Pilot Bay Smelter

Adjacent to the west side of Pilot Bay Park and accessible by the same road south from Kootenay Landing, is the Pilot Bay Smelter—wikimapia shows the location of the smelter.

As decommissioned industrial sites go, the smelter at Pilot Bay is quite mild: a few acres of red sands, a bit of old machinery, and two chimneys. The smelter, itself, has not operated for a long time. It was built in 1895 to smelt ore from Riondel, but operated for less than a year. For a history of it visit the site about the Crow’s Nest Highway

This is an Alex J. Garner painting (circa 1975, private collection) of the Pilot Bay Smelter in 1896. It is based on a photograph, a copy of which is in the BC Archives. The view is from the townsite looking to the northwest.

A panorama of the smelter site looking to the south and west. Except for the two chimneys (one barely visible in the trees on the left), some foundations, and a few scraps of machinery, little is left but tailings.

Derelict machinery on the smelter site.

The plate reads: Chicago Iron Works.

A view of smelter site from the old townsite shows the two chimneys—one is behind the tree to the left of the other.

This little yellow salsify suggests that the site is not all barren tailings. There were even some wild orchids in the vicinity.