This page is for the former mining town in the Queen Charlotte Islands. For the bay on the island of South Georgia, see Gold Harbour

Gold Harbour

Gold Harbour is a small bay 5 miles south-southwest of Cape Charlotte, with Bertrab Glacier at its head, along the east end of South Georgia. During the early 1900s, the feature was variously called Anna's Bay, Gold-Hafen or Sandwich Bay; the latter name has also been used for Iris Bay...

Gold Harbour, was a gold and silver mine and camp on Mitchell Inlet, part of Tasu Sound

Tasu Sound

Tasu Sound is a large sound on the west coast of Moresby Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada. It has several smaller bodies of water within its reaches, including Gold Harbour, the location of Gold Harbour, British Columbia. Also on the shores of the sound is Tasu, a...

 on Moresby Island

Moresby Island

Moresby Island is a large island that forms part of the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada, located at . Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site includes Moresby and other islands...

 in the Queen Charlotte Islands

Queen Charlotte Islands

Haida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...

 of the North Coast of British Columbia

British Columbia Coast

The British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the Pacific Ocean. The usage is synonymous with the term West Coast of Canada....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is notable as the location of the first lode

Lode

In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock....

 mine worked in what is now British Columbia.

The mine property, first prospected by Captain Mitchell of the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

 in 1852 in the wake of the Queen Charlottes Gold Rush

Queen Charlottes Gold Rush

The Queen Charlottes Gold Rush was a gold rush in the southern Queen Charlotte Islands of what is now the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, in 1851....

, and between $5,000 and $75,000 in gold was taken out by Major W. Downie

William Downie

William Downie was a Scottish prospector and explorer involved in the gold rushes in California and British Columbia of the mid-19th Century. Downie was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and raised in Ayrshire....

 by 1859. The sixteen claims by then forming the property and owned by J. McLellan were bonded Nuba Mining in 1907 but the mine did not have a successful showing and the company surrendered its claims in 1912, with McLellan continuing his own work on the site until 1933. A good many Japanese nationals worked at this mine. In that year Gold Harbour Mining Limited milled tailings and a new cut and is reported to have recovered $179,000 in gold, but operations were suspended on December 13 of that year.

The Gold Harbour area is a National Historic Site of Canada.