The Mines · British Columbia
Frank’s Map
How to use it · What’s new · All the notes
The mines, the roads and the trails of British Columbia. Type a town, a lake, a camp or a mine and the map goes there; every pin opens its record. Download an area and the map works with no signal.
Not signed in: every pin sits at its camp.
Exact positions, taken on site, are for readers on the list: Bring my positions here on any card, one sign-in on the site, and they stay on this phone.
Frank’s record
The Province’s roads and trails
Warnings and signal
Kept in this browser only. Nothing here is sent to Frank or anyone else, and a phone keeps its own.
This browser won’t keep anything just now (a private window, or storage switched off), so the notebook empties when you leave.
Nearly full: past 200 the oldest entry drops out.
Nothing kept yet. Press Keep on a mine’s card, one of the province’s MINFILE points, a spot you held your finger on or one of your own marks, and it waits here for your next visit.
Your track
Your breadcrumbs, drawn on the map in red: recorded only while the map is following you with the screen on. The GPX file opens in a handheld GPS or a phone’s map app.
Your lines
Lay out the day’s run yourself: press Draw a line, then click along the roads and trails. The map gives the distance, the climb and the descent, and the profile, from the same elevation tiles as the height readout. Kept in this browser only; save it as GPX for the handheld. You draw the line — this map never draws a route for you, and never to a mine.
Share the plan copies a link that carries your lines and marks and the view: whoever opens it sees the same picture and can add it to their own device. It goes only to whoever you send it to.
From your GPS
Lay a GPX file from your handheld, or from any map app, over this map: its waypoints and tracks, read here and kept in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded. You can also drop the file onto the map.
This browser couldn’t keep the file (too big, or storage switched off): it shows for this visit only.
Your photos
A photo taken with location on carries where it was taken. Choose one and it goes on the map there, with a small copy kept in this browser; the photo itself goes nowhere.
This browser couldn’t keep the photo: it shows for this visit only.
Beyond British Columbia the map is OpenTopoMap’s; the Province’s roads, trails and advisories end at the border. Your position, marks and cards work the same.
Squares where a phone on this map had data; deeper green, more reports. A blank is unreported, not dead.
On a phone this map is FranksMap.com
Point the camera at the code. Download an area there and the map works with no signal.
- Anyox North Coast · Copper · Silver · Gold · Anyox Camp Worked 1914–1935
- Phoenix Boundary Country · Copper · Gold · Silver · Phoenix Camp Worked 1900–1919, open pit 1959–78
- Union Boundary Country · Gold · Silver · Lead · Zinc · Copper · Franklin Camp Shipped ore 1913–1947
- Yankee Boy Boundary Country · Gold · Silver · Lead · Copper · Zinc · Hardy Mountain Camp Shipped ore 1899–1942
Phoenix Camp
Deadwood Camp
Hardy Mountain Camp
Franklin Camp
Anyox Camp
Frank’s Map
What Frank’s Map Does
Frank’s mines, every road and trail the Province has on file, the day’s warnings, and the tools for going in and coming back — on a phone, with or without signal, and on this page.
Frank’s Mines and the Sites
The pins are Frank’s record of British Columbia’s abandoned mines — positions taken on site, each opening its page, its story and its film. The ink squares are what is left on the ground: cabins, boilers, tramway towers, each with a short page. The Province’s MINFILE points stand alongside. Where a mine is, never how to get into it.
Every Road and Trail on File
Every road in British Columbia with its surface — paved, gravel, rough, overgrown — the retired forest roads, and 46,000 km of recreation trails. Tap a trail for the Province’s own record of it: what it is for, whether it is kept up, its closures, how to get there.
Download a Map
Here, bring the country you are going into onto the screen and press Download: the map, the roads and trails, the hills and the names stay on your phone and work with no signal at all.
Warnings, Read Live
Bear and wildlife advisories, park and rec-site closures, wildfires and fire bans, avalanche ratings, road closures — on the map while you have signal, from the services that issue them, each linked to its source.
Before You Go
One screen for one spot and one day: daylight, the forecast, the avalanche rating and the fire ban, the warnings nearby, where signal was last reported, your trip note, and the essentials to pack.
The Beacon
Switch it on for the day and name one person. While your phone has signal they can see where you were last; if you are not back by the time you said and have not checked in, they are told, with your last position and the words to give 911.
Your Own Marks and Plans
Mark the truck, the camp, where you parted, and see the way back from where you stand; your track as breadcrumbs; your handheld’s GPX and your photos laid on the map; draw the day’s line and read its climb; print the sheet for the glovebox; share the plan as one link. Kept in your browser, nothing sent.
For Riders
Which trails the Province lists for snowmobiles, trail bikes and four-wheel drives; the caribou closures under the Wildlife Act and the designated trails through them; the active logging in view, so you know where the trucks are.
No account and nothing to install. Nothing leaves your phone unless you switch the beacon on, and then only to the one person you name. The map is a resource, not something to rely on alone — carry a map and compass of your own, and tell someone where you are going.
What is new in each release, how to use the map, word from the field and the thinking behind it: Frank’s Map, the notes →
Positions
Where the Pins Come From
Taken on Site
Most positions were recorded at the mine with a GPS. Where the province’s MINFILE record puts a mine somewhere else, the pin’s card says by how much.
