THE KÜTNE READER

There’s an oft-heard tale about the burial of a black brothel keeper in the Slocan cemetery. According to the Castlegar News of June 24,...

Some of the most amazing West Kootenay postcards ever produced show the Rossland mines underground in the 1900s. I don’t know how the...

Below is an ad that appeared in Trade and Commerce magazine in March 1962. It’s a fascinating aerial photo of Nelson from an unusual...

A clear syphon from the Lion Bottling Works of Rossland and Greenwood (pictured below) sold on eBay this afternoon for $1,382 US, which...

The clipping below from the Rossland Miner of Oct. 11, 1938 is about the Knudsgaard brothers, Einer, Erik, and Frankie. They were not...

Jada Regis of the Northport Historical Society recently came across a gunnysack full of old paper from the Kendrick store and Northport...

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

Western Canada’s most infamous bootlegger was once in the ice cream business in Trail. Emilio Picariello immigrated from Capriglia...

When the Nelson Daily News celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 1952, they printed a special supplement that included mugshots of all...

Below are four postcard images from my collection of Trail’s Jacob’s Ladder, also known as the Golden Stairway, the Golden Stairs, or...

I just finished reading Eve Lazarus’ book Blood, Sweat, and Fear, about John F.C.B. Vance (1884-1964), a Vancouver forensic scientist who...

The man who carved the signs seen below (or at least their original iteration) has died at 94. According to his obituary, Art Waldie was...

Many pioneer photographers signed their work — a smart marketing move. Many others did not, leaving us guessing who might have been...

A bizarre ad from a 1947 edition of the Rossland Miner (the city was celebrating its 50th birthday, hence the need for faux facial hair)....

George Motosawa was a restaurateur and laundry owner in two West Kootenay ghost towns. We know he was born April 6, 1867 and immigrated...

I was sorry to hear of the passing of Nelson’s Lois Arnesen (pictured below) on New Year’s Eve. I wrote a profile of Lois in 2012 for the...

Long before Japanese Canadians were interned in the West Kootenay during the Second World War, a small number already lived here. They...

In the early 1890s, three American cities boasted saloons called the Slocan. They don’t appear to have been connected and their...

An ad from the Rossland Miner’s historical edition of 1938 contained a photo of a dapper-looking Alfie Albo, proprietor of the Columbia...

Below is a clipping from the Rossland Miner’s special historical edition of Oct. 11, 1938, about the first baby born in Rossland. The...