THE KÜTNE READER

Slocan Lake never freezes, it is said. And while it’s true that it rarely happens, there have been several notable exceptions. I came across a map on the door of the Valhalla Pure Beach Shop in New Denver (pictured below), produced in 2016 and bearing the following statement: “Slocan Lake … only froze over 3 times in history! In 1970, 1950 and 1928.” That struck me as unlikely. Well, perhaps it froze in those three years, but others as well. Or maybe ice formed in some years

Is being a hospital’s one millionth patient an honour? It was in January 1938, when Florence Lumsden of Salmo registered at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. as patient No. 1,000,000. The numbering system was inaugurated in 1907 by Dr. Henry S. Plummer. (Wikipedia photo) It’s not clear what Lumsden was being treated for, but according to a story in the Nakusp Silver Standard on March 3 of that year, she was “thrilled” and “very proud that the honour is putting her home tow

Here’s a snippet of a countdown show on AM 1230 CKQR in 1974, recorded off air. This is an excerpt from a longer air check that I have sadly lost. Now we’ll never know what was No. 1 in Castlegar that week! I don’t know who the announcer is and it’s probably for the best, because he’s terrible. (Although in his defense, it was undoubtedly his first on-air job and he had no way of knowing someone would record it, much less put it on something called the Internet 44 years later

Around 1929, Cominco built a three-storey brick staff house a t 211 Kootenay Ave. in Tadanac (then a company-owned district municipality that included the smelter and adjacent residential neighbourhood). It was a residence for the company’s young single employees until 1972, when it became surplus office space. Later it was converted into a training centre. Tadanac staff house, ca. 1930s. (Greg Nesteroff collection) Jim Bennett, who was steward of the staff house, offered som

Earlier this year I wrote about a billhead from the New Zealand Hotel that Jada Regis of the Northport Historical Society found in a gunnysack full of paper related to the Kendrick Mercantile and Northport State Bank. Here are a few more items from that batch that he kindly scanned and sent to me — although they are so contaminated with mold spore that they require mask and ventilation to work with. I wrote about the Hunter Bros. and Hunter-Kendrick Co. for Route 3 magazine

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 rediscovered one. I had a vague memory of coming across the names of some Chinese chefs on the SS Slocan and thinking it was an interesting nugget of information. But not, it seems, interesting enough that I bothered to note where I found it. I thought it might have been in one of the civic directories, which did list crew members, or at

Here’s a newscast that aired on KC Radio in Nelson and Creston on Jan. 21, 1975, read by Ray Zinck, who sent it to me quite a few years ago. Ray worked there from 1973 to 1975 and went on to become co-owner, president, and general manager of CJLS in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He sold that station in 2015. Ray Zinck in the news studio at KC Radio in Nelson, mid-1970s. Note the ashtray, giant speaker, spare mic, and sideburns. Ray did a daily phone-in show from 9 to 10 a.m. from t

Snow Falling on Cedars, the movie filmed partly in Greenwood in 1998, left a legacy of faux phantom signs.

This huge, colourful ad was rescued from the old hardware store at 216 6th Ave. (Block 13, Lot 6) in New Denver before it was was torn down in July 2018 along with a former warehouse a few lots east. The following originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of The Silver Standard , the Silvery Slocan Historical Society newsletter. Long covered up with wallpaper, the ad was discovered during preparation to tear the building down. Owner Vern Gustafson saved it and gave it to t

Although I’m rarely on the cutting edge of technology, I was the first person I knew to own a digital camera, purchased directly from Kodak in February 2000. It was a DC280 Zoom (similar to the one seen below), and produced images of two megapixels, of which I could squeeze about 35 onto the 8 MB card that came with it. The batteries required constant recharging, and since my computer lacked a USB port, it took half an hour or more to download a batch of pictures via serial p

The postcard below of an old bridge across the Cascade canyon at Christina Lake sold online today. It’s a nice enough image, but it’s the message on the back that’s jaw dropping. It’s the first postcard I’ve seen used to deny involvement in a crime. The card was mailed on June 29, 1929 from Greenwood to Mr. W. Best, secretary of the Elks Club in Victoria. Here is the message flipped on its side: Earlier that month, Arthur Thomas, 19, held up the Grandview branch of the Royal

