Supporting Local Initiatives: The Britannia Project Preserving Our Past; Investing in Our Future

Teck Cominco Limited recognizes the value of community cultural property and heritage. In April 2005, the Company made a $750,000 matching-pledge donation to the Britannia Project Concentrator Rehabilitation Project at Britannia Beach. Funds matched by the Company’s pledge have been directed towards refurbishing windows, installing new exterior cladding and initiating an extensive site clean up program. A total of $4.5 million dollars has been leveraged for this initiative.

"By partnering with Teck Cominco, we have been able to attract additional interest and financial support, but notably the real value of the partnership goes well beyond that.” explains Kirstin Clausen, Executive Director of the BC Mining Museum. “Teck Cominco’s continued leadership has inspired greater community cohesion, and strengthened the role of the museum as a steward of Canada’s mining history."

The project’s windows workshop employs fifteen Britannia area residents. This dedicated team rehabilitated 650 4 feet by 4.5 feet window sashes from the twenty story mill building, and they are now ready to be re-installed. They have also constructed 250 new window sashes designed to historical specifications, from wood that was remanufactured to give value added product. Thousands of square feet of new cladding will be laid over top of existing cladding, preserving the historical fabric of the interior of the building. The project is proud of its efficiencies, including waste minimization and an estimated project savings of $500,000 through local procurement.

The Britannia Mine is located 48 km north of Vancouver. Once the most prolific copper producer in the British Commonwealth, it closed its doors of operation in 1974, having endured two world wars and notching an impressive 70 years of production. Over its lifetime it supported two communities where more than 60,000 people lived and worked. In 1987, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada designated the Mill Building a National Historical Site recognizing its industrial heritage and architectural significance as North American’s only Gravity-Fed Concentrator Complex. Since the mine closed more than 30 years ago, the building has served as an educational and tourist experience and the BC Museum of Mining has provided 1.25 million people with a tour of the building.