Shalalth | |
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Location of Shalalth in British Columbia | |
Coordinates: 50°43′38″N 122°13′1″W / 50.72722°N 122.21694°WCoordinates: 50°43′38″N 122°13′1″W / 50.72722°N 122.21694°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | British Columbia |
Shalalth, pop. c. 400, is one of the main communities of the Seton Lake Band of the St'at'imc (Lillooet) Nation and location of the two main powerhouses of the Bridge River Power Project.
The word Shalalth (pronounced Sha-LATH and spelled Tsal’álh in St'at'imcets, the Lillooet language) means simply "lake" or, particularly, the lake, meaning Seton Lake, a freshwater fjord stretching twenty miles through a desert canyon westwards from the Fraser River at Lillooet.
At the western end of that lake is a short isthmus of land, beyond which is the similar-sized Anderson Lake and the start of pavement southwestwards through the resort areas of Pemberton and Whistler via the port, railway and logging town of Squamish to Vancouver. Located on the portage is the neighbouring community of Seton Portage, which contains the other main communities of the Seton Lake Band of the St'at'imc Nation plus a mix of residential and resort homes owned by non-natives (pop. 700).
These lakes figured prominently as part of the Douglas Road or "Lakes Route", a series of trails and portages from the head of river navigation from the Coast at Port Douglas on Harrison Lake. During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, a horde of miners bound for the upper Fraser bars around Lillooet streamed through the valley in the matter of a few weeks. Estimates range from 15,000-30,000 in this migration, although official records of the time suggest there were no more than 5,000 miners active on the upper Fraser at its peak.