Waterwheel

For miners working with nothing but hand tools, gold mining was very hard physical labour which seldom “panned out” with a big find. In large operations involving several men, their chances could be improved by building a big wheel to harness the power of water from a nearby creek. Many of Western Canada’s early miners would have been familiar with the design and uses of the over-shot Cornish wheel, which was a common fixture of tin and copper mines in the west of England.

This over-shot waterwheel is similar to those built by miners during the 1860s Cariboo Gold Rush. The first version, built at Heritage Park in 1965, consisted of a waterwheel, upper race and lower flume. It was powered by potable water from a city main, and the expelled water drained into the reservoir. In 1992, those badly deteriorated structures were carefully documented and the wheel removed. Between 2018 and 2020, archival information was reviewed and a second version was built by the Park. This 12′ diameter wheel has a much longer axle and is powered by a recirculating water system, run by an electric pump.