Location of Bendor Range

The Bendor Range is a small but once-famous subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains, about It is approximately 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 mi²) in area and about 40 km long (NW to SE) and about 18 km at its widest. The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. The Coast Mountains are a Mountain range of the Pacific Cordillera, running along the north western shore of the North American continent extending south It lies between Anderson Lake on the southeast and the Carpenter Lake Reservoir or the Bridge River Power Project on the north, with the gold-rich valley of Cadwallader Creek on its southwest. Anderson Lake may refer to Anderson Lake (British Columbia Anderson Lake (Minnesota Anderson Lake (Nova Scotia Carpenter Lake, officially Carpenter Lake Reservoir, is the largest of the three Reservoirs of the Bridge River Power Project, which is located in the mountains The Bridge River Power Project is a hydroelectric power development in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the Lillooet Country

The range's western flank is the site of a series of now-semi-abandoned mining towns. One of these, Bralorne, is among the deepest mines in Canada and in its heyday was the third-richest gold mine in the world; it has waned from a peak population of 8,000 to less than 300 today. Bralorne is an historic underground Gold mining community in the Bridge River District, some sixty dirt road miles west of the town of Lillooet. Its shafts plunge a mile beneath sea level under the range, starting at 3500' above. The name "Bendor" is believed by some locally to be a Gaelic-French hybrid - ben d'or - mountain of gold (note Welsh: Pen d'awr means the same thing) - and while it does mean that, more or less, the name was conferred in honour of a famous racehorse of the 1890s.

The range has only a few small icefields, but a number of extremely high and (for climbers) difficult peaks. The highest is Whitecap Mountain 2918 m (9573 ft), which is visible from the Lillooet end of Seton Lake but, as it is located near the heart of the range, invisible from the towns and lakes around its perimeter. Lillooet (formerly Cayoosh Flat) is a small but historic and highly scenic community on the Fraser River in western Seton Lake is a freshwater Fjord draining into the Fraser River at the town of Lillooet British Columbia, about 22 km long and 243 m in elevation and 26 At the northwest of the range, but mostly invisible from the towns below because of the terrain of its flanks, is Mount Truax 2870 m (9416 ft). East of it are Mount Williams 2775 m (9104 ft) and Mount Bobb 2821 m (9255 ft).

Note: some classification systems assign the Bendor to the Chilcotin Ranges subgrouping of the Pacific Ranges, but this is incorrect as it is on the south side of the Bridge River, which is the limit of the Chilcotin Ranges. Chilcotin Ranges are a subdivision of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains (in some classifications they are a separate subdivision The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. The Bridge River is or was a major tributary of British Columbia's Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of Lillooet Chilcotin Ranges are a subdivision of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains (in some classifications they are a separate subdivision

External links

• Bridge River-Lillooet Country Archive
• Bendor Range entry in the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia
• Aerial view of Bendor Range from Randall & Kat's Flying Photos, gold mining ghost town of Bralorne in foreground.