Kyle Kusch of the Arrow Lakes Historical Society just finished digitizing more than 800 slides from Wilf (Hufty) Hewat, a pilot and firefighter who lived most of his life in Kaslo until moving to Nakusp in the late 1960s. Two of these shots, seen below, were labelled “Helicopter Mishap 9.4.60” and show a helicopter smashed to bits on the Nelson waterfront, about where the Prestige Lakeside Resort was built on fill in the 1990s. The top slide also shows the Ellison’s building

Inventor Thomas Edison (seen below in a Wikipedia photo) passed through Nelson 110 years ago. While his visit was fleeting, he told a reporter that concrete houses were the way of the future. He was wrong, although he spent considerable efforts experimenting with molds to create such houses, going so far as to create a demonstration cottage at his New Jersey home. The following appeared in the Nelson Daily News on Sept. 6, 1908. I’m indebted to Greg Scott for discovering it

Many’s the time I’ve come across something historically interesting in a newspaper only to: a) Fail to fully appreciate its significance and not bother to write down the information or its source; b) Write down the information but not the source; or c) Write down the information and the source but lose the slip of paper. This may be followed by years of fruitless efforts to rediscover the said item, often led astray by own hazy memory. Below are six examples of these Holy Gra

I previously wrote about some strange circumstances surrounding the death of Doukhobor leader Peter V. Verigin in a train explosion near Farron on Oct. 29, 1924. The site where Verigin died has always been marked in some way, and therein lies a story itself. The following appeared in the Grand Forks Gazette on Dec. 19, 1924 (something almost identical was published two days earlier in the Nelson Daily News ): DOUKHOBORS PLAN SHRINE AT FARRON Up at Farron, 40 miles east, the

Michael Kluckner’s new graphic novel, Julia , is a biography of Vancouver’s Julia Henshaw (1869-1937). She was, among other things, a music and drama critic, columnist, novelist, socialite, botanist, fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, ambulance driver, and recipient of the Croix de Guerre. Henshaw (pictured here ca. 1920, in a photo from Wikipedia) visited the West Kootenay in 1898 as part of a tour for the Vancouver Province that also inspired a novel. It forms an i

One of most poignant epitaphs I’ve ever seen appears on twin gravemarkers in what is probably West Kootenay’s most remote cemetery. The Hamel siblings, Adélia Annee Lilly and Willy Joseph Alphonse, died at Comaplix, on the northeast arm of Upper Arrow Lake, in 1903. Their gravemarkers read in French: Quand on est pur comme à ton âge le dernier jour est le plus beau . Translated, “When one is pure as at your age, the last day is the most beautiful.” I’ve written about them bef

The postcard below is part of a sequence showing Lieut. George Knopp Trim’s flight around Nelson during the fall fair of 1919 — and crash landing in Kootenay Lake. (Greg Nesteroff collection) Originally the Nelson Agricultural and Industrial Association asked Capt. Fred McCall of Calgary to perform acrobatic flying at the fair but he was forced to cancel due to engine trouble and suggested they approach the Vancouver Aerial League to send someone in his place. Trim (often mis

The first newspaper Robert Thornton Lowery was involved in — and the last still in business — is folding after 139 years. This cartoon, showing editor Robert T. Lowery and his pet bulldog mauling a delinquent subscriber, first appeared in The Ledge in July 1900. Lowery (1859-1921) was West Kootenay’s most prolific newspaper publisher during its 1890s and early 1900s mining rush. He founded the Kaslo Claim (1893 and 1895-96); the peripatetic Ledge (Nakusp 1893-94, New Denver 1

There are two curious things about the stock certificate seen below, issued by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of British Columbia Ltd. and dated June 1, 1904. First, this was not the company of (almost) the same name founded in 1906 with the merger of the Canadian Smelting Works at Trail, St. Eugene mine at Moyie, Centre Star and War Eagle mines at Rossland, and Rossland Power Company. That was the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada Ltd., later better kn