When ghosts hovered: Community and crisis in the company town of Britannia Beach, British Columbia, Canada, 1957-1965 [post-print]

Abstract

Britannia Beach is not a ghost town today, but between 1957 and 1965 residents and employees of the former company-owned copper mining town, located 48 km north of Vancouver, British Columbia, had good reasons to believe it would become one. The town faced two major crises in less than a decade, triggering mine shutdowns that threw the future of the town into question. How did two shutdowns within a decade and affecting the same company town prompt such different reactions? This article explores the extent to which employees’ notions of community were, in historian Steven High’s words, a “sufficiently empowering myth,” capable of mobilizing Britannia’s workforce to resist the mine closures when ghosts hovered over the town.