The Tipple Shack on top of the hill above the #40 Stamp Mill at Hedley BC - August 06, 2010.

The Tipple shed is the jump off point where the ore trams from higher up the mountain dumped into the ore bins on the last leg of the journey to be fed into #40 Stamp Mill for processing.

Despite the smokey valley from summer time forest fires in the district the Tipple shed on the hill at Hedley provides a wonderful view of the town of Hedley and the Similkameen Valley. Stretched behind me to continue up the Nickel Plate Mountain is the tramway slash that used to have a two-stage tram that shifted ore between the Stamp Mill below and the Nickel Plate Mine head some 500 meters above. The Tramway was completed in 1903 with 10,000 feet of skinny rails and was proclaimed to be the longest of its kind in the world.

Even further up the mountain is the Mascot Mine. In the 1990s plans were laid to burn the Mascot Mine buildings down and remove what was left of the Stamp mill foundations and Tipple Shack on the hill. Their obvious heritage value, however, won them stay after stay as Bill Barlee, the Minister of Tourism for B.C. at the time, helped organize a coalition to preserve the structures. In 1995 the Upper Similkameen Indian Band re-roofed several key buildings to slow down deterioration while concerned citizens in the town of Hedley lobbied and petitioned to have the historic mining site preserved. On Barlee’s recommendation, the province pony’d up $740,000 and bought the site.

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