Sunday, November 3, 2013

Beach Church
(Now the Post Office)

Beach Church,
Brittania Beach, B.C. Canada


"Britannia Beach is a small unincorporated community in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District located approximately 55 kilometers north of VancouverBritish Columbia on the Sea-to-Sky Highway on Howe Sound. It has a population of about 300.
The community first developed between 1900 and 1904 as the residential area for the staff of the Britannia Mining and Smelting Company. The residential areas and the mining operation were physically interrelated, resulting in coincidental mining and community disasters through its history.
Today, the town is host to the Britannia Mine Museum, formerly known as the British Columbia Museum of Mining, on the grounds of the old Britannia Mines. The mine's old concentrator facilities, used to separate copper ore from its containing rock, are a National Historic Site of Canada. " (Link 1.)

Brittania Mine Museum


"On April 1, 1975 the BC Museum of Mining was opened to the public, and was designated as a National Historic Site in 1988. The following year, 1989, the Museum site was designated a British Columbia Historic Landmark. The Britannia site and its historic buildings, may be familiar to fans of the X-Files series as several episodes were filmed on the site. In conjunction with the opening of a major expansion project the museum was renamed the Britannia Mine Museum in 2010." (Link 1.)

One of the historic buildings on the site is the original  Beach Church. According to Bruce Ramsey in his book Britannia it was built in 1952 for $16,500. What was unique about this church is that one side was used for Catholic services and one side was used for Protestant services.  They were separated by a wall. Today one side is used as the post office and the other side as a meeting hall.  

The original dark wood beams of the church sanctuary can be seen in ceiling of the meeting hall.  A small dark wood cross haphazardly sitting in one of the corners of the rafters brings memories of the original church. 
.
Photos: Taken in 2010 and 2013 by SW. 
Reference 1: Britannia, by Bruce Ramsey
Reference 2: Demolition Mama blog post "Choo Choo Britannia", 2/6/10.
Link 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Beach,_British_Columbia
Link 2: http://www.jtc.sala.ubc.ca/britanniabeach/workshop1/assign4/green-newest.pdf (Note sketch of Post Office/Church.)
Link 3: http://www.memorybc.ca/britannia-beach-united-church-fonds;rad


Prayer

God, be with the persecuted Christians through out the world. Amen
(SW)

No comments:

Post a Comment