THE KÜTNE READER

Documents released by Library and Archives Canada help put names and faces to people otherwise omitted from history books.

Larry Kwong was the first Chinese Canadian to play senior hockey in the Kootenays. But he was not the only one.

Several envelopes that sold at auction have intriguing connections to West Kootenay Japanese-Canadian, Chinese Canadian, and mining history.

When Kinji Nagatani died at Willowhaven Hospital on Kootenay Lake’s North Shore in 1970, with him went the amazing story of a roving...

After writing about Chinese-indigenous births at Rock Creek , I received a message from Nelson’s Mona Smith, who noted that her mother,...

You heard it here last: Larry Kwong , the NHL’s first player of Asian descent and the oldest Trail Smoke Eaters alumnus, died on March...

Touchstones Nelson recently posted a photo of the wedge-shaped building at 606 Front Street their Flickr account. It doesn’t look like...

I recently wrote about Holy Grail historical items — things I once saw somewhere and couldn’t find again. I’m pleased to report that I’ve...

Between 1872 and 1923, at least 12 Chinese Canadian births occurred at Rock Creek. This was noteworthy for a few reasons. First, there was perhaps only one other such birth elsewhere in the Boundary during that time. Most of these births preceded the first Chinese Canadian births in West Kootenay (two in Nelson and five in Kaslo during the same period). But even more intriguing: all 12 people were actually of mixed ancestry, part Chinese and part Indigenous. Rock Creek is see

The photo below, taken in 1950, shows the evocative Mar Sam laundry at the corner of Front, Lake, and Ward streets in Nelson. You’ll...

In 2018, the Kootenay Lake Historical Society reprinted the 1980 book Pioneer Families of Kaslo in a revised and expanded form. My contribution was providing notes about and securing photos of Jim Kee, a Chinese-Canadian merchant. Jim and Annie Kee, 1947. (Courtesy Russel Lang) One weak spot of the original book was that it only contained profiles of white families, and mostly British ones at that (not the fault of the folks who put it together; they put out a call for submi

Only one building from Nelson’s red light district survives: 601 Lake Street (pictured below in the fall of 2017), now home to Full...