Obituaries Dorothy Jan Petch

Dorothy Jan Petch, who for 25 years was involved with placer platinum and gold mining on the Tulameen River, upstream from Princeton, B.C., has died at age 86.

She was known as “The Platinum Queen of the Tulameen,” who owned claims and leases over several miles of the platinum and gold-bearing river.

Ms Petch was a colorful and tough entrepreneur who became a legend after the “battle of Lawless Creek.” She is reputed to have held the province’s highways department at bay with a shotgun when they threatened to pull down a rickety bridge that provided the only access to her claims.

She prospected the Tulameen for years and declared she “preferred dynamiting to typing because typing hurts my fingers.”