Invermere Hotel

COME WITH ME TO YESTERDAY – No. 453 – THE OLD INVERMERE HOTEL

            The recent destruction by fire of the Invermere Hotel removes another old landmark of the Windermere Valley.  Originally known as the Canterbury Hotel, it was built around the beginning of this century.  For many years it was the social and business centre of the little community of Invermere, and in fact the entire area.

            The news reports say nothing was left standing but the two chimneys.  Could they but talk, what tales they could tell of business deals made, friendly social gatherings, and early pioneer yarns exchanged around that old fireplace.

            This writer’s first experience with the hotel was in 1919.  Five of us, all young men, left Cranbrook shortly after seven in the morning in a good McLaughlin-Buick touring car. We arrived at Invermere just before the dining room at the hotel closed at 1:00 p.m. – and considered we had made good time.  As it was about the only place to eat at the time, we felt pretty lucky.  I was in this place only a few weeks ago and could not but notice somewhat sadly how the building had deteriorated in recent years – it was really beginning to show its age.

            But  for many years earlier in the century it was a lively place.  Older residents will surely remember the big Christmas parties put on each year – in the days when Randolph Bruce was running the Paradise Mine nearby.  Things would start with a full-course dinner, followed by a concert and speech-making, with the school children having a big share in the concert part.  Then there would be the arrival of Santa Claus and the distribution of the huge pile of gifts under the big Christmas tree in the corner, which had been creating no end of excitement among the young fry.  And there would be a gift for every child in the community.  This would be followed by a dance for the older folks.  It was considered about the biggest social affair of the year in what was then quite [a] small community.

            And so it went, on down through the years.  A list of the notables whose cars have been parked in the shade of those lovely old trees bordering the big lawn out front would make interesting reading.

            Back some thirty odd years ago I had an unusual and exciting experience in the old hotel.  In the late ‘30’s and most of the ‘40’s, we at the Courier office of that day used to make regular trips up into that area soliciting business for the newspaper and job printing.  The Valley Echo had not yet come into the picture at that time.  Jack Strang, our salesman, and I took a room at the Invermere hotel one night on one of those trips.  About 11 p.m. we decided to turn in for the night, but on getting ready for bed I thought I could smell smoke.  I asked Jack, but after sniffing the air he said he could smell nothing, so we turned out the lights and crawled into bed.  However, after laying there a while I still thought I could smell smoke.  I got up, opened the door, looked up and down the hall, sniffed but could discover nothing.  On returning to bed I noticed a bonfire of leaves smoldering in the yard across the way and decided that must be what I smelled, and went off to sleep.

            About an hour later I woke up and this time I KNEW I could smell smoke – and it wasn’t the bonfire either.  I jumped out of bed, opened the door, and the hall was full of smoke, bellowing up in great clouds from downstairs.  I yelled to Jack and we slipped into our trousers and dashed downstairs.  Jack who had a voice like a fog-horn bellowed out “Mrs. ?????” – I forget her name.  In a moment the proprietress came tearing out of her room off the downstairs parlor and headed straight for the laundry room, with Jack and me in hot pursuit.  And there was the fire alright.

            Apparently someone had been ironing that evening with one of the older irons which had no automatic shut-off, but kept on heating until someone turned the electricity off.  It had been plugged into a pull-chain socket overhead, which had stuck when pulled and the juice did not turn off but kept right on getting hotter and hotter.  Eventually the ironing cloth had caught fire, then the wooden ironing board had burned through, letting the burning mass drop onto the linoleum covered floor.  When we arrived this was just nicely getting going.  A dash to the kitchen near by and a few pans of water soon (p9) put the fire out with no damage except to the iron, ironing board and a burned spot on the linoleum.  But we were quite horrified, on looking around the room, to note that hanging from racks and lines on all four sides, and quite close above where the fire had been, were row on row of fresh ironed sheets, pillow cases, table cloths, and such.  Had we not arrived when we did it would have only been a short time before the fire would have caught onto the sheets et al, and the blaze that followed would have set that old all-wood building ablaze like a tinder box, with probably loss of life, as the rooms at that time were practically all occupied.

            As it was, no one seemed to have smelled or heard a thing except one sleepy-eyed couple who drifted down when it was all over.

            So, after helping the proprietress open all doors and windows downstairs and along the upstairs halls to let the smoke out, Jack and I drifted back to bed.  And all her ladyship had to say to us when it was over was – “Please don’t put this in the paper.”  And we didn’t, until now, about 30 years later.

            And so the old hotel got a lease on life for a further thirty-odd years, and fortunately when it DID burn down recently we understand there were only two roomers or occupants in the place who escaped safely.