Argenta Friends School
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. #0131.0076 Argenta, B.C. ca. 1965 - Image courtesy of the Kootenay Gallery of Art, History and...
The Coal Creek mining disaster
#0039.0297 ca. 1910: Coal Creek Mines Near Fernie, BC - Image courtesy of Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History 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...
The CPR Swiss Guides
#1901.0050 CPR Swiss Guides - Photos courtesy of Columbia Basin Institute and Golden Museum and Archives 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...
Conrad Kain: A guide of great spirit
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 his Fuherbuch...
Mary Stewart's Collect
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. #0119.0103 Group Portrait ca. 1915 - Image courtesy of the Valemount Historical ...
