An e-bike wander in the Whitehorse Copper Belt

Posted On July 7, 2023

Summer has arrived in the southern Yukon in a major way. We’re now hovering around record temperatures (8-10 degrees above normal) every day for at least the next week, and I’m of course looking for ways to enjoy as much of it as possible.

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On Wednesday afternoon (July 5th) I decided to take the e-bike out for a wander, and the easy choice of places to do that is the Copper Belt just a mile or so to the east of home. By the time I got home I had ridden 16 km (10 miles). You can see the route and other details on my Strava page.

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The ride started on a few blocks of paved road through Mary Lake, but there was no traffic, and at 3:50 I was on a quiet side trail off the main road into the Copper Belt. This is the southern end of a strip of copper mines that operated off and on from 1899 until 1982.

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There were two main things I wanted to look at on this ride – the old mines always intrigue me, of course, but there’s also a massive and growing firebreak being cut. The first mining pit I went to was the Keewenaw. This is the view of the pit from the west. A high gravel berm to block the road before reaching this pit was built a few years ago, so few people come here anymore. Tim Green has posted a very good “visitor guide” to this property in his History Exploration Notebook.

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Here’s a brief look at the Keewenaw property, from the Yukon Geological Survey.

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The next image is an aerial view of the Keewenaw area as it looks now.

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I rode past the pit to the end of the waste rock piles (seen at the bottom of the aerial above) – the next photo shows the view to the south from there.

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Next I rode to the level above the pit for a broader view.

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With the temperature now about 24deg;C/75°F, that water looked very inviting from above, so I decided to go down for a dip.

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However, the results of an informal poll are clear – skinnydipping is a significant factor in staying young, and this was a perfect day to knock a few years off 🙂

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Thoroughly refreshed now, I decided to cruise some of the firebreak next before possibly going to another mine. The size of the firebreak is shocking, but I know that its construction could save my home and many hundreds of others when the wildfire that we know will happen arrives.

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Despite the incredible amount of probable firewood stacked up here, I doubt that the price of wood will drop. I think a bit of it was available for the public to cut, but we’re not able to do that anymore.

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It was nice to get into some trees again!

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This virtual tinderbox that’s been left is just plain scary 🙁

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I rode past a couple of side roads that would take me to the next mine, and when I reached the junction with the WWII Canol pipeline road, turned left towards home.

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A few meters after making that turn, though, I stopped to admire the view over the valley between Murray and Mary Lakes, and decided to turn around and go to that other mine.

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I headed back to the west, and at 5:00 reached the junction of the main road (the one on the right) with one of the side roads back into the mining area. I took the road less travelled 🙂

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One last firebreak photo, because I liked the contrast between the burned area and the fireweed.

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The last mine was called Black Cub South – here’s what it looks like from the air.

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Next is the Yukon Geological Survey’s summary of the property.

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I decided to see if could do a circumnavigation of the Black Cub South pit. The next photo was shot above the northeastern shore.

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I made a little detour to the west to check out a slope, but it was just waste rock encroaching on a long, narrow, un-named lake lying between the Keewenaw and Black Cub South.

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From there I rode home making a big loop to the east along the WWII Canol pipeline access road, but I didn’t take any photos.