Mascot Mine

Mascot Gold Mine - Hedley Mascot Mine

Useful Information

Location:	At Hedley, tours start from Snaza’ist Visitor Centre, on Highway 3. 303 km from Vancouver, 382 km from Seattle, 398 km from Spokane. (49.356496, -120.079201)
Open:	closed. [2026]
Fee:	closed. [2026]
Classification:	Gold Mine
Light:	Electric Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:	D=4 h.
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Mascot Mine, 5800 Highway 3, PO Box 20, Hedley, B.C. V0X 1K0, Tel: 1-888-799-8733, +1-250-292-8733. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1897	first gold discovered in Hedley.
1899	Duncan Woods stakes the claim of the mine but is not able to secure development funds.
1931	claim sold to Hedley Mascot Gold Mines (HMG) for $150,000.
1936	mine opened.
1949	mine closed.
1988	mining restarted by the Mascot Nickel Plate Mines, a merger of Hedley Mascot Gold Mines and neighbour Kelowna Exploration (KelEx).
1990	historic buildings bought by the NDP government for $740,000.
1995	redeveloped by the Upper Similkameen Indian Band.
1996	gold mining finally ended as mine was exhausted.
2003	provincial grant of $303,000 for retrofitting the site for tourism.
20-JUL-2004	opened to the public.
2017	mine closed for construction work.
2021	provincial grant of $800,000 to the band for renovation works.
2023	scheduled reopening (overdue).

Description

The mine is currently closed for massive renovation works which were necessary for security. There was a grant for the renovation, and works are ongoing, but the planned reopening in 2023 did not happen. So as they are two years over time, we have no idea when they will actually reopen.

Mascot Mine is located high above the village of Hedley at the steep walls of the Similkameen Valley. To get there is a little tricky, so the tours start at the Snaza’ist Visitor Centre, the former Hedley Elementary School, on Highway 3. The building has been converted into an interpretive centre with gift shop and ticket ofice.

Buses bring the visitors up Nickle Plate Road and through a gate at Nickle Plate Mine to a staging area located 1625 m asl. A wooden stairway goes down 500 stairs to the mine buildings, with various landings and bench seating for rests along the way. The view is breathtaking, and there are various stops, for example the Dry Room, where miners started and ended their shifts with a shower and change of clothes. The main level is the 4,800 Foot Level (1,480 m asl), where the first tunnel was driven into the hillside. From the Main Portal a tunnel with narrow-gauge railway tracks goes into the mountain about one kilometre. A maze of tunnels, sublevels, chutes and raises follows. On the surface there are numerous buildings, including the Mine Office, Ore Bin, Blacksmith Shop, Compressor Shed and the Aerial Tramway. The tramway was used to haul the material up to the mine during the 1930s.

The mine was abandoned already in 1949, the buildings were stripped of their equipment and abandoned. Over the years they became dangerous, and so in the early 1990s there were plans to burn them down. Bill Barlee, South Okanagan historian and mining buff, and British Columbia¹s Minister of Tourism at that time, saw the potential tourism opportunity. The NDP government bought the Mascot Mine property for $740,000. The Upper Similkameen Indian Band (USIB) got involved in 1995. They started to restore the buildings until they could be opened as an outdoor mining museum.

There are numerous mines, especially in U.S.A. and Canada, which are named Mascot Mine. So in general it’s better to call this mine Hedley Mascot Mine or Mascot Mine of Hedley, adding the name of the village makes it unique and avoids mix-ups.