Steve Murphy says couldn’t believe his eyes when he checked his Lotto Max ticket last Sunday at the Food Basket store in Atlin, B.C.

So, he took the ticket to the cashier for further verification.

"I thought it was only about $16,000 at first," Murphy recalled in an interview Tuesday. "There was a lot of sixes in there. It was quite an ominous little ticket."

Indeed: it was worth $16.6 million. And then some.

"Sixteen million, six hundred and sixty-six thousand and six hundred and sixty-six dollars," Murphy said, recalling how he watched the numbers roll out as Food Basket clerk Leah Neilson ran the ticket through the main terminal at her cash register.

"It's almost surreal, is this really happening," he said. "The whole town knew in about ten minutes."

Murphy's jackpot represents a third of the $50-million prize for last Friday's draw. Two residents of Quebec won the other two-thirds.

The 52-year-old assistant mine manager at the Tulsequah Chief mine project said he'll likely be retiring, but what the future has in store beyond a little travel he's not sure.

He'll probably buy or build his own house in Atlin, a town of 500 people near the Yukon border, about 1300 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.

Murphy also plans to help the community's assisted living organization because it helped his family when his mom passed away in 2010, he said.