The rock we mine at Patterson Gravel Pit didn't form here. It didn't come from a quarry down the road or a locally-blasted hillside. It traveled hundreds of kilometres from north of Stuart Lake, carried by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the Wisconsin Glaciation period — and it stopped right here in the hills south of Prince George.
That's not a marketing story. It's geology. And it's exactly why our rock is different from anything else you'll find in the region.
What the Cordilleran Ice Sheet Was
During the last major glaciation — the Wisconsin period, which peaked around 20,000 years ago — most of British Columbia was covered by a massive ice sheet. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet, centred over the BC Interior, advanced and retreated multiple times over thousands of years.
As glaciers move, they carry everything in their path — rock, gravel, sand, boulders. The material gets picked up, transported, and eventually deposited when the glacier slows or stops. The longer rock travels inside a glacier, the harder and more refined it becomes. Softer material gets ground down. What survives the journey is dense, angular, and durable.
Why Our Pit Is 65 Feet Deep
The Cordilleran Ice Sheet moving south from the Stuart Lake area eventually stalled in the hills where Patterson Gravel Pit sits today. When a glacier stops, it deposits everything it's been carrying in a concentrated area. Ours deposited almost 65 feet of material — which is why our pit runs that deep before the rock quality changes.
That depth gives us something most aggregate operations don't have: consistency. The material at the bottom of our pit is the same quality as the material at the top. Same hardness, same gradation, same properties. That's not true of locally-formed deposits where composition changes every few feet.
What Glacier-Origin Rock Actually Means for Your Project
No clay. Glacially transported rock is washed and refined over thousands of years of movement. Our aggregate is completely clay-free. Clay absorbs water, swells when it freezes, and causes frost heave in roads, driveways, and foundations. Our rock doesn't have that problem.
Harder rock. The material that survived the journey in the glacier is the hardest material in the original deposit. Softer rock got ground to fines and washed away. What's left is dense and durable — it holds its shape under traffic, compacts predictably, and lasts longer than softer regional aggregates.
Naturally free-draining. Because the rock is clean and angular, water moves through it freely. This is critical for drainage applications, road base, and anywhere you need water to escape rather than pool and saturate.
Want to order direct from the source? Call (250) 640-7780 — no middleman, no markup. Straight from the pit to your door.
Operating Since 2013
Patterson Gravel Pit has been supplying Prince George and Northern BC since 2013. Over a decade of delivering glacier-origin aggregate to contractors, municipalities, and homeowners across the region. The pit hasn't changed. The rock hasn't changed. That's the point.
No other supplier in Prince George can tell you exactly where their rock came from, how deep it goes, and why it performs the way it does. Now you know ours.
150 Hectares. 65 Feet Deep. Ready When You Are.
Six products. Delivered straight to you across Prince George and Northern BC.