Gun Lake, often spelled Gunn Lake and also known as Big Gun Lake, is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

and unincorporated community in the

Bridge River Country The Bridge River Country is a historic geographic region and mining district in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, lying between the Fraser Canyon and the valley of the Lillooet River, south of the Chilcotin Plateau and north of the Lillo ...

of the West-Central Interior of British Columbia,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, located 5 miles northwest of the community of

Gold Bridge Gold Bridge is an unincorporated community in the Bridge River Country of British Columbia, Canada. Although numbering only around 40 inhabitants, Gold Bridge is the service and supply centre for the upper basin of the Bridge River Valley, whic ...

. It is approximately 6 km in length and is roughly pistol-shaped when seen from above, and drains via a short connecting creek to Gun Creek, which is an important tributary of the

Bridge River The Bridge River is an approximately long river in southern British Columbia. It flows south-east from the Coast Mountains. Until 1961, it was a major tributary of the Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of L ...

, joining it via

Carpenter Lake 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 west of Lillooet, British Columbia. The lake is about 185 kilometres north of the pr ...

. Lajoie Lake, which is just southwest, is also known as Little Gun Lake and is also a small community. The two together are generally referred to as the Gun Lakes. Gun Lake rests at an elevation of 883 m and sits at the base of

Mount Penrose Mount Penrose, known locally as Penrose, , is the easternmost summit of the Dickson Range, a subrange of the Chilcotin Ranges, near Gold Bridge, British Columbia, Canada and immediately above and to the west of Gun Lake. It was named for Senato ...

, a 2,627 m (8,618 ft) peak. The lake's the maximum depth is 103 m, with an average depth of Gun Lake is 49.4 m. The lake contains bull trout (

Salvelinus confluentus The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

), dolly varden (

Salvelinus malma The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. Despite the name "trout" (which typically refers to freshwater species from ...

), kokanee (

Oncorhynchus nerka The sockeye salmon (''Oncorhynchus nerka''), also called red salmon, kokanee salmon, blueback salmon, or simply sockeye, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it. This species is a P ...

), and redside shiner (

Richardsonius balteatus The redside shiner (''Richardsonius balteatus'') is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. This fish is found in the Western United States and British Columbia.Leo Nico, and Pa ...

), and has been stocked annually with rainbow trout (

Oncorhynchus mykiss The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coastal ...

) since 1995. "Big Gun" has a summer population around 100 and has a full-time population of approximately 40 people (as of 2016). Gun Lake constitutes one of the main communities of the Bridge River Valley, the others being Gold Bridge and the mining

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

Bralorne Bralorne ( ) is a historic Canadian gold mining community in the Bridge River District of British Columbia, some 130 km on dirt roads west of the town of Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region o ...

, and a smaller recreational community in the area of

Tyaughton Lake Tyaughton Lake, also known as Tyax Lake, is a lake in the Bridge River Country of the West-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located to the north of Carpenter Lake, a reservoir along the Bridge River formed by Terzaghi Dam of the Br ...

and Gun Creek Road, which runs west from that lake on the north flank of Gun Creek. A major

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

in 2023 burned along the north shore of Gun Lake, destroying approximately 50 homes. According to a newspaper article from 1941 written by an early prospector and currently posted in an old mining cabin in Bralorne, Gun Lake and Gun Creek were named because a prospector once lost his Gun in Gun Creek.

References

* Lakes of British Columbia Bridge River Country Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Populated places in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District {{cariboo-geo-stub

See also

References