The Highland Valley Copper mine is the largest open-pit copper mine in Canada, located near Logan Lake, British Columbia. It is an amalgamation of three historic mining operations: Bethlehem (later Valley Copper), Lornex and Highmont.[1]
History
Early years
The earliest roots of the Bethlehem mining operations began when the Jersey zone was staked and bonded to a French syndicate c. 1886. This claim changed hands several times until finally in October 1954 when the Huestis-Reynolds-McLallen Syndicate sponsored a prospective examination covering 100 claims including Jersey and surrounding zones.
Copper was known to occur in the Cascade Mountains near Princeton as the productive mines of Allenby in 1914 had shown. On the strength of this, prospectors searched for other deposits in the region. These they found north of Merritt and east of Ashcroft at Logan Lake at the Jersey zone.