McGillivray, British Columbia

McGillivray, formerly McGillivray Falls, is an unincorporated recreational community on the west shore of Anderson Lake, just east of midway between the towns of Pemberton and Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada, in that province's southwest Interior.

History

McGillivray's name is derived from the names of Mount McGillivray and McGillivray Creek and its falls, which were said to be named by a miner, according to a 1911 note by Caspar Phair, Gold Commissioner for the Lillooet Mining District. A parallel account, possibly the same, says the name derives one of two placer-mining partners, McGililvray and McDonald, though the name James McGilvery, an early trail builder, also appears in records and mirrors the local pronunciation of the name (McGILL-var-ee).

In the wake of the Cayoosh Gold Rush of the 1870s, prospectors fanned out over the Lillooet and Bridge River Countries, which had been largely bypassed during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858-60 which first brought large numbers of non-indigenous people to the area. Among the successful mines which were started in the region during that period was the Brett Group Mine, which was located on a gold-bearing ledge higher on the mountainside.

Some houses today are remnants of a one-time railway-based resort and cabins which sprang up after the opening of the rail line in the early 1910s, which took the name of the waterfall a few hundred yards up McGillivray Creek from its mouth on the lake. McGillivray Falls Post Office opened 1 June 1929, closed 3 May 1961. During World War II, McGillivray Falls, as the community was then known, was one of four "self-supporting centres" in the Lillooet Country for the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians outside a 100-mile "quarantine zone" from the Coast. McGillivray Falls was just outside the 100-mile limit, but due to the area's isolation (there was no road to the Coast before the 1960s) internees at McGillivray were hired by Frank Devine to work at his sawmill 2 miles downline from D'Arcy, at the head of Anderson Lake and itself within the 100-mile limit; the location of that mill is today the unincorporated rural settlement of Devine.

Electoral representation

McGillivray is in Electoral Area C of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, which handles matters such as zoning and septic and construction permits. Provincially McGillivray is in West Vancouver-Howe Sound with Pemberton and Whistler though federally it is in Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon.

References

• Google maps link
• Short Portage to Lillooet, Irene Edwards, self-publ. 1976, Lillooet
• My Sixty Years in Canada, Masajiro Miyazaki
• BCGNIS listing "McGillivray (locality)
• BCGNIS listing "Mount McGillivray
• MINFILE Record Summary, Brett Mine

Coordinates: 50°37′00″N 122°26′00″W / 50.6166667°N 122.4333333°W / 50.6166667; -122.4333333