The Newmarket Hotel guest register
I had the privilege of reading the guest book of a famous New Denver hotel from 1897 to 1899 that was rescued from a landfill.
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Greg Nesteroff
- Aug 2, 2022
- 7 min
The night the Newmarket Hotel burned
When fire destroyed the Newmarket Hotel in October 1973, New Denver lost its greatest heritage building, constructed 80 years earlier.
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Greg Nesteroff
- Feb 6, 2022
- 6 min
Leonard Cheshire’s vet colony
Britain’s most celebrated bomber pilot planned to start a veterans commune at New Denver in 1947.
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Greg Nesteroff
- Jul 13, 2021
- 18 min
The Ottawa Silver Mining and Milling mill
Concrete ruins adjacent to the Springer Creek campground in Slocan are from an unusual intersection of mining and Japanese-Canadian history.
1,256 views2 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Sep 21, 2020
- 6 min
Hidden signs of Sandon’s internment years
Names scratched on bricks outside the Sandon museum are some of the few reminders of the town's days as a Japanese-Canadian internment camp.
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Greg Nesteroff
- Mar 6, 2020
- 7 min
Patricks on postcards
The remarkable postcard seen below sold in 2020 on eBay for $168 Cdn. It’s a previously unknown image of the Patrick Lumber Camp No. 1...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 28, 2019
- 3 min
Edward Connolly and the lost bullion of Slocan Lake
One day I’d like to write a book or booklet about the lost bullion of Slocan Lake, one of our region’s most enduring treasure stories. On...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Apr 7, 2019
- 7 min
Wandering printing presses of West Kootenay
During West Kootenay’s mining boom of the 1890s, newspapers popped up like Starbucks franchises. But lugging a printing press into a...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Apr 4, 2019
- 10 min
Sandon’s fire hydrants
Sandon is an interesting place for many reasons. One remarkable but perhaps under-appreciated aspect is that it is (or ought to be) a...
1,264 views2 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Mar 1, 2019
- 6 min
His lot in life: The hard luck of Lot Willey
Lot Willey had a lot of bad luck. And bad timing. He was a sort of anti-Forrest Gump, with an uncanny knack for arriving in a town just...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Feb 1, 2019
- 4 min
Empress of Ireland’s lost footage found
In 2019, I wrote here about some long-lost footage showing survivors of the Empress of Ireland disaster of May 29, 1914 that claimed more...
2,297 views5 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Jan 22, 2019
- 12 min
New Denver’s cemetery story
Despite being such an historic and picturesque site, little has been written about the history of New Denver’s cemetery — until now. This...
1,243 views4 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 24, 2018
- 6 min
5 phantom cemeteries
Of the 100 or so cemeteries in West Kootenay/Boundary, two dozen can no longer be visited because they were either flooded out, exhumed,...
1,176 views2 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 23, 2018
- 3 min
Silverton’s oldest piece of mail?
A terrific cover from Silverton, postmarked July 28, 1894, sold for $192.50 Cdn yesterday on eBay. It was sent from Hunter & McKinnon,...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 22, 2018
- 8 min
A Russian revolutionary in the Slocan Valley
Twice this year I’ve learned secret details about someone that made me re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about them. The first case...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 20, 2018
- 2 min
Lawrence Twoaxe in the Slocan Valley
Curious thing: this ad appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on March 26, 1911 and subsequent issues. Koch Siding is a nearly-obsolete...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Dec 7, 2018
- 10 min
A phony dentist in the Slocan Valley
In January 1910, a man posted a notice in Silverton that read: Mr. A.L. Pinchbeck, D.M.S. dental surgeon, has visited Silverton for two...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Nov 22, 2018
- 4 min
The hotel murals of Jack Lines
One of West Kootenay’s least known attractions is an amazing map of the Kootenays and Okanagan in the pub of the Salmo Hotel, created in...
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Greg Nesteroff
- Nov 9, 2018
- 10 min
The Slocan Park ferry and footbridge
Here’s something that seems completely lost from local memory: from at least 1922 to 1943, a ferry crossed the Slocan River at Slocan...
2,684 views3 comments
Greg Nesteroff
- Oct 17, 2018
- 3 min
Lester Patrick’s Slocan tryout
I recently came across a charming anecdote about hockey legend Lester Patrick in West Kootenay that I had never seen before — and in fact...
383 views2 comments
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