Sent In, Then Checked
Readers send positions too. Each is checked against the sender’s photo or track log and the record before it goes on the map, and its card says who sent it, if they asked to be named. GPS tips for a good position.
Some Pins Stay at the Camp
A pin stays at its camp when the land is private, the ground is unsafe, bats winter there, or a family asks. Own the land a mine is on? Tell us, and its pin stays at the camp. Openings and ways into the workings are never shown.
Works and Sites
An ink square is something left on the ground from the mining days that isn’t a mine on the record: a cabin, a boiler, a tramway tower, a mill foundation, an adit with no name yet. Found by Frank or sent in by a reader, checked, and given a short page of its own. Found one? Send it in.
Do Not Do What Frank Does
Never go into an abandoned mine. Bad air that gives no warning, rotten timber, hidden shafts under loose ground, rock that fails without a sound. Look from outside, and take nothing. Frank films so you don’t have to go in.
This map is a resource, not something to rely on alone. It tells you where you are and what is on file; it cannot tell you that a road is passable, that the ground is safe, or that you will have signal. Carry a map and compass of your own, tell someone where you are going and when you will be back, and turn around when the day or the weather says so.
The men these mines killed are remembered by name on In Memory →
Sources
Where Frank’s Map Gets Its Information
Every layer says here what it is, whether it is read live or was copied on a date, and what it does and does not mean on the ground.
Frank’s record
- Positions
- Frank’s positions, recorded at the mine with a GPS, so a position read off a card can be typed straight into yours. Readers’ positions are checked against their photo or track log before they go on the map.
- The Province’s Record
- MINFILE, BC Geological Survey. Its points are often tens or hundreds of metres from the workings.
- The Datum
- Everything on the map is in WGS 84, the datum every phone and GPS uses. In British Columbia it sits within about a metre and a half of the Province’s NAD 83 — closer than a phone can fix its own position — so nothing here needs converting. The datum that moves things is NAD 27, on the old survey sheets and Minister of Mines maps: around a hundred metres at these mines. Nothing on the map comes from an old sheet.
The Province’s files
- Roads and Trails
- Every road the Province has on file (its Digital Road Atlas), the forest service roads and road permits, and its recreation trails — as the site copied them on November 7, 2026, to be refreshed from the Province’s releases. A road or trail on file is not a road or trail open or passable today.
- Trails’ Uses
- What Recreation Sites and Trails BC says about each trail it looks after: what it is for, how you get to it, how it is kept up, and any closure notice — as the site read it on November 7, 2026. A listing is the Province’s record, not a permission for today.
- Active Logging
- The permits the Province has issued to log, the ones in force in the country you are looking at, read from the Province’s file each time the layer is on. A permit to log is not a crew on site today.
- Snowmobile Areas
- Where the Province closes or limits snowmobiling to protect mountain caribou, under the Wildlife Act — as the site read the areas on November 7, 2026, their edges smoothed to about 50 m. Check the current rules and the signs before you ride.
- Advisories
- Read live when the layer is on: BC Parks’ advisories and closures; the BC Wildfire Service’s fires and the Province’s fire bans; Recreation Sites and Trails BC’s closed sites and trails; DriveBC’s road events; Avalanche Canada’s forecasts. Shown as they stand, linked to their source; this map adds nothing to them.
- Place Names
- The towns, lakes, mountains and camps the search box knows, and where it takes you: BC Geographical Names, the Province’s own gazetteer of official names and their positions, asked live when you search.
- The Trip Note
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Every search begins with the same question: where did they go?
When someone at home can answer it — the mine, the road in, the truck, who was along, when they were due — the search starts in the right valley the same night. When no one can, it starts at first light, with a truck at a trailhead and a province to choose from. Search and rescue asks one thing of everyone who goes out: tell someone where you are going and when you will be back.
This map writes the note for you. Press My position, then Trip note — where you are heading, how, with whom, and when you will be back. Text it sends the whole note to the person you choose; on a computer, Send to my phone carries it to the phone you take. Switch on the beacon and that person is told if you are not back on time, with your last known position in plain numbers and the words to give 911. In British Columbia that call reaches search and rescue, and no one is charged for a search. Once it is sent, the note asks nothing more of your phone: it is the one part of this map that still works with the phone switched off.
The map itself
- Map
- Drawn by this site from © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), as of November 6, 2026; OpenTopoMap (CC BY-SA) where the site’s own map is off
- Elevation
- The heights, contours and hillshade: Terrain Tiles (Mapzen, on AWS Open Data), built from SRTM and the national elevation data
- Weather
- Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), asked only when you press Weather here on a card
- Signal
- Readers who chose to share, through the map’s home: the squares their phones had data in, counted; no names, no times, nothing finer than 400 m. A text usually gets out where data does, and sometimes further.
The Province’s files above — the roads and trails, the trails’ record, the logging permits, the snowmobile areas, the closures, the bans and the place names — are used under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia. Positions, MINFILE and the Province’s own words are credited as they stand; nothing here is the Province’s endorsement of this map.
That’s the whole deal. Frank picks one photograph out of the archive, tells you the story of the day it was taken, and signs off until next month. A short P.S. points to what’s new on the site, and that’s it.
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