Anahim Lake

Chilcotin

Located 135km/84mi east of Bella Coola, this is the site of a long-established Chilcotin settlement that expanded in the 1940s and 1950s when the Carrier Peoples moved here from their remote villages. The community is the eastern gateway to the southern portion of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park and its phenomenal wilderness recreation opportunities. Anahim Lake hosts the Chilcotin’s main airport, with regularly scheduled flights connecting to Vancouver.

Local lodges and resorts cater to both guided and self-guided fishers, hunters and hikers as well as those who prefer organized pack trips and mountain heli-rides. Float planes can be chartered for a myriad of nearby wilderness adventures, while guided horseback and hiking treks can easily be arranged to explore the surrounding backcountry of the Itcha and Ilgachuz Mountains and dramatic Rainbow Range of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, where peaks of eroded lava and fragmented rock display a spectrum of vivid red, orange, lavender and yellow.

The town’s most famous attraction is the Anahim Lake Stampede, a rodeo staged every July since 1938. The rodeo’s most notable resident celebrity is Carey Price, star goaltender of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens.

A local curiosity is Anahim Peak, a spectacular pillared cone of volcanic rock rich in obsidian, an important trading commodity for the Chilcotin people, who once used obsidian extensively for weapon making. First Nations history permeates this region, and visitors can view the remains of large wooden ‘culla culla’ houses at Ulkatcho on Gatcho Lake and at Natsadalia Point on Anahim Lake.