THE KÜTNE READER

I’m not sure who the first woman to work for a West Kootenay/Boundary newspaper was, but one early example was Harriet Haire Smith, a daughter of C. Dell Smith, proprietor of the Ymir Mirror . The paper’s Jan. 30, 1904 edition noted: “Miss Smith of the Mirror business staff is visiting her friend, Miss Adie at Waneta.” I presume she was Dell’s daughter, but can’t say for sure. At the time, Harriet was not yet 16. The family moved to Victoria after the newspaper folded a few

Having examined births, marriages, and deaths aboard sternwheelers on local lakes, we turn our attention to West Kootenay–related births involving other forms of transportation. Plane In August 1959, Betty Ector of Argenta went in to labour ten days ahead of her due date, aboard a Delta Airlines flight, 9,000 feet over Malden, Missouri. Baby Suzanne was born in a compartment at the end of the plane, with two flight attendants and two passengers as midwives. The plane continue

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 weeks only. All who want teeth seen to either crowning bridging or stopping. Set and false teeth a specialty. Honorary certificate for above work guaranteed and done $1 less than in Nelson or any other town in British Columbia. His typewritten diploma, however, was made out in a different name: This is to certify that Arthur L. Stanger is now

On Sept. 29, 1958, CJAT Trail opened a new studio in the former post office at 1300 Cedar Ave. They also marked their 25th anniversary as a commercial station (they first went on air on Christmas Day 1931 as an amateur station known as 10AT). To commemorate the occasion, several Capitol Records artists and others recorded greetings to air on the station between music and commercials. CJAT broadcast centre, 1958 (Greg Nesteroff collection) Ken Hughes, who worked at CJAT, kept

An amazing cabinet card sold on eBay last week for $181.50 US ($240 Cdn), showing two First Nations people in a studio portrait by Rossland photographer Thomas Henry Gowman. I don’t know for sure if these were Sinixt people, but their name for Rossland was kEluwi’sst or kmar k n, the former a generic name for “up in the hills” and the latter a term for “smooth top,” referring to Red Mountain. They knew it as a good area for huckleberries. While we do don’t know the names of

It may be in Washington state, but I regard Northport as an honourary West Kootenay town, given that its existence from 1898 to 1921 was largely due to a smelter built to treat ore from Rossland’s LeRoi mine. Most people from Rossland and Trail are extremely familiar with Northport and vice versa. On top of that, at least four or five of Northport’s mayors were Canadian born. Can any other US town make a similar claim? I have no idea, as it doesn’t seem to be the subject of i

In 1962-63, the American jingle house of Richard H. Ullman Associates produced a series of cheesy but oh-so-catchy songs to promote radio and television stations and the towns they served. They presumably aired on those stations and were also issued as 45 rpm singles. The music was virtually identical; only the lyrics were tailored to fit the town. Some were embraced as civic anthems (notably in Regina) but in the pre-Internet world, people probably had no idea that their son

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 March 1955 by Vancouver sign painter Jack Lines. We know the date and the artist because he signed it. I haven’t measured the map, but it takes up a good portion of the wall behind the pool table. (Unfortunately, the location of the table and way the room is lit make it very difficult to get good pictures.) It has a red border, with the word

Six West Kootenay/Boundary residents and one former resident were among the 1,200 passengers and crew who perished when a German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915 off the south coast of Ireland. There was also one survivor from our area and three others who narrowly avoided sailing on that fateful trip. The RMS Lusitania is seen in a 1907 painting by Norman Wilkinson. (Wikipedia) The Chantry family Harold Chantry (or Chantrey), 23, and his wife Mina, 22, arrived i

The Cody Caves (naturally occurring) and hot springs caves (mostly or entirely human-created) aren’t the only caves in and around Ainsworth. Several months ago, Angela Ortega dropped off a newspaper clipping (seen below) that she correctly thought I would find interesting. It’s from the Calgary Herald of June 5, 1912 and reports the discovery of prehistoric fossilized bones in a cave at the Silver Hoard mine. The Vancouver Sun ran the same story that day with the headline “

