Katherine Bickford

The road to Jim Mitchell Lake

Bedwell Lake in Strathcona Provincial Park is a very popular 12 km day hike – it was so popular during the last week of August that we decided to venture past the Bedwell trailhead and visit Jim Mitchell Lake.

The lake used to be called Crystal Lake, but was re-named Jim Mitchell Lake about ten years after the death of James Scott Mitchell, who died in 1937 while on a survey party near Buttle Lake.

The dam on the lake  an earth filled structure – it impounds water that is used to generate electricity at the Nystar mine.

“In the early 1980s, the 8.2 MW Thelwood power station was built to provide the additional electricity needed to expand production at NMF to include the HW underground mine. This power station is located in the adjacent Thelwood Valley to the southeast of NMF. The Thelwood power station is fed by a penstock from Jim Mitchell Lake. An overhead power line from the Thelwood power station runs along a gravel access road and then into the Price 13L portal before it daylights in Myra Valley.”

Nyrstar Myra Falls Interim Site-Wide C&R Plan for Nyrstar Myra Falls