Founded on March 29, 1844, under the direction of Mother Emilie Gameli, the Sisters of Providence are a Roman Catholic organization that operated the St. Eugene Hospital in Cranbrook for 70 years (May 1, 1898-September 14, 1968), and the St. Eugene School of Nursing (1911-1950). Their first mission in Western Canada was to establish St….

#2215.0635 ca. 1900: Dynelectron Machine Model F – Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute What is this puzzling machine, you ask? No, it isn’t an old turntable system; this is a Dynelectron Machine. The device is part of the Columbia Basin Institute’s F.W. Green Clinic collection, and Dr. Green used it in his practice….

First Nations people of the area, the Sinixt, and the Ktunaxa knew of the hot springs’ restorative powers before the Europeans explored the Arrow Lakes regions. Captain Robert Sanderson, a mechanical engineer, was a steamboat builder and operator. He was a partner in the Columbia Transportation Company, which ran freight on the Columbia River with…

Argenta was founded in the silver boom in West Kootenay in the 1890s. It was named after the Argenta Mining Company, in which it derived its name from the Latin word for silver, Argentum. The elusive mother lode was never located. At the turn of the 20th century, the area was marketed for fruit ranching….

Shortly after 7:30 pm on May 22, 1902, an explosion ripped through the No. 2 and No. 3 mines at the Coal Creek mines near Fernie. The ground shook. A cloud of coal dust and flame blew 1,000 meters in the air at the mine’s shared portal. Roughly 20 men escaped, and the rest of…

After a deadly accident in August 1896 on Mount Lefroy, the American Appalachian Mountain Club hired its first Swiss guide Peter Sarback, in 1897 to work in the Canadian Rockies. He would guide them on the first ascent of Mount Victoria. In 1899, the first Swiss guides hired by the CPR were Christian Haesler Sr….

Conrad Kain was born in Nasswald, Austria, on August 10, 1883. Following his father’s death in 1892, things for his family were difficult, and Conrad left school at age 14, finding work as a goat herder and quarryman. He soon developed a love for the mountains and became a guide and a porter. Conrad earned…

As Women’s Institutes formed across the country in the early 1900s, one such member, Mary Stewart, wrote a prayer called the Collect Club for Women in 1904 to inspire a new generation of women to aspire to greatness as a collective whole.  Stewart felt that the new movement of women working together for a collective…

Muriel Lillian Baxter was an outstanding public figure, serving as a teacher, principal, and elementary school supervisor in Cranbrook for 41 years. Ms. Baxter was born on October 13th, 1902, in Saint Johns, N.B., to Isaac and Idella Baxter. They relocated to Cranbrook in 1903. She was the oldest of five children. She received her…

An interesting letter was found in the archives at Fort Steele detailing the early adventures of East Kootenay. It was written in September 1899, and posted from Kimberley to a friend in Fernie. At that time, both were fledgling communities attempting to secure their place in the economic development of East Kootenay. The anonymous letter…

Nils Hanson was known as “Hanson the Hospitable” or “mine host” or later, simply “the Guv’nor.” Famous for his generosity and gracious entertaining from the mid-1880s until his death in 1917, Hanson drew people from all over East Kootenay to his lake and garden oasis at Wasa. Born at Skole in the southern part of…

The Triangle Women’s Institute in Grasmere and the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History embarked on a journey in 2020 to preserve the unique history of their 4-H Club in a museum-style panel that will be part of a 20 part series to be displayed at the Grasmere Pioneer Community Hall. The four H’s represent…

The Memories panel was created by the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History and The Triangle Women’s Institute as the beginning of a 20 part series of museum quality panels that will grace the Pioneer Hall walls in Grasmere. Memory gives history emotional meaning. It is the way we choose to remember people, places, and…

The Industries panel was created by the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History and The Triangle Women’s Institute as the beginning of a 20 part series of museum quality panels that will grace the Pioneer Hall walls in Grasmere. “Industries” depicts the community’s early foundations and the industries contributing to its growth and sustainment. The…

David H. Brown spent 35 years in the funeral business. Brown wondered what he could do with all the embalming fluid bottles? In 1952, he began building a house overlooking Kootenay Lake near Boswell (along Highway 3A); construction materials, the rectangular embalming fluid bottles. The Wishing Well #2040.0003 – Image courtesy of SD#5 and CBIRH…

Peter Vasilevich “Lordly” Verigin acquired property in the West Kootenay and Boundary region for the Christian Community of University Brotherhood (CCUB) in 1908. The first land purchase was 2000 acres near the confluence of the Kootenay River and the Columbia River. He named the community Brilliant. As well, the land was purchased on the other…

Cranbrook’s limited theatre work began on the new Star Theatre building in 1921. The Star was located in the middle of the block on Norbury Avenue, across from City Hall. It quickly became a landmark of the downtown area, with many businesses proud to describe their location near the Star. “Hemstitching and picot edging, Singer…

When Cranbrook eclipsed Fort Steele as the business and financial centre of East Kootenay, the pressure to relocate the Provincial Government offices to Cranbrook was significant. The result was to move the offices to Cranbrook after the official announcement on May 5th, 1904. Cranbrook had won the long inter-city feud. The result was the construction…

When I was Small is a personal look at how one East Kootenay family survived the Great Depression. The Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History published this title by Alta and Fee Hellmen in 2006 and would like to invite patrons to revisit an early Kootenay legacy. Ranging from Roosville, through Ta Ta Creek to Invermere, Alta…

Mrs. Isabella (Williamson) Lafleur, universally known as “Bessie,” immigrated from Saintfield County, Northern Ireland, in 1915, during the height of World War I. She was a determined and positive young woman who, undeterred by torpedoes and death at sea, proceeded to cross the Atlantic and travel to Cranbrook, B.C. Her older sister, Mrs. R.W. Edmondson,…

The question is always, “what can we learn from history?” And more often than not, “nothing” is the reply. At the Columbia Basin Institute, we would argue that history gives us time and distance. Time lets us reflect on what others have done, and whether we want to continue those acts and attitudes. Space allows…

Captain Armstrong, the brother of the early gold commissioner and government agent J.F. Armstrong, was born in Sorel, Quebec, in 1861. He was an immigrant to East Kootenay, moving to Winnipeg in 1881, and then west with F.W. Aylmer to survey a western route for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Quoted in the 1913 Cranbrook Courier,…

An excerpt from the Cranbrook Herald of 100 years ago Jan. 17, 1907, supports the continuing national debate on the health of the family, “the glass ceiling,” and the general valuation of women’s labour in contemporary society. As we often say, by looking back, we move forward. “It is a gross injustice that women’s service,…

The fur industry was booming in the early 1920s, and by 1923 the market in British Columbia was worth an estimated $5,000,000. B.C. was climatically ideal for raising foxes, more so than any other area of Canada, and 200 pairs were in the province by 1924. Willard W. Warren, a man with years of experience…

In 1900 a women’s hockey team was created as a “novelty” for Rossland’s 3rd Winter Carnival. All Rossland women were invited to join for a fee of 50 cents each, a considerable price for the time. Interest increased, and two teams, the Crescents, and the Stars resulted. The best players were chosen for the Winter…

You know Waldo, of course, hiding in the crowd as a comic character, unseen but there. A whole cult of searchers, kids, and adults, have formed around him. But what about the other Waldo (B.C.), also hiding in plain view? Situated on the Kootenay River, just upriver from where the Elk River flows into the…