THE KÜTNE READER

When the Nelson Daily News celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 1952, they printed a special supplement that included mugshots of all of their employees. The most intriguing was Amelia Thompson, about whom a short story appeared elsewhere in the same section: “She was highly respected,” said the late Alan Ramsden, who then worked at CKLN, the radio station owned by the Daily News. “She was one of the proofreaders, particularly of misused words, like their/there/they’re. S

Below are four postcard images from my collection of Trail’s Jacob’s Ladder, also known as the Golden Stairway, the Golden Stairs, or simply The Steps. They were the way most smelter employees got to work each day, and headed home after long shifts. They were built at the behest of smelter owner Fritz Augustus Heinze. According to the Trail Creek News of Oct. 2, 1896: “After climbing Smelter Hill several times in the dark, Mr. Heinze gave orders for the building of a stairway

I just finished reading Eve Lazarus’ book Blood, Sweat, and Fear , about John F.C.B. Vance (1884-1964), a Vancouver forensic scientist who was known internationally as Canada’s Sherlock Holmes. On page 32, she writes: Young John Vance worked for various mines since he was 17. He’d started as an assistant assayer and soon became the assistant chemist at the War Eagle cyanide extraction plant in Trail, where he developed a cone hood for a hot blast furnace, a breakthrough in me

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 a wood carver from the age of five until carpal tunnel syndrome forced him to stop in his late 70s. He was a prolific artist, whose work included a coat of arms to commemorate a visit to Nelson by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But his best-known works were Nelson’s welcome signs. In 1995, with the city’s centennial a couple of years away,

Many pioneer photographers signed their work — a smart marketing move. Many others did not, leaving us guessing who might have been behind the lens. One such anonymous shutterbug worked throughout southern BC, northern Washington, and a few places in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Idaho, and Montana, primarily from 1908-13, producing amazing images of small towns, including some that were rarely depicted otherwise. The postcards he or she created are among my favourites, but it only

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). This newspaper and others, including the 1938 historical edition, were loaned to me by Greg Scott, recipient of Nelson’s heritage award for 2017. Scott in turn borrowed them from Nelson’s Ian Corner, whose father Jack was mayor of Rossland from 1946-51.

George Motosawa was a restaurateur and laundry owner in two West Kootenay ghost towns. We know he was born April 6, 1867 and immigrated to Canada in 1888. He shows up in our neck of the woods in 1898 at Brooklyn, a railway boom town on Lower Arrow Lake, operating the Mikado Laundry. This is the first ad from the Brooklyn News of Aug. 13, 1898. By mid-October he switched gears and took over the Queen Restaurant: In the 1898 civic directory, he was listed as proprietor of the

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 Nelson Star ’s Kootenay Pioneers series. Lois was a life-long resident of Nelson. Her parents, Bert and Jeanne Whimster, arrived here in the early 1920. She was well known for her 21 years as a Welcome Wagon hostess — in fact she greeted me to Nelson in 2010. She was named Nelson’s Citizen of the Year for 2012. She was also one of three p

Long before Japanese Canadians were interned in the West Kootenay during the Second World War, a small number already lived here. They worked in forestry and ran restaurants and laundries. One such pioneer was Yodo Fujii (or Fugii, or Fuji). We don’t know much about him, but on July 11, 1903 the Revelstoke Kootenay Mail announced: “Messrs. Fujii & Ito have taken over the restaurant business formerly conducted by Mrs. Blake and hold their opening today. It will be known as the

In the early 1890s, three American cities boasted saloons called the Slocan. They don’t appear to have been connected and their proprietors may not have had anything to do with the Slocan either. In light of the silver rush, the word simply had a prosperous connotation. (Similarly, there were many Klondike Hotels nowhere near the Yukon, including one in Nelson.) The Slocan Exchange Saloon in Spokane was at the northeast corner of Main Avenue and Howard Street. Its infrequent

An ad from the Rossland Miner ’s historical edition of 1938 contained a photo of a dapper-looking Alfie Albo, proprietor of the Columbia Garage: Below is a photo I took of Alfie in his basement in June 2003. He died three years later at age 96. Wayne Krewski recorded several CDs and made several videos of Alfie’s stories. Alfie’s garage is still standing. In 2005, it became a restaurant called The Garage. During renovations, Alfie shared photos and stories of the building w

In 1895, a girl was born in Rossland who took the name of the community. What happened to her?

In 1950, a man registered himself in a Vancouver hotel as Walt Disney. He certainly looked like the famed cartoonist. On that basis, he “was wined and dined … by the manager of a city club.” He also promised to visit children’s hospital and draw for the patients. “I like to feel I am working for the kids,” he said. But he wasn’t Disney. In fact, he was a cook from a logging camp near Nelson. Someone got suspicious and complained to police, who arrested him, and had an ingeni