedy returned to Victoria with a east one souvenir–a sprained ankle
As the town prospered, pack trains of horses were instituted, accommodations for miners opened along the route from Victoria and a daily four-horse coach to the junction of the Sooke Trail established. Steamer service between the towns was increased.

Hopes grew as men began collecting as much as $22 worth of nuggets and coarse gold in a single day. Today’s prices would realize at least four times as much–good wages by any standard. (Even more today with the current price of gold.)

However, some trouble arose over mining licences. “A practical miner” named Charles Dechant told the Colonist that, “There is great dissatisfaction among the miners at the law requiring the pre-payment of the mining licence. He [Dechant] also states the parties with licences in their possession stand watching the prospectors, and when any good thing is struck, pounce on it before the actual discoverer can get it recorded.”

All told, the Colony collected $2000 in licensing fees.

Townsites immediately sprang up at Sooke. There was Thompson’s Landing at the mouth of the Sooke River; Kennedy, where the new government road touched the shore; and Sooke City, on the northeast slope of Sooke Harbour. Each claimed to be the best jumping-off point for the Leech River gold fields.

But even as the infant town enjoyed this fame and prosperity, the seeds of her doom were becoming apparent. All agreed that the gold was plentiful. But getting it was another matter. The area is so littered with small boulders (and some not to so small as I was reminded when viewing some archival photos) that reaching the gold-bearing sands underneath–even today–is a profitless venture.

Leechtown had reached her peak and died by late 1865. The miners, now realizing her limits, drifted off to the new gold strike at Big Bend. Few returned. And the town that was going to “empty” Victoria disintegrated to the scattered ruins found today.

So it was in 1964. What little there was to see then has all but vanished, as has so much of our history in British Columbia. Mother Nature, particularly in a rain forest, is unkind to man’s puny efforts. But it’s the senseless destruction by intent that really does the most damage. The result is always the same: Gone, gone, gone. And we never learn.

Courtesy of Bill Irvine: http://youtu.be/sUKKoU_PVWo”>Leechtown