Deep into the Britannia Mine Museum

We went deep into Canada’s Britannia Mine Museum and it may just be the coolest mine we’ve been into.

The Britannia Mine Museum is a massive 20-story relic just 10 minutes south of Squamish along the spectacular Sea-to-Sky Highway.

Unless you happen to be asleep in the passenger side of your vehicle, the building is hard to miss.

We stopped by the Britannia Mine Museum on our overnight road trip to Squamish. Entrance to the museum includes the mine tour and since we had half an hour until the next tour, we perused the various buildings filled with displays and old mining equipment.

The museum is chockfull of hands-on exhibitions for big kids…

These tires are wheely big.

And here we have a big old thingy-ma-bobber with rotating cogs. Don’t quote me on that one though.

Inside the massive lime tank.

The Britannia Mine was one of largest sources of copper in Canada. The mine has been in production since 1906 however the most prominent building that currently stands is called Mill 3, which opened in 1923 after Mill 2 burned to the ground. Mining operations ceased in 1974 due to struggling profits (from various reasons ranging from the Great Depression, WWII, strikes, etc).

We enjoy the old X-Files episodes and will have to go back to see the episodes that were filmed at the Britannia Mine Museum.

Oversized catheter? I hope not.

Stairs to the tour meeting location.

Beautiful views of Britannia Beach from the tour meeting location.

One of the things we enjoyed on this mine tour is that the tour guide demonstrated machinery in operation, like this drill that made a lot of loud noise.

The last core shed standing at the mine, filled with rock samples.

Miners would have to climb these 375 steps next to the old skip car rail every day.