Anyox, an abandoned mining community in the Coast Mountains, lies at the mouth of Anyox Creek on Granby Bay in Observatory Inlet, about 79 miles (127 km) north-northeast of Prince Rupert and 37 miles (60 km) south of Stewart, British Columbia. The name Anyox means ‘hidden waters’ in the Nisga’a language. Observatory Inlet was named by Captain George Vancouver in 1793 for the temporary astronomical observatory he established to calibrate navigational chronometers. The Coast Mountains form a major component of the Pacific Coast Ranges in western North America. They extend from southwestern Yukon through Southeast Alaska and along the entire British Columbia mainland coast south to the Fraser River. The mountains consist of deformed igneous and metamorphic rocks that originated as tectonically active terranes of varying ages and geographic origins. These terranes accreted onto the North American Plate, forming five distinct geological belts arranged from west to east—the Insular, Coast, Intermontane, Omineca, and Foreland Belts—each with its own unique metamorphic, physiographic, metallogenic, and tectonic history. The Anyox Pendant, a geological formation in the Coast Belt, is part of a region rich in base and precious metal mineral deposits covering 98,560 acres (39,886 ha). In geological terms, a pendant is a mass of rock entirely surrounded by an igneous intrusion, such as a batholith or other pluton. The Anyox Pendant is bordered to the north, south, and east by granite, quartz monzonite, and granodiorite of the Paleocene-to-Eocene–aged Hyder Pluton. It contains complexly deformed greenstone volcanic layers overlain by a thick succession of turbidite sedimentary rocks. Copper-rich mineral deposits—long known to the Nisga’a people, who have inhabited the area for thousands of years—occur at the contact between these layers.

The Nisga’a, a Tsimshian tribe, historically clashed with the Haida and Tlingit. The Haida frequently ventured from the outer coast into mainland fjords with fleets of 100’s of canoes and thousand’s of warriors, capturing slaves, massacring men, and destroying villages. Anyox was the Nisga’a name for a hidden creek used as a refuge during Haida raids. In 1793, Captain George Vancouver sailed into a fjord he later named Observatory Inlet aboard HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham while exploring the coast for a Northwest Passage. In the 18th century, navigation depended on stellar observations for latitude and chronometers for longitude. Chronometers of the time were prone to error—especially on long voyages—and required periodic calibration. Surveyors and navigators primarily used lunar-distance observations for this purpose, though the calculations were complex and time-consuming. Typically, an onshore observation station was established at a location with a broad view of the night sky, where dozens—or sometimes hundreds—of lunar observations were made, each requiring roughly three hours of calculations. Vancouver established an observation station at present-day Salmon Cove on the western shore of Observatory Inlet, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Anyox. He left Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey in charge from July 23 to August 17, with orders to record the necessary observations to determine the station’s true position and calibrate the chronometers. Vancouver then departed to explore more of the coast in small boats. In the late 19th century, Nisga’a lore referenced a mountain of gold adjacent to the inlet, attracting gold-hungry prospectors.

In 1889, John Flewin and Charles Todd ventured into Granby Bay and discovered a piece of chalcopyrite—a possible indicator of a nearby copper deposit. The following year, Flewin returned and found a large ore body that became the Bonanza mineral claim. News of the potential copper discovery caught the attention of Marcus Daly, a copper baron from Butte, Montana, and a founder of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Flewin returned in 1901 with experienced prospectors and discovered the Hidden Creek group of ore bodies. Development began that summer, but he struggled to raise additional capital and was forced to put the property up for sale by 1908. Although Daly had died in 1900, his scout M.K. Rodgers and T. Hodgins purchased the property and continued large-scale development until 1910. This initial work attracted the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company, which bought Hodgins’s share and began constructing the town in 1912. By 1914 Anyox had a population of nearly 3,000, and the mine and smelter were in full operation. Copper was extracted from the Hidden Creek and Bonanza deposits and smelted on site. Coal to fuel the smelter was shipped from Union Bay near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and from Fernie in southeastern British Columbia. With no rail or road links, all transportation relied on ocean steamers. In the early 1920s a hydroelectric dam was built, standing 156 feet (48 m) high—the tallest in Canada at the time. Although forest fires nearly destroyed Anyox in 1923, the town was rebuilt and mining operations continued. The Great Depression reduced copper demand, leading to the mine’s closure in 1935. The town was abandoned, and salvage operations in the 1940s removed most machinery and steel. Two forest fires, in 1942 and 1943, burned the remaining wooden structures. During its 25 years of operation, Anyox’s mines and smelters produced 8,750 pounds (3,669 kg) of gold, 500,000 pounds (226,796 kg) of silver and 760 million pounds (344,730,201 kg) of copper. Today limited mining continues in the area, and there is speculative interest in renovating the hydroelectric dam and connecting its power supply to the British Columbia grid. Read more here and here. Explore more of Anyox and Observatory Inlet here: