In B.C.'S Kootenay Region, A Route Paved With Silver
NELSON, B.C. - Just out of the hub city of Nelson, in the Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, is a motoring route known as the "Silvery Slocan." It's a trail of treasure and tears.
The journey covers 125 miles - and almost that many years. Along the way are ghost towns from B.C.'s silver-boom days - and towns that found new reasons to live.
There are parks and lakes with hiking paths and canoe routes. There is a classic old lake steamer, a sternwheeler, that never made it to the Klondike up north in the Yukon.
And there is a place of memories for Japanese-Canadians that teaches all who visit about the fragile nature of democracy.
There also are happy endings, including Nelson itself, a city so decorated with antique buildings that it has become a popular backdrop for motion-picture producers.
A certain tension
But even fair Nelson (pop. 8,800) had what The Nelson Daily News called "a joyously scruffy beginning" in the 1880s, back when silver was king in these parts.
"There was," said the newspaper, "a certain tension between the boisterous miners who figured they were here for a good time and the more respectable element."
That certain tension moved out among the communities of the "Silvery Slocan" as new mines came into production.
Richest of all was Sandon, 25 miles north of Nelson in the Slocan Valley.
By the late 1890s, Sandon had grown from a speck of wilderness to a city of 25,000 - with 29 hotels, 28 saloons, shops, theaters, stores, breweries and, well . . . other attractions.
In fact, Sandon, service center for more than 100 mining operations, was the first community in British Columbia to be fully electrified. One of the early-day hydro plants still is working.
Two railroads served Sandon from Spokane, in Washington state, 216 miles to the south. Ore trains rolled down to Spokane; ice cream and party dresses moved north for Sandon's families.
"We're talking big-time mining here," says Veronika Pollowski, Sandon's resident historian. "This is where the action was."
But not forgotten
Falling metal prices and the Great Depression turned Sandon into an almost-ghost town in the 1930s.
And in 1955, Sandon's best-known landmark - its main street, a boardwalk built right over Carpenter Creek - was demolished by a flash flood.
But Sandon has not been forgotten. Pollowski and her husband, Hal Wright, have moved in, and are working full time to restore the old mining town.
"We're optimistic," Wright says. "We had 50,000 visitors last year with no advertising, just word of mouth. Sandon lives on."
Here are som other "Silvery Slocan highlights:
-- Kaslo, a small town on the west shore of Kootenay Lake, last port for the S.S. Moyie, a regal sternwheeler that carried generations of families around the 150-mile-long lake. The Moyie is a museum vessel now. It was built in 1898 for service in the Yukon, but came off the ways too late for the Klondike gold stampede.
-- Ainsworth Hot Springs, also on the west arm of Kootenay Lake, a spa spot where early-day prospectors paused to soothe weary muscles. Now visitors take the mineral waters and go golfing on nearby fairways.
-- Silverton, a picturesque town on the east side of Slocan Lake, with a noteworthy mining museum.
"... a bad time"
But perhaps the most memorable stop on the "Silvery Slocan" has nothing to do with mining history. It is the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, in the village of New Denver.
In 1942, during World War II, about 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent were forced from their homes and moved to "relocation" camps in isolated interior of B.C. One infamous camp was in New Denver.
Families were housed like prisoners - first in tents during one of the coldest winters on record, later in drafty shacks. Outhouses served the needs of up to 50 persons.
"It was a bad time, a time of mass hysteria," says Shoichi (Spud) Matsushita, 79, one of about 900 former internees who stayed in New Denver after the war to help build a new community.
In 1994, the local Kyowakai Society (Kyowakai means "working together peacefully") opened a memorial center in the orchard where the wartime camp used to stand.
"We went through hell," Spud Matsushita says.
Will Matsushita ever be able to forgive those who branded him an enemy alien?
"I have," he says.
The center is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., May 15-Oct. 15.
Information
For more about the "Silvery Slocan" route: Kootenay Country Tourist Association, 610 Railway St., Nelson, B.C., Canada V1L 1H4; phone 604-352-6033.