[LINK] Nick Eagland of Postmedia News on reviving two BC ghost towns

[rfmcdonald]

Postmedia News' Nick Eagland writes about two towns in British Columbia, abandoned for decades, that businesspeople would like to revive for their contemporary ends.

Two neighbouring ghost towns, both failed by the 20th-century mining industry in northwest B.C., could be on the brink of new life thanks to monster power projects helmed by a pair of dreamers.

The town of Kitsault, about 115 kilometres northwest of Terrace, was a molybdenum mining community for three years until the market crashed in 1982 and its 1,200 residents abandoned it almost overnight.

Some 28 nautical kilometres down Observation Inlet is Anyox, the site of a once-booming copper mine powered by its own hydroelectric dam until both operations were shuttered in 1935, leaving the town’s 3,000 residents with little reason to stay.

One has plans for a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Kitsault, while the other is rehabilitating two hydroelectric dams meant to power LNG projects.

While natural gas prices slump and Asian demand for LNG is in question, both men are banking on long-term returns.