Hobson Lake
| Hobson Lake | |
|---|---|
| Location | British Columbia |
| Coordinates | 52°30′00″N 120°20′00″W / 52.50000°N 120.33333°W |
| Primary inflows | Clearwater River and Hobson Creek |
| Primary outflows | Clearwater River |
| Max. length | 35 km (22 mi) |
| Max. width | 1.5 km (0.9 mi) |
| Surface elevation | 858 m (2,815 ft) |
| Islands | 1 |
| Settlements | None |
Hobson Lake is the uppermost lake on the Clearwater River in east-central British Columbia, Canada. Hobson Lake is one of the six major lakes in Wells Gray Provincial Park.
Hobson Lake is bordered to the east by peaks of the Cariboo Mountains which rise nearly 2000 m (6500 ft) above the lakeshore. Among these are Twin Spires and Mount Hugh Neave. The latter is the seventh highest mountain in Wells Gray Park at 2,829 m (9,281 ft). Its name recognizes a mountaineer who climbed many peaks in northern Wells Gray Park during the 1960s and 1970s. Hugh Neave made the first ascent of Wells Gray Park's third highest mountain, Garnet Peak, in 1974; it is located due east of Hobson Lake's outlet. West of Hobson Lake is the Quesnel Highland which has no named mountains near the lake.
Hobson Lake is named for John B. Hobson, a man who did more than any other in British Columbia to demonstrate the value of hydraulic placer mining. With this technique, a bank of gold-bearing gravel was washed into sluices by a powerful jet of water where the gold separated from the gravel. Hobson was born in Ireland in 1844, moved to New York, and studied mining engineering and metallurgy in California. He came to Canada in 1892 at the invitation of the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway to explore the extensive fields of gold-bearing gravel known to exist in the Cariboo District. He subsequently organized two companies, the Consolidated Cariboo Hydraulic Mining Company on the Quesnel River and the Horsefly Hydraulic Mining Company on the Horsefly River. These were the largest and most modern attempts at hydraulic mining so far known in British Columbia. Unfortunately, because of a lack of funding, neither development prospered.
Thomas Drummond was the first prospector to investigate Hobson Creek, one of three streams which flows into the upper end of Hobson Lake. He wrote gloomily:
I built a flume 10 feet by 45 feet and 325 feet long, and put in a dam 10 feet high and 60 feet long, which carried the water of the stream and laid the bed bare. I spent between $4000 and $5000 and the returns were very disappointing on the whole, although I took out a little gold. It is a terrible country for boulders, both large and numerous, of glacial origin, which have simply filled the creek, making it practically impossible to work the bed of the stream or to prospect on the sides. Under such conditions as to remoteness and boulders the creek would have to be exceptionally rich, which it certainly is not, and even after the flume and dam were in it did not pay the expenses of mining.
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