The most authoritative published account of the B.C. mining frontier is Harold A. Innis, Settlement and the Mining Frontier bound with Settlement and the Forest Frontier in Eastern Canada (A.R.M. Lower). A central theme of the study is the development linkages between the metal mines, the coal mines, transportation and the emergent agriculture frontiers in Alberta and, to a lesser extent, in British Columbia. Vernon C. Fowke and George E. Britnell in their excellent An Historical Analysis of the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement and Grain Rates: A Study in National Transportation Policy, a submission of the Province of Saskatchewan to the Royal Commission on Transportation, 1960, Regina, Queen's Printer, 1961, 58 p., take a similar approach stressing the relationship between transportation policy, agricultural development policy, and the capturing of the southern interior of B.C. for the Canadian economy.
The prior integration of this area into the "Inland Empire", the mining economy centred on Spokane, Washington, is the thesis of the chapter "The American Mining Advance into Southern British Columbia, 1864-1910" in British Columbia and United States: the North Pacific Slope from Fur Trade to Aviation by F.W. Howay, W.N. Sage and H.F. Angus, edited by H.F. Angus, Toronto, Ryerson Press, 1942, 408 p. An earlier and very brief account by Judge Frederic William Howay can be found in British Columbia, the Making of a Province, Toronto, Ryerson, 1928, 289p. Both these books develop the theme presented by William Joseph Trimble, The Mining Advance into the Inland Empire, Madison, Wisconsin, 1914, 254p. (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, no. 638, History Series, vol. 3, no.2).
A brief account of the history of trade unionism in the mining area during the period can be found in Paul A. Phillips, No Power Greater: A Century of Labour in B.C. (1967), Vancouver, B.C., Federation of Labour, Boag Foundation, 189 p.
Much more graphic in appeal, but less analytical, are the numerous popular pictorial and historical collections of which three deserve special mention: N.L. Barlee, Gold Creeks and Ghost Towns: East Kootenay, Boundary, West Kootenay, Okanagan and Similkameen, Summerland, B.C., Canada West Magazine, 1970, 183p; Lambert Florin, Ghost Towns: Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia, Seattle, Superior Publishing, 1971, 72p.; and Art Downs, Paddlewheels on the Frontier: the Story of British Columbia and Yukon Sternwheel Steamers, Sidney, B.C., Gray's Publishing, 1972, 160p. The copiously illustrated Canada West Magazine (published quarterly since 1969 at Summerside, B.C.) also contains numerous articles on the B.C. mining frontier.
Two political histories of B.C. deal briefly with the mining frontier as it influenced provincial policies: a narrative account by Margaret A. Ormsby in British Columbia: A History, Toronto, Macmillan, 1958, reprinted with corrections 1971, 566p. and a more critical analysis of the provincial politics of the Kootenay development with particular reference to the railway deals and land grants in Martin Robin, The Rush for Spoils: The Company Province, 1871-1933, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1972, 318 p.
Less accessible and more specialized are a number of University theses. Two are of particular interest: "History of the West Kootenay District in British Columbia" by Mollie Esther Cottingham, M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1947 and "Mining Companies in the West Kootenay and Boundary Regions of British Columbia 1890-1900; Capital Formation and Financial Operations" by J.S. Church, MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1960.
1993 UPDATE
THE BRITISH COLUMBIA MINING FRONTIER
Paul Phillips
Dow, A.C. "The Canadian Base Metal Mining Industry (Non-Ferrous) and Its Impact on Economic Development in Canada." Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manitoba, 1980.