Three noteworthy bits of Greenwood memorabilia (Greewoodiana?) have sold on eBay in the last few months. On Aug. 4, a dry-mount photo of Greenwood looking southwest sold for $225 US. Rossland photographer William J. Carpenter took it in the late 1890s or early 1900s. The seller was in Tacoma. An envelope from the British Columbia Copper Co. Ltd. smelter at Greenwood, postmarked 1900 and mailed to Sweden attracted 16 bids and netted $277.79 US on Oct. 2 . The seller was in Sto

What does Fred Flintstone’s mother-in-law have to do with West Kootenay? The woman who provided the original voice for Pearl Slaghoople on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series was Verna Felton (1890-1966), who also did voiceover work for Disney, appearing in Cinderella, Dumbo, The Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp , and Sleeping Beauty — as fairies, villains, and elephants. That’s her singing Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo in Cinderella . She worked extensively in radio

One of the most beautiful pieces of Kootenaiana ever produced was Perry’s Mining Map of 1893. It’s admired for its cartography and plethora of unusual place names, many of which appear for the first — and sometimes last — time. (David Rumsey Map Collection/Stanford University) The map, measuring 26 by 40 inches, was drawn by T.P. O’Farrell, based on surveys by Charles E. Perry, and lithographed by Rand and McNally of Chicago. It was exhibited as part of the BC mining display

Here’s something that seems completely lost from local memory: from at least 1922 to 1943, a ferry crossed the Slocan River at Slocan Park. Looking into it took me in several surprising directions — including a meteorite landing, a message in a bottle, and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The first mention I can find of the ferry is in the BC government public accounts covering April 1921 to March 1922. An expenditure of $606.94 is recorded as being paid to N. Wolverton to ru

Larry Kwong, the NHL’s first player of Asian descent and the oldest Trail Smoke Eaters alumnus, died on March 15, 2018.

The photo below comes from a glass plate negative found in Alexander T. Garland’s store in Kaslo and is believed to show the International Hotel at Nelson. If so, the woman pictured may be Alice (Mother) Foster, alias the Midnight Nurse. It’s hard to say for certain: there are no other pictures of her or the building to compare it to. The hotel opened at the corner of Vernon and Stanley streets in 1890 but burned down in January 1894. (Kootenay Lake Archives 990.012.0058) Koo

The Nelson Daily News of Nov. 2, 1912 announced a new brewery would be built in Nelson’s Fairview neighbourhood between Nelson Avenue and 2nd Street, north of Kokanee Avenue (then called Kootenay Avenue) and reproduced the concept drawing seen below. The plant was to be built by the Fritz-Steiner Brewing & Malting Co. at an estimated cost of $40,000 to $50,000 ($891,000 to $1.1 million today). Local merchant A.S. Horswill was president of the company, which was capitalized

I’ve previously written about the birth of Florence Columbia Holliday aboard the SS Columbia in 1892. She wasn’t the only person born on a steamship in the Kootenay. George E. Shaw was mine accountant and personnel manager at the Bluebell mine in the 1920s. He was responsible for the payroll and the company store. In 1914, he married Margaret Alice Webb. According to Terry Turner’s Bluebell Memories , p. 72, “Shaw lived in Riondel north of the Beeley house between 1921 and

The New York Times bills itself as the newspaper of record in the United States but has an international reputation. It’s one of the few American newspapers with a Canadian bureau and it regularly publishes news about Canada. Long before it reached its present status, it was reporting on events in the West Kootenay. In fact, our area has showed up on its pages regularly beginning in 1891. “Kootenay” or “Kootenai” has appeared 756 times since the paper was founded in 1858, al

The Oxford English Dictionary, that great repository of words that bills itself as “the definitive record of the English language,” is not lacking in West Kootenay content. The dictionary, first published between 1884 and 1928, and updated many times since, illustrates each word’s history with a series of quotes, demonstrating its earliest use and evolution. Some of these quotes were taken from West Kootenay publications or refer to events that occurred here. The dictionary a