Camborne, British Columbia

Camborne is a locality and former galena-mining town on the east side of the Incomappleux River, northeast of the head of Beaton Arm of Upper Arrow Lake,[1] in the West Kootenay region of southern British Columbia.

Cable being packed to the Silver Dollar Mine, 1906, E.F. Tucker, Photog.

Formerly called Fish Creek Camp, mining recorder and engineer, John Cory Menhinick, reputedly named it after the mining school he attended in the mining town of Camborne, Cornwall in England. Menhinick preempted this site at the confluence of Fish and Pool creeks.[1][2]

Mining became active in Camborne in 1899 with the Eva, Oyster, Beatrice and Silver Dollar mines. Camps and adits were started on the slopes as was town and millsite at the river level. The mines were a mixture of silver and gold, with lead and zinc considered secondary. Cory Mehinick was a Cornish hotel owner and mine operator. A road was built through the Fish Canyon to access the town from Beaton. The mines only operated for a few years and activity dropped precipitously after 1902.

In 1930 with the Depression and the pegging of gold prices interest renewed in the area: the Oyster mine was re-worked under the Meridian name, and the True Fissure mine was explored in the upper valley at over 7000 feet elevation. A cat road was proposed but not built until the 1960s. Camborne became another Japanese internment camp after 1941. The Meridian mine was again reworked under the Sunshine Lardo name in the 1950s. Period buildings stood until recently, though vandals and logging have affected the area.

The site is abandoned today although the name remains in use by a few local remaining area residents. Other towns and former towns in the region, which is known as Arrowhead (also the name of one of those towns), include Beaton, Comaplix and Galena Bay.