110 British Columbia Women’s Institutes

The Kootenay, too, had found success in fruit-farming and in all types of garden produce as well. Mining was also an important part of its economy. Huge smelters, which would become world-renowned now gained their start. Smaller mining ventures varied in success according to man- agement or world requirements. Busy mining towns prospered, faded into ghost towns and yet revived again—according to fluctuating markets. Won- derful scenery encouraged the building of luxury resorts such as that at Balfour. A picnic at Balfour brought three hundred people from miles around to raise the successful (and apparently adequate) sum of $620 to build a vicarage. ‘This-altho’ Balfour reports that the first carlot of feed exported brought a profit of $3.00!

Meanwhile great new development was taking place in the north and northern interior of British Columbia. Many small settlements had arisen from the Trail of 98 and we hear of Telkwa and Fraser Lake on the Telegraph Line; pack-horse travel from Bella Coola to Francois Lake; Houston—where travellers ran out of food and lived on rose hips for 7 or 8 days; Fort Fraser and the famous packer, Cataline; and North Fraser where a pioneer arrived pushing his belongings in a baby buggy. Some settlements were serviced by riverboats on the Skeena—Rose Lake, Decker Lake, Smithers and Hazelton. Each little settlement anxiously awaited the coming of “steel.”

Surely no history of railway construction can report the hilarious and vibrant days of the Great Northern Pacific in its struggle through the Rockies at Yellowhead Pass. To our 83 year old pioneer member, Mrs. Garrett, of McBride, do we owe the stimulating and delightful recollections of Grand Trunk Pacific construction at ‘Tete Jaune Cache. Only the carefree, robust days preceding World War I (and Prohibition) could produce such a classic! On to Fort George, to be called Prince George, so widely publi- cized as ‘“‘the Last Best West’ and finally at Fort Fraser in April, 1914, the spike was driven which joined Prince Rupert with the East.

The Canadian National Railway at this time extended from the Yellow- head to the North ‘Thompson settlements. ‘The dignified name of Vinsulla derived from a rearrangement of Sullivan—as there was another station of that name. Wonderful stories of rich, rolling wheat land trickled back to civilization in 1907 as true pioneers like the Tremblays, ventured farther north than farmers had ever gone. ‘The soil proved amazingly fertile and astonishing records of wheat-raising were made. The main handicap to settlement was distance from transportation; distance over the Rockies to a Victoria practically in another world; distance over muskeg, swamp and mosquito-ridden trail to Edmonton. Pioneers, members of our Institutes settled in Pouce Coupe, Rolla, the revived Fort St. John, Landry, West Saskatoon, Dawson Creek, Lake View, Dae River, Dunston and Progress and true pioneering stories come pouring in. No land promoters here—for no railroad was in prospect. Development and progress were slow—for lack of a railroad. ‘he courage and tenacity of these settlers, often beset by the disappointments attendant on one-crop farming, is inspiring. World War I took most of the young farmers overseas. At its close, many returned with war brides. It takes stamina to settle in the North and Peace River settlers,