THE KÜTNE READER

Below I’ve transcribed a six-page letter in my collection mailed by a woman visiting Kaslo with her mother shortly after the death of Queen Victoria on Jan. 22, 1901. It describes the multi-denominational memorial service held for her there. The first and third pages of the letter in question. The letter was mailed to the Rev. Thomas Lerch of Lansdowne, Ont. (if I am reading the last name correctly), who appears to have been the writer’s husband. However, I haven’t been able

Nelson has had three Kootenay Lake Hospitals. The first, built in 1893 near 40 High Street, had a dozen beds. According to Dr. Lorris E. Borden, it was really primitive … On the ground floor was the admitting room and the kitchen; the second floor had a medical ward and the operating room which was very small and narrow; the bird floor was for surgical patients which was considered a poor arrangement [because] there was no elevator and all surgical patients had to be carried

The death of Doukhobor leader Peter (Lordly) Verigin in a train explosion between Castlegar and Grand Forks on Oct. 29, 1924 is the West Kootenay/Boundary’s greatest unsolved mystery. It is also one of the area’s deadliest single incidents, for it took eight other lives in addition to Verigin’s. And if the blast was the result of a bomb, as two coroners’ juries concluded, it was the deadliest crime ever committed in the region. There are a lot of peculiar things about the cas

In 2008, I wrote a story for Route 3 magazine about the Thomas (or Tomas) Higstrim grave at Ainsworth Hot Springs, which dates to 1891 and is West Kootenay’s oldest marked grave in situ . There are certainly many older, unmarked First Nations graves. There are also older sets of remains that were re-interred in Nelson Memorial Park and the Sinixt burial ground at Vallican. But Higstrim’s posthumous distinction is that he’s been in the same marked grave longer than anyone els

Did William Randolph Hearst (pictured below in a photo from Wikipedia), the larger-than-life American newspaper publisher who invented (or at least popularized) tabloid journalism, vacation in West Kootenay? Walter McRaye, sidekick to Pauline Johnson, the poet who toured Canadian concert halls in the early 1900s, related the following anecdote in his memoir: I was told a good story in Nelson not long ago by J.E. Carter of the CPR who, by the way, once lived in Winnipeg and ma

Between 1872 and 1923, at least 13 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 (three in Nelson and five in Kaslo during the same period). But even more intriguing: all 13 people were actually of mixed ancestry, part Chinese and part Indigenous. Rock Creek is s

You’d think if fire destroyed a town’s business district, the date would be well documented. Not in Fruitvale’s case. Much of the town burned in the mid-1910s, yet until recently we could only narrow the disaster to a three-year window. Before we get to the fire, let’s discuss the building where it started. The incredible photo below has been little seen; it shows the first Fruitvale Hotel and W.R. Mellard’s store, which had an unusual false front. Fruitvale Hotel and W.R. Me

There was a time (primarily in the 1950s) where it was common practice to honour individuals (usually trustees and other politicians) by naming schools after them, not always posthumously. However, while the practice perpetuated their names, future generations are often left puzzled at who the namesakes were. Here are brief explanations of the 18 individuals in our area who had schools named after them — of which seven have closed and two have been renamed. Two were in towns

Go for a walk on Beatty Avenue in Nelson, down by the waterfront next to the RCMP station, and you will come across this curious building. From 1948 to 1952, Colin Baker ran a confectionery at the corner of Baker and Railway streets. On Dec. 1, 1952 he opened a new store on Beatty Avenue, next to his house along the waterfront. Nelson Daily News, Nov. 14, 1952 The store was listed in the 1954 directory as Baker’s Grocery & Confectionery, 1026 Beatty Ave., but it only lasted

John Gibb Devlin (1865-1925), alias the Gunner from Galway, was a well-known early Kootenay character. One funny story about him is how he appealed for women to move to Rossland to even out the city’s gender imbalance and marry lonely miners — nearly all of whom, he insisted were “big, handsome fellows, making good money.” John G. Devlin (detail from Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2015-028-3) Apparently his call appeared first in some Toronto newspapers, but I haven’t found a

This amazing little item is in the midst of being transferred from the Touchstones Nelson archives to the Slocan Valley Historical Society. It’s a dance card, complete with pencil. (IOOF is the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.) On the pencil is written “Johann Paper.” Alas, this card went unused, but it does reveal what sort of dances you were expected to know in 1897: I’m not sure where Schonberg’s hall was, but at the time, Slocan City had two newspapers. I looked the danc

The remarkable postcard seen below shows two friends, Anna Norris of Boundary, Wash., and Velma Shields, of Waneta, who didn’t let a little thing like an international border come between them. The photo was taken by Frank Palmer of Spokane in 1908, who also published a postcard of the Waneta bridge. He had the girls dress in nearly identical clothing and pose at the boundary marker. The photo appeared in many US newspapers between May 19 and July 20 of that year, including t

A previous post looked at surviving West Kootenay landmarks related to the Patrick family, hockey pioneers who lived in Nelson from 1907-11 before founding western Canada’s first professional league. Lester Patrick, as a member of the 1909 Nelson senior hockey club, which won a provincial championship. Their departure — after helping build the Hall Mines arena, guiding the senior men’s team to the 1909 provincial championship, and making noises about challenging for the Stan

It was once common for newspapers to fancifully refer to certain people (well, men) as the mayor of a place that wasn’t incorporated. Sometimes this was because they were the only resident (e.g. Sandon, Phoenix, Bannock City). Other times it just indicated they were the town’s chief booster. Eholt had two imaginary mayors, plus a third contender. Ainsworth and Waterloo had three unofficial mayors each. Bealby Point, Carson, Rock Creek, and Kuskanook each had two. Carson annou

The story of pioneer Trout Lake hotelier and prospector Alice Jowett is well told in books such as Circle of Silver as well as on the Arrow Lakes Historical Society’s website . But prior to moving to the Lardeau in 1896, she ran a restaurant in Vancouver. I have found two noteworthy items about that time in her life. Alice Jowett is seen with grandchildren Erma and Helen Godsoe. (Edna Daney fonds 68-18/Arrow Lakes Historical Society) First, Mrs. Jowett advertised regularly i

Painting signs by hand has largely gone out of style but was once a common vocation. The men (and I imagine a few women) who did it for a living sometimes supplemented their income by painting houses but also occasionally created other artwork. In 1880s Idaho and 1890s Montana and West Kootenay/Boundary, if your opera house needed a new backdrop or you wanted to gussy up your hotel (or boat or store), M.D. Cryderman was your guy. Main Street in Slocan City is seen in May 1897

This business at 323 Vernon Street in Nelson only existed from about 1969-71. Winslow Sommerfeldt (1923-2016) was president and his son Will Sommerfelt was vice-president. The sign is on the east side of the retaining wall below the Terrace Apartments. According to Winslow’s obituary , “In 1969, they [Winslow and wife Reita] moved the family to Nelson and operated a GM dealership there called Winslow Motors. After a few years there, they moved to Lethbridge before returning t

Last of five parts Who was the first person in the Kootenay Boundary to own an electric car since their re-emergence and where was the first charging station installed? Although these events occurred less than a decade ago, it wasn’t as easy to answer these questions as I expected. I asked Trish Dehnel of the Accelerate Kootenays initiative, which promotes the use of electric vehicles. “2011 was the first year that modern EVs rolled out with the Nissan Leaf,” she says. “We h

Fourth of five parts Alexander Zuckerberg of Castlegar’s Zuckerberg Island had an electric car in the mid-1950s. An ingenious man, he no doubt built it himself. John Charters wrote in the Summer 1997 edition of BC Historical News : “When he had reached retirement age his back was bent with arthritis and he could no longer ride his black bicycle so he built a concrete causeway to the island for his electric car. The difficulty with this idea was the fact that the car would not

Third in a series on local electric cars The most noteworthy early electric vehicle in our area belonged to a Kootenay lumber baron, the appropriately-named Alfred Edward (Ted) Watts (1856-1937). Known as a special touring phaeton, it was manufactured in London in 1903 by the City and Suburban Electric Carriage Co., based on the Columbia design by the Electric Vehicle Co. of Hartford. It cost £700 new, which is something like $34,000 Cdn today. Ad from an unknown publication.