CASTLEGAR

CASTLEGAR

Is a small city located near the south end of Arrow Lake at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers.

Castlegar is supposedly named from the Galway County, Ireland town of the same name of where Edward Mahon, who founded the town, came from, despite the fact that some locals theorize that Castlegar gets its name from a large and nearby castle-shaped rock formation that overlooks the city and Columbia River, furthermore the word “gar” in Castlegar is a Gaelic word for rock.

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Its beginnings as a town started on September 5, 1811 when David Thompson arrived in a location of where the city presently sits and camped near the end of the Kootenay River. A plaque dedicated to this event and to David Thompson can be found on the east bank of the Columbia River overlooking the city.

The city of Castlegar was planned in 1897 and five years later, in 1902, a bridge was constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway in order to place railway tracks to Trail. Afterward the railway put in a boxcar station at the settlement of Waterloo (which was first settlement in the area and where the southern limits of Castlegar are located). In 1904, because Ontario has a town of the same name, it was renamed and changed to Kinniard Station, in honor of Lord Kinniard, a former shareholder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in order to avoid any confusion. In 1908, the Doukhobors, a group of Russian Pacifist immigrants, came here to the town’s flatlands near the Columbia River from Saskatchewan, to farm and to help construct the first of 7 bridges Castlegar currently has. During the late-1930s, Castlegar experienced its first population boom when a road from here to Trail was completed and paved. The boom continued in the 1950s and the 1960s, when an airport, 2 schools, a pulp mill and numerous nearby dams (including Hugh Keenleyside) were opened for operation. A village from 1946-1966, a town from 1966-1974, Castlegar officially became a city in 1974, after it merged and amalgamated with Kinniard and has since stayed that way.

Castlegar is home to the Castlegar Rebels of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League where they play their games at the Castlegar and District Community Complex. Founded in 1975, this hockey team has won a championship 3 different times; the 1976-77, 1977-78 and 1995-96 hockey seasons.

The Greater Castlegar area which as a approximate population of about 16,000 people, includes areas and communities such as Robson, Genelle, Pass Creek, Thrums, Shorearces, Blueberry Creek, Ootischenia, and Brilliant.

Castlegar’s weather is relatively mild and pleasant, it expreiences mild and dry summers with cold and dry winters. Summer average temperatures can range anywhere from 25 to 28 degrees celcius with a low average at around the 14-18 degree Celcius range, while winter temperatures can range to a maximum of -1 degrees with a low of -5 degrees. It is a mostly dry and barren town and this is the reason why Castlegar recieves less than 80 millimeters of precipitation annually with more than 1,900 hours of sunshine a year. However having said that, it is not unusual to see fog to often linger over the town during most of the morning during the spring months around the mountains as well as the 2 rivers and it is also common to see thunderstorms here during the same period of time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Castlegar’s population: 7,259