Visually stunning, the home of British Columbia's first people, The Lower Kutenai and Lakes Bands spent their summers fishing the glacial rivers and lakes and hunting in the forests thousands of years ago. Late in the 19th Century silver and gold were discovered in the West Kootenay mountains. Prospectors surged into the area establishing boom towns in Rossland, Sandon and Silverton. Railways such as The Kaslo and Slocan line carried the ore. Fire, floods and a decline in resources resulted in many ghost towns, such as Silverton, visited a few days ago. In 1942 thousands of displaced Japanese, moved from their homes and businesses at the coast, were interned in Sandon, New Denver and Kaslo. Today, logging, agriculture and tourism and the arts feature strongly, though Silverton is just a scattered collection of old rail wagons and buses, an ice cream shop in the old fire station, and a near-derelict ore washer building.
Some of us visited the excellent Cottonwood Falls Market this morning, which, in 1896, was the site of the Nelson Electric Light Company hydro-electric plant.
Later, the car ferry from Balfour took us on the half-hour ride to Crawford Bay. This is a busy ferry, moving hundreds of cars & trucks across Kootenay Lake each day, saving a 100 mile drive round the lake: and it's a free ferry. Called the "Osprey", it bears the same name as the birds nesting on the tops of the wooden piles aside the ferry's landing bay.
At Crawford Bay a beach was reached along a dusty track, past a field with baled hay and a centre grass landing strip for a single small aeroplane. Children and parents enjoyed swimming in the lake, despite seeing snakes (or something like them) in the water!
Before catching the ferry home, we stopped off at the "North Woven Broom Co.", a log cabin filled with... you guessed it... brooms! And some sewing & binding machinery over 100 years old, but beautifully made and working perfectly to sew and bind the grass sheaves to the handles.
A short detour then took us to the old Pilot Bay Lighthouse: a quaint wooden tower on a headland, now disused but well cared for ("Pease Latch The Door As You Leave").
And so, the ferry back home to another barbecue.
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