Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated 23 miles north east of Lytton and 32 miles from Ashcroft. In 1892, the population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130 First Nations people. There were 5 general stores, 3 hotels, one Church of England and one school. The principal industries are fruit growing and farming.
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Thompson and Nicola peoples had lived in the region for thousands of years, hunting deer and fishing for salmon. Prior to the Goldrush, Mortimer Cook, an American, and his partner Charles Kimball, had been freighters for the Hudson's Bay Company. With the sudden influx of prospectors on their way to the goldfields, Cook and Kimball built a rope ferry across the Thompson River, and the area became known as Cook's Ferry. By 1864, the ferry had been replaced with a bridge that was built by road contractor Thomas Spence during the construction of the Cariboo Road from Yale to Barkerville.
In 1905, a terrible tragedy occurred just below Spences Bridge. A large slide came down, burying a First Nations village, damming the river for four hours, and washing the bridge out. Today the area is mostly a wasteland of sagebrush with some cultivated fields where irrigation allows.
Today the permanent population of Spences Bridge is 138. The Trans-Canada Highway and both the CPR and CNR railways pass through the community, and Highway 8 from Merritt and the rest of the Nicola Country meets the Trans-Canada at town, meeting the Thompson River near the site of the old Cook's Ferry. Today, this is still the main rancherie of the Cook's Ferry First Nation, a Nlaka'pamux band of the Nicola Tribal Association. Agriculture is a major industry and produce of soft fruits and vegetables are sold in stalls beside the highway in town as well as at wayside stops, as well as at nearby roadside communities such as Bighorn and Shaw Springs.
North of Spences Bridge is Ashcroft (42 km) and Cache Creek (48 km). Also north is 100 Mile House (168 km), Williams Lake (265 km), Quesnel (386 km), and Prince George (503 km). South of Spences Bridge is Lytton (36 km), Hope (147 km), and Vancouver (301 km). And east of the town is Merritt, which is only 65 kilometres east of the town.
Spences Bridge experiences a semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk). The climate is very dry and mild by Canadian standards, with an average annual precipitation of just 269.1 mm (10.6 in). Winters are short and moderately cold, while summers are quite long and hot compared to the rest of Canada. Like much of the lower places in the Thompson Nicola region, temperatures are some of the hottest in Canada during the summer albeit with very low humidity.[1]
| Climate data for Spences Bridge | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 17 (63) |
17.5 (63.5) |
24.5 (76.1) |
32 (90) |
38.5 (101.3) |
39.5 (103.1) |
42.5 (108.5) |
40.5 (104.9) |
37.5 (99.5) |
31 (88) |
21.5 (70.7) |
17.5 (63.5) |
42.5 (108.5) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 0.6 (33.1) |
5 (41) |
12.4 (54.3) |
17.9 (64.2) |
22.4 (72.3) |
25.9 (78.6) |
29.6 (85.3) |
29.5 (85.1) |
24 (75) |
14.8 (58.6) |
5.7 (42.3) |
0.1 (32.2) |
15.7 (60.3) |
| Average low °C (°F) | −5.7 (21.7) |
−3.3 (26.1) |
0.4 (32.7) |
4.3 (39.7) |
8.6 (47.5) |
12.3 (54.1) |
14.6 (58.3) |
14.3 (57.7) |
10 (50) |
4.4 (39.9) |
−1 (30) |
−5.7 (21.7) |
4.4 (39.9) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −25.5 (−13.9) |
−23 (−9) |
−13 (9) |
−4 (25) |
0 (32) |
4 (39) |
6 (43) |
6 (43) |
0 (32) |
−19.4 (−2.9) |
−29 (−20) |
−28.5 (−19.3) |
−29 (−20) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 18.8 (0.74) |
12.5 (0.492) |
12.5 (0.492) |
13.6 (0.535) |
27 (1.06) |
31.9 (1.256) |
29.1 (1.146) |
24.9 (0.98) |
23.5 (0.925) |
22.4 (0.882) |
26.6 (1.047) |
26.2 (1.031) |
269.1 (10.594) |
| Source: Environment Canada[1] | |||||||||||||