Remembering one of B.C.'s deadliest avalanches on the 60th anniversary

Sixty years ago this week, the northwest region of B.C. experienced the second-deadliest avalanche in Canadian history — the Granduc Mine disaster, which took the lives of 26 men. 

That compares with the deadliest, which killed 56 railway workers in Rogers Pass, B.C. in 1910, according to Avalanche Canada.

Terry Hohman was only six months old when her father died in the Granduc Mine disaster, about 1,525 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. Her father Franklin Roth Rose Jr., who went by his middle name Roth, was one of the men who died at the copper mine. He was 22 years old and married to his high school sweetheart and Terry's mother, Lynn Rodeheaver, who was 20 at the time. 

On the morning of Feb. 18, 1965, a massive wall of snow and ice came down on the workers camp, which was separate from the mine site, burying over 100 men and killing 26. Rescue efforts lasted nine days and, even then, seven bodies weren't recovered until the spring.

The remote nature of the community meant that everyone in nearby Stewart, about 50 kilometres southeast of the mine, was impacted by the avalanche, Angela Danuser, the municipality's mayor, told CBC's Daybreak North.

"It was one of the darkest moments in Stewart's history, and a reminder of the tremendous risk that comes with working in the rugged and remote conditions." 

Danuser said the mine and its workers helped build up the town, which now has a population of around 500 people. The opening of the mine attracted workers to Stewart and when production stopped in 1984 due to economic loss, many people left. 

This week, Stewart held two days of events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the deadly avalanche. 

Why northwest B.C.  

Rose loved to hunt and fish. He first came to Canada from the United States as a horse wrangler and an assistant guide to a big game hunting business in the Yukon, said Rodeheaver, Rose's widow. 

To provide for his family and achieve his dream of owning hunting territory, Rose took a job as a heavy equipment operator in the Granduc Mine. His wife and daughter lived in California with their family.

Rodeheaver sent pictures of their daughter Terry to Rose at the camp, and expected the two to meet in person for the first time in February 1965. When Rodeheaver came home one day to see her parents visibly upset, she knew something was wrong. 

"My father pointed to the newspaper, the Oakland Tribune. At the bottom of the front page was a very small outlined notice that there had been an avalanche at the Granduc Mine in British Columbia."

"It was several days before we learned that he was among the missing, and another day to learn that his body had been found. Roth would have been 23 on March 16; I would turn 21 on March 15th. We had been high school sweethearts, and now I would be starting a new life with our [six]-month-old daughter." 

Reconnecting journey

Despite never meeting her father, Hohman said she still feels a connection to him. It only grew stronger when she reconnected with her father's side of the family and took a trip to the mine with her uncle Grover Rose in August 2024. 

Grover Rose was 18 years old when the avalanche killed his brother Roth. 

Hohman and her uncle flew to Vancouver and then 1,350 kilometres northwest to Terrace, before renting a car to drive three hours to Stewart and, finally, taking a helicopter in to the former mine site. 

"This valley was beautiful and I was taking it in, trying to imagine where he might have been, if he had ever stepped on the same rocks that I was walking over" Hohman said. 

On the way back to Terrace, Hohman and her uncle saw a Kermode bear, also known as spirit bear, cross the road less than 100 metres in front of them. She said the rare sighting felt like a message, giving peace and closure. 

From there, the pair travelled to Whitehorse where Roth Rose was buried. They met up with another uncle of Hohman's, Roby Rose, who was 16 when the avalanche happened, and the three of them visited Roth Rose's grave together. 

"Despite never knowing … my father — here I was with my uncles, the closest connection to their brother, putting the roses on his grave" Hohman said. 

Commemorating the lives lost 

While the Granduc Mine avalanche isn't that widely known in B.C., it is ingrained in the history of Stewart.

And as the municipality marked the anniversary, Liuna Local 1611, an affiliate of the Laborers' International Union of North America that represents construction and service workers in B.C. and the Yukon, announced a $2,000 scholarship will be awarded to a graduating student from Stewart's Bear Valley School as a thank you for the community's rescue efforts.