ADVENTURES IN COOKING 73

minster, then by a trail called the “Cariboo Trail”, now a part of the
Trans-Canada Highway.

As the little farms developed a surplus of produce these early pioneers
carried their cash crops to the river, on their backs, returning with neces-
sities from the store. From 1880 until a bridge was built across the river,
making New Westminster more accessible, the old “K & K” steamer served
the settlers. One settler took his produce to Victoria by boat, walking to
the mouth of the Campbell River near the Semiahmoo Indian Reserve,
which is near White Rock; returning he brought supplies for neighbors.
Old timers tell of crossing the river to attend church at Maple Ridge; of
the parties in neighbors’ homes when all gathered for a “spell of visiting.”
Salmon fishing providing needed cash, the women were often alone, but
we hear nothing of their worries and fears although the small-pox
epidemic of 1860 carried off all the children of West Langley’s first settler
and we wonder how the others fared. With no doctors or dentists, the
women helped deliver one another’s babies. Anyone with a toothache had
only to heat a needle to plunge into his gums!

Roads were gradually built by the settlers and many remember when
two days’ work with a team, or four days without, paid a man’s municipal
taxes. With roads built through to New Westminster farmers were able
to market their produce more easily; teams of oxen with home-made
sleighs provided transportation, later replaced by horses, and a stage was
operated weekly. Cattle were brought in from California and Washington
and the first orchard planted in Otter District was of trees brought from
Puyallup, Wash., by Mr. Poppy. Mail was carried on horseback for the
first Post Office at Hazelmere, which was in the home of Post-master
Thrift. In the Spring “when mail-order catalogues and seeds came the
mail was heavy.” The first Customs Officer at the border lived some dis-
tance from his office which he visited monthly!

‘The area around Cloverdale was called “Clover Valley” and, although
settlement is recorded here in 1878, Cloverdale as we know it today came
into existence with the arrival of the Great Northern Ry. in 1891. Lured
by gold, Delta’s first settlers, Wm. Henry and Thos. Ellis Ladner, came
from Victoria via ‘Tsawwassen Indian Reserve, near Point Roberts, walked
across the Delta to Fort Langley. Returned from the gold-diggings in 1869
they took up land which now constitutes Delta Municipality and Ladner.
Then the Fraser overflowed the land during winter and early summer to
depth which permitted travel by row-boat, yet its fertility was so great that
settlement persisted, and by dykes and drainage the land was reclaimed
from the River. Dreams of riches gained by other means than gold-mining,
caused Port Kells’ first settlers, Henry Kells and brother, to take up two
square miles of land in 1885 on which they planned a townsite. ‘Their
dreams of a real-estate boom did not materialize but Port Kells got a start
as a settlement.

In the years since their organization, the Women’s Institute members
have lived up to the example set by the early pioneers, whose names many
are proud to bear. All take great interest in any project for the betterment
of community life. Hazelmere W.I. was incorporated as early as 1